Around our house, we have great fun celebrating Christmas. This year was also fantastic, with one exception. Nagging at me all day was how baby boy was breathing. Not good.

At 7:30pm I couldn’t take it anymore and made the trip down to the hospital. Before getting admitted, they put us in the trauma room to get him on some oxygen and begin other treatments.

I was sitting there holding a ventolin mask over his screaming face, telling myself that the situation sucked. I was feeling a bit sorry for myself, and a lot sorry for my baby boy. It was no way for my little man to spend his first Christmas, thought I.

Then I had a quick reality check. The guy on the other side of the curtain, who seemed to be getting treatment for pain of sorts, started speaking:

Guy: “Nurse? I kinda feel like killing myself”

Nurse: “Hmmm, what are you thinking about doing?”

Guy: “I dunno, maybe cut my wrists, find a gun or take some pills”

Nurse: “Do you have a gun?”

Guy: “No”

Nurse: “OK, we can have a chat with the Doctor about all this”

I looked down at my wheezing boy and thought about the guy on the other side of the curtain. What was his first Christmas like? How would his mother feel if, on his first Christmas, she knew that in about 40 more years he’d feel like killing himself on Christmas Day?

I gave my baby boy an extra squeezy hug and decided my Christmas didn’t suck after all.

So this baby of mine has been a chronic bronchiolitis guy. I’ve never had a bad breather so it’s all new and exciting. In fact, I’m just home from a few days in the hospital with him. Throw some pneumonia into the bronchiolitis mix and you’ve got yourself a weekend pass to paediatric paradise. Baby and I have had the pleasure of spending quality time together wrestling ventolin masks and guzzling pediapred.

Being such a chesty baby, both his sleep and mine have been pretty dodgy over the last few months. Baby’s breathing antics paired with the shenanigans of some of his finer siblings has seen my usual 5-6 hours of sleep a night dwindle to the 3-4 hour mark. It’s not much, but we all know that mama steps up to the plate when she has to, and we can’t underestimate the power of a bit of adrenaline.

Last Saturday night Daddy-o announced that I was to go to bed, shut the door and have a night of uninterrupted sleep. He was volunteering for night duty – sleeping elsewhere and ready to respond to each and every night-time disturbance.

Imagine my shock (OK, pretend shock) when at 4:00am Daddy-o comes bursting through the bedroom door. He was all disheveled with red eyes and crazy hair. He looked as though he’d been sleeping in the wilderness for days. Out of his mouth came the words we mamas have often felt but rarely said: “I can’t do it anymore! Help me!”

Uh dude, you know I do this every day, right?

Since I had already had more sleep than I’m used to and was feeling as fresh as a spring morning, I let him off the hook. He settled into bed feeling all defeated and in awe of me.

I’ve got some mama friends who are exceptional at making milk. I’ve got other mama friends who are incredibly skilled at tricking their kids into eating veggies. It would seem my specialty is getting by on very little sleep. It is a talent that serves me better than any musical or artistic genius would. So what are you good at? Can you predict and intercept a toddler fall before it happens? Perhaps you breastfeed, dress a toddler and get ready for work all at the same time? Do you have some ridiculous mama talent that in any other circles would not exactly count as “talent”?

Picture of SIL and business partner, Julie Ellis, teaching me the ropes. She has survived parenting two chesty babies.

As all you mamas know, once one kid is down, it’s just a matter of time before they all start dropping like flies. I’ve got a lot of flies, so things can drag on for quite some time. In fact, with so many flies, the whole little germ fest tends to recycle and the first kid who brought it into the house is starting round two of something while the last kid is just heading into recovery mode. It’s like a twisted game of germ tag.

So what was wrong with them? We probably had a bit of swine flu love, but it was nothing more than what seems to be regular winter germ fare – fevers, sore throats, coughs. I didn’t feel it was necessary to drag them to the doctor only to be told to get their germs out of her office and back home because they have the flu. Did I vaccinate them? Nah, waiting in line for five hours with six kids sounds more hideous than H1N1 itself.

Everyone ended up missing out on a few days of school and activities. Once things seemed to perk up they were back in action – a little case of the sniffles does not warrant a sick day around my place. They’re well versed on keeping their green bits to themselves and I’d never put them back into circulation if they posed a risk to their friends.

We seem to be nearing the end of the first round of this nonsense and my overall assessment of sick round #1 for this season is a mark of B+. Marks got docked because baby ended up in ER on Ventolin. We gained marks back because we got through it without any pukers, and most importantly mama didn’t get sick! As long as mama doesn’t get it, we’re golden. Once I go down, it’s all over, red rover.

Two particular quotes indicated we were nearing the end of round one:

1) 6-year-old who had spent a few days frequenting “the loo” called me over to the toilet to do an inspection and announced “Look! I think my poop is feeling better!”
2) 3-year-old whose nose resembled a leaky tap for several days said “Mama, my nose has gone quiet!”

So come on round two, we’re ready for ya – we’ve got immune systems and we ain’t afraid to use ‘em!

3) My sick bed transforms into a social hub of action. Why when daddy-o is sick he can disappear to bed, shut the door and have two days of uninterrupted rest? I look around my sick bed and there is a sea of small bodies surrounding me at all times. At one feverish moment I thought it was the 1960s and I was trapped in John and Yoko’s love bed. I expected the kids to break out into rounds of “Give Peace A Chance”.

4) I hear so much about Thursday night TV and from my sick bed this week I experienced it for the first time. For all you Greys fans out there, I have news for you – there is something worth turning the channel for. I felt sick enough without having to watch Meredith moping around. There’s a show called “30 Rock” that is so funny I didn’t mind that my brain felt like it was going to explode with every chuckle.

During sinus hell week, I also had my birthday. All I really wanted for my birthday was a beautifully wrapped bottle of pain killers to be washed down with a lovely glass of wine. Is that too much to ask? Ah well, there’s always next year!

Do you ever find yourself saying stuff you just can’t believe you have to say? Things like “please stop giving scissors to your baby sister to play with” or “no, we don’t drink bleach because it is not meant for children”. Mama sometimes has to verbalize the completely obvious.