Naomi, poor thing

is doing fine now, but had LOTS of bad dreams during her fever.  It was very sad.  On the third night of fever, she woke up crying and said, “I don’t want any more bad dreams!  I’m tired of bad dreams!  I want SWEET dreams!  I want FUNNY dreams!”  I couldn’t believe how coherent she was about it in the middle of the night.

Now she’s well over the fever and isn’t having feverish dreams any more, but she’s worried about it anyway.  I can’t really blame her.  Feverish dreams are the worst.  But she was saying that she wasn’t going to go to bed.  OR she’d go to bed if one of us would sleep with her.  OR she’d go to bed if she could go in our bed with us.  Since none of those options looked any good, we had to think of something else.

The answer partially came about because of a Christmas gift that the kids gave me:  A Kid’s Herb Book.  Hannah has stolen it and read most of it already (this happens with a lot of my nonfiction literature, by the way, including my magazines like Family Fun and Better Homes and Gardens.  What does she get from Better Homes and Gardens?  Oh, and my book Large Family Logistics.  I’m hoping I either get that one back sometime soon or Hannah starts implementing the ideas from it herself.).  When Naomi had the fever, Hannah insisted on going to the herb shop and getting what was needed for fever tea.  She also thought we should make the elderberry syrup, since it’s good for cold and flu. 

Michael, who is a genius, put two and two together on Naomi’s fear of sleep and came up with a “sweet dreams sachet.”  He took some chamomile leaves (necessary for fever tea, of course) and put them in a handkerchief and gave it to Naomi to put under her pillow.  She happily puts it under there each night now and doesn’t complain at all about going to bed…or about bad dreams, either.  Hannah, once clued in to what was happening, requested one, also, so we should have nothing but sweet dreams from those two for a good long time.