Let mommy sleep, or everyone dies!

I haven't slept through the night in weeks. I've always been a night owl, but blessed as I was with "good sleepers" for kids I was in the habit of getting a solid 5-6 hours of shut-eye between 1 am and 7am. Not anymore.

It started a few weeks ago when Mooch developed a cough. She'd be fine all day, but cough herself awake 2-3 times a night. We have tried everything from Vicks vapo rub to homeopathic remedies to humidifiers to to honey to baby Triaminic but nothing seems to be helping. As the responsible parent (aka the one who is roused by the slightest sound rather than the one who would not be disturbed by his children screaming bloody murder while the smoke alarm blared, ahem.) I would go to her anytime before 2 am, at which time I was unlikely to be sleeping yet anyway, and viciously kick Daddy in the back for his turn any time later. The system was not perfect, but we were hoping it would be short-lived.

Then Goober got an earache. She took to waking me up at least once between 3-4 am to tell me her ear still hurt and I would dope her with Tylenol and send her back to bed. We went to the doctor, who assured us that she did NOT have an ear infection, just a build up of fluid in her ear. He advised me to spray salt-water up her nose twice a day to help clear it out. Boy does she ever not like this! He did not warn me, however that the result of this action would be to cause snot to come oozing out of her ear after a couple of days to cake in her hair and befoul her pillow. Gross does not begin to describe it.

Then they both caught a cold, on top of the stubborn cough and sore ear. Add stuffy, runny noses to the fact that both sooth themselves to sleep by sucking their thumbs and you can see we have a problem- when your nose is blocked and your mouth is full of thumb you can't breath. So I started spraying the solution up both of their noses, causing fits of combined hysterics, but undeniable results. I tried to reason with them about how it wasn't really that bad, and didn't they feel better all nice and clear after it was done? Eventually they began to get used to it and let me do it without sitting on them and chaining back their arms first.

Then I caught the cold, now I can't breath either. So I sprayed the stuff up my own nose. OH MY FREAKING GOD! That's the most horrible thing anyone has ever experienced in the history of ever! Oh well, more for the kids!

Then my recurrent insomnia kicked in.

Then Mooch started cutting 2 new teeth, including her first molar.

Then Daddy got sick.

Then Goober started having nightmares.

My past weeks sleep schedule has looked something like this:
11:30-12:00= Go to bed and read.
1:30= Try to sleep, toss and turn unsuccessfully.
2:30ish=Drift off.
3:30=Mooch wakes up coughing. Go get her some sort of remedy.
4:30=Goober wakes me up to complain that she "had a bad, scary thought" and needs to sleep in my bed. For the love of God child why do you always have to get in on MY side? Go curl up next to Daddy, he'd never notice!
5:00=Get tired of being kicked and jarred by restless kid who is no more able to sleep here than I am able to sleep with her here so why does she even bother anyway? Put her back in her bed. Return to my own bed and continue to toss and turn because once thoroughly woken up I have to start the whole 2 hour getting to sleep process all over again.
6:00=Mooch wakes up crying. Kick (literally) Daddy out of bed to give her teething tablets.
6:30ish= Finally fall into a deep sleep
7:30= alarm goes off.

Why the hell am I writing this during nap time when I should be sleeping?