Three A.M.

I hate three o'clock in the morning. It's never been my friend. And last night was no exception.

Soon after David and Nate left for their trip to San Francisco, Jakey fell ill. Actually, it was that first night alone with me. He started a chesty, phlegmy cough that woke him up three or four times in the wee hours. And since David was gone, there was no one to nudge out of bed to go "check on Jakey". It was me.

Nap time on Saturday was more of the same (the cough only appearing when Jake was horizontal) and that evening, forget it. Somewhere around midnight, I'd had it with getting out of bed every 20 minutes, so I pulled Jake into my bed, noticing at the same time a significant fever.

Sunday? Cough, fever, repeat.

By Monday, when David and Nate arrived back, I'd had it. I was a quivering mess of broken sleep cycles and Jake was, as far as I could tell, running on fumes. That night he slept between David and me, kicking, coughing and crying his way to the morning.

Tuesday they kicked him out of daycare, ever so nicely, when it was apparent he was going to scream through the entire two hour nap time.

Which led to Tuesday 3am. Jakey, feeling worse, was beyond his small store of resources. He was coughing, snotty, unable to relax enough for short fits of sleep even snuggled with one of us in the rocking chair.

And somewhere around 1am the screaming, back-arching, head-tossing, gut-wrenching wailing of "Mummy" began. By three am I knew I couldn't take it any longer. David and I weighed the fear of being the parents of whom it is said, "WHY on earth didn't they take their obviously ill child in to the Emergency?!!" against the fear of being the parents of whom it is said, "WHY do parents waste our precious ER resources with trivial matters like a crying child?!!"

But at three am, the larger fear usually wins. More precisely, fear for my child's health and safety won. There is nothing worse than seeing a loved one in pain unless it is a loved one who has acquired only four pieces of vocabulary, none of them being, "Don't worry. I'm just feeling a little poorly, so I'm expressing myself at top volume. However, in a few hours'/days' time I'll be right as rain."

So, David pulled on clothes and bundled up Jake for the hospital, only to call me two minutes later from the car with, "He's stopped crying."

Naturally.

However, four days of sleep deprivation coupled with the despair and indecision that only three am knows made me persistent. They were going to the hospital. Period.

Because really, at 3am, there really is no other choice but to give into the truth of a waking nightmare.

Even when everything proves to be okay in the end... because that's what the dawn is for.