In Which Connor Reminds Me Why I Love Our Night Nurse So Much

Last night Connor went down to bed on time.  Then he woke up around 11:00pm and decided he wouldn't be going back to sleep for the rest of the night.  Of course it's our night nurse's weekend, so I went through today on about a half hour of sleep.  So forgive me if this post is a little less coherent then normal; my brain isn't really firing on all cylinders right now.

How the heck did I do the whole sleep deprivation thing for six years before we got our night nurse?  Seriously, I have no idea how I was a functioning person.  And how the heck does Connor do it?  He was bright eyed and bushy tailed all day today, whereas I probably looked like I'd been drinking vodka with a sedative chaser.

As much as I would have like to have curled up in the house and stayed put all day, unfortunately it turned out to be just about the hottest day of the summer so far.  Since we don't have air conditioning yet (next week-- thank goodness!) staying at home meant we'd be risking Connor's temperature rising to dangerous levels.  So after I drank a ridiculous amount of caffeine we went to the mall, where we spent the next six and a half hours.  Here's what I learned from today's mall experience.

1.) Wear appropriate shoes.  Even though you are in a mall and not out on a trail somewhere, after six hours of walking around wearing sandals you can still manage to get blisters on your feet.
2.) If your kid starts shrieking at the top of his lungs and applauding, it is considered way more socially acceptable if he does it in from of the carousel than in front of the giant window display featuring new bra styles at Victoria's Secret.
3.) Riding the carousel on a half hour of sleep is a really, really bad idea.  You are already kind of dizzy and half delirious, and after a minute or two of spinning in circles you will come perilously close to seeing that food court chicken you just ate for the second time.
4.) Every time you make a circuit around the mall-- even you have been there for six hours and made about 50 circuits-- the girl who is trying to get people to take a survey will attempt to ask you to take it.  This holds true even if you have said "no thanks" on every one of those circuits.  The same goes for the guy selling gym memberships.  If you put your cell phone up to your ear and pretend like you are talking to someone every time you see them, they will let you pass them without following you down the mall trying to talk to you.
5.) If you do pretend you are talking to someone, remember to put your phone on silent when you have it up to your ear, especially if you have your ringtone volume turned up all the way.
6.) Bring an extra set clothes for your child and you, or you may find yourself making an unexpected purchase or two.  Incidentally, did you know that if you drop your iced coffee onto your kid's wheelchair and the top pops off, you can actually spray coffee in a radius of over ten feet?
7.) And finally, choose the mall with the giant chocolate shop inside.  It will be terrible for your diet and/or wallet, but very, very good for morale.

We got home around 7:00pm and it was still over 80 degrees in the house, so I gave Connor his meds and then we went and sat in a coffee shop until they closed.  It's a little cooler now, but I'm still sponging Connor down every twenty minutes or so to make sure he stays cool enough-- the water evaporating should help release heat in the same way sweating does for the rest of us.  I don't have to worry about waking him up, because it's a quarter to eleven and he still hasn't gone to sleep yet.  Whee.

It's supposed to be even hotter tomorrow, so we'll be hitting the mall again.  But hey, no seizures today.  And air conditioning next week!  Hooray! 

~Jess