It wasn't food poisoning. It was the cat.
Yep- that lovely, sweet, cuddly cat of ours so silent during the journey that I worried about her health and had the children checking her regularly- well, come 11:00pm when we were all tucked in and finally settled, she began to cry- loudly and with a whining enthusiasm that had me sitting up in bed shushing her.
Finally, I dragged the giant dog crate into the bathroom and made sure she had food before returning to bed. She was silent- until she finished eating and then she was at it again. Knowing that the children needed to sleep and my husband needed it more, I crawled into the bathroom to hush her, trying not to trip over the children scattered, prostrate on the floor.
Climbing back into bed, I relaxed only to shoot back off of it to return to the bathroom to get her to hush up again. Knowing that sleep would be non-existent if I didn't get creative, I pulled a blanket and pillow into the bathroom and curled up on the floor between the cat carrier and the toilet with my legs under the sink. No, it wasn't comfortable but it was functional.
I just wanted sleep and that way, when she fussed, I could tap the cage and hush her and eventually she settled.
When I finally crawled back to bed, leaving the now silent cat in her bathroom palace, it was 5:00am and time to get going for a long 14 hour day of driving. It wasn't all bad, I probably got a good 3 hours in there. Four children, all born rather close together, means I have a lot of practice with sleepless nights—I'm just rusty and this was a pop quiz to see if I remembered how to handle it- Only I wasn't about to settle the cat by nursing her down which is what worked so well with my children. No, that wasn't going to happen. No way, no how.
At least I wasn't totally bitter. Laughs can cure so many things, I have to make more use of them- I really, really do.
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