Wednesday (3AM)

All week we've been stirring at 3AM. Visually, and according to everyone else around here, it's the middle of the night. Subconsciously (which I wish were really unconsciously), our bodies think it's 10AM, and we've slept long enough. So far I've been able to lull myself back to sleep by focusing on the pitch-black of the room, and the gentle white noise provided by the air conditioner. This morning, however, we were also greeted by stuffy coughs from the tiny bundle in the crib.

I'd been awake, trying to convince myself not to be, when the fit started. I suspect the same of Claire. I was waiting for the coughs to be just a couple and fade, as had happened a couple times, but this time it turned a little frantic.

She'd stirred fitfully once before, around midnight, but just needed to be held up a little bit to clear her throat. I think it's a little hard to get rid of too much postnasal drip if you can't get a good cough behind it, which is harder still flat on your back. The air conditioner is set pretty high, at 26C degrees, which I think is around 79F, but I think the job it does cutting the humidity is doing a job on her sinuses, which then kick in a little extra to help with the really dry air (it isn't that dry). Opening the patio door doesn't seem to change the temperature (in fact, I think it's cooler outside), but the air is thick enough to swim in.

I gave her a quick diaper change, and Claire made her a bottle. After Claire swaddled her, the feeding began, and sleep quickly won again. Before the bottle was done, she was asleep again. I'd rigged a little bit of an incline for her to lay on, hoping that might ease any congestion (works for me to have my head and shoulders up), and Claire put her back down on it. She didn't last but a few minutes and is back up, breathing much more clearly held upright on the deck.

I'm not sure how to help here. I can certainly turn the air off, and Claire and I can deal with the heat and humidity that will follow. What I'm not comfortable with is leaving the patio doors open. It has to do with the flying bugs... Crime is really low, and we have locking bars so we can keep the doors secured to just a few inches, but there are a couple big flying bugs, and flies, and wasps that we've seen out there that we don't want in here. Plus, probably an old wives tale we were spun, the (barely) cooler temperatures can help keep some at bay in the room, too.

While all of that was going on, I also thought to ping the fellas at the office. It's mid-morning there, so they should all be hard at work. I connected quickly enough, and even got a couple lines of chat exchanged, but then the network connection died. More technically, somewhere upstream of the router to which I was connected, there is a failure.

Not only did my chat and web client fail, but I couldn't hit the special “log out” button to end the countdown on my minutes...I really don't like measured service, especially the pay up-front for time kind. I know why it didn't sell when I did it before.