Lasting Love

Little sicklings

"Hey Jen," Justin nudges me gently "Wake up."

I slowly open my eyes to see Justin holding Ben next to me "What's wrong?" He doesn't even need to answer. Ben starts to cough like crazy, while his nose runs nonstop.

"I didn't wanna wake you, but I couldn't find their cold medicine." Justin hands me Ben, who is very uncomfortable "I could only find Tylenol."

I carry Ben with me into the bathroom where I dig through everything to find their medicine with no luck "Can you go get some?" I ask Justin "And get some for us too, this will spread quickly." He agrees, so I come up with a plan to help Ben until the medicine is here.

"You wanna play with your toys?" I hand him a few bath toys so he has entertainment. Once he's happy with them, I turn the water on as hot as it can get and make sure he can't get near it. Within seconds the hot steam starts to help him.

"Momma," He crawls onto my lap "My nose peeing." I laugh at his choice of words and grab a tissue to help clean it off.

"You'll be fine, buddy." I continue holding him until I hear more crying from Lexie. He sits on a towel so that I can go get her, and when I come back with her, he moves over so she can sit with him. They sit there playing with their toys while they both fight this nasty cold that they randomly caught.

Justin comes back a few minutes later, with a droopy eyed, pale Kay following him. I have her sit with the other two while Justin and I get the medicine ready for them to take.

"Open your mouth," I hold Lexie still "You'll feel better once you take this." She refuses and keeps her mouth completely closed.

"NO!" She turns away from me. Justin walks over and holds her whispering something in her ear, and she turns towards me with her mouth open to get the medicine.

"Good job, guys!" I try to make them feel better after they're all done. We try to keep them comfortable while we continue to run the shower until the hot water is gone, but they all sound congested and horrible. They look so weak, too.

"Let's go watch a movie!" Justin suggests, getting them all to follow him to our room. I quickly take some medicine myself, and grab some for Justin so that we can hopefully avoid whatever this is. The kids have taken over our bed once I get there, and don't look like they're ready to move for me. I pick Lexie up and sit her on my lap next to Kay, while Justin takes Ben. They're all burning up.

"I think they're asleep." I look around at the three of them "Do you think we should move them or let them stay?"

"Let's just keep them here for tonight. We can always sleep on the couch," He motions towards the couch we have set up for reasons like this "That way we won't wake them." I agree, so we go to sleep on the couch while the kids take over the bed.

We're woken up a few hours later by more coughing and cries. I take them all back in the bathroom and do the same as before, since it's too early for medicine, and spread some cream on their chests and feet to help soothe them. Justin makes sure that they all have some kind of full water bottle so that they can stay hydrated.

"Kay, make sure you drink all of this." We give her a bigger water bottle "You need more so you don't get worse."

She takes it, and does what we tell her, then goes back to bed to lay down.

"I'm gonna call and let the school know Kay won't be there today," I tell Justin as I leave our room "Do you need anything from downstairs?" He shakes his head no, and I go down to call where it's quiet.

"Hi, this is Jennifer Theroux. I just wanted you to know that my daughter, Kayleigh Theroux won't be in school today."

I finish talking to the secretary, then grab some crackers to take up so the kids have something to eat if they get hungry. As I'm walking back upstairs my heart breaks. All I can hear is sneezing, coughing and sniffling, and I wish I could make all of them feel better.

"Momma?" Lexie asks weakly.

"What, baby?" I pick her up gently.

"I tired." She slouches down onto me as she says it, ready to fall asleep at any second. I take her over to her room where I change her, then sit on the rocker rocking her back and forth until she's asleep.

"How is she?" Justin asks as he does the same with Ben, who is much harder "He's so stuffy he can't fall asleep."

"She fell asleep pretty quickly, but she's really congested too." I gently tap Ben's back to relieve some of the pressure as Justin holds him "Where's Kay?"

"In our bed. She seems the least sick of the 3, and wanted to finish her movie." He gets up and lays Ben down in his crib "She's probably asleep by now though."

When we get back to our room, Kay is laying across the bed, passed out and breathing heavily. She sounds bad too. Justin picks her up and carries her to her room so that I can wash everything on our bed, and he puts new sheets on so that we can try to go back to sleep.

"This isn't the flu, is it?" Justin asks me.

I sigh as I lay down next to him "I hope not. They all had their flu shot, so it's probably just a cold."

We fall asleep quickly, but within a few minutes Kay comes back to join us in bed "I wanna stay here." She says sweetly as she climbs up between us. We make room for her, and try our best to comfort her as she falls asleep.