As you know, Shep has been sick most of the week. Now he’s mostly getting over the sick, but holding firmly to the tired and grouchy part.

After Neko went to school, Shep and I ran a few errands. Dropping something off at my mom’s school, then off to recycling. When we were done, we had enough time left over to go home and play for a bit.

As we walked in the kitchen, it suddenly dawned on Shep that we had not visited anywhere mind-blowing, like, say, Disneyland, so he threw himself to the ground and sobbed, “But I wanted to go SOMEWHERE!”

I asked him where he wanted to go, and he threw out the idea of this playplace that’s an hour away. Well, that was definitely not happening, so then a 30 minute tantrum ensued.

After I just couldn’t take it anymore, I gathered him up and plunked him down on the couch with a Wiggles DVD, a big blanket, and his pacifier. And it was at that point that I realized that he must have really been exhausted, because he sat in that spot for over an hour, not moving a muscle.

And, people, that never happens in this household. Ever.

Shep has always been sensitive. When he was just a baby, I remember him bursting into tears when people laughed at something silly he did. On occasion, he still does this. From early on he just felt things really big.

He’s been having a rough time this week. He’s been battling a cough which, just when we thought he was getting better, took a left turn into a sinus infection. So he’s kind of an extra-big mess. And needy. And clingy. The line of the moment is “I want you” which means please hold me and hug me and don’t pay one bit of attention to anyone else until maybe, oh, I dunno, 2013.

To boot, he’s waking up at all hours of the night. And still sleeping in the tent.

While rubbing our bloodshot eyes, Tom and I concluded that although the cough was probably responsible for most of the night waking, the sleeping on a hard floor in a tent can’t be helping matters. We remembered this bed tent we saw at IKEA, which seemed like a great compromise.

So instead of story hour (due to the sinus infection), we went to IKEA. This all went swimmingly until Shep caught on that we were shopping for a tent replacement. I won’t go into all the gory details, but it involved a 45 minute temper tantrum and me carrying a sum total of nearly 60 pounds of wailing children and a 10 pound purse across a parking lot the size of Asia.

Somewhere in the afternoon Shep and I compromised on moving the existing tent into the bed, and I think we’re both feeling pretty okay about that for the moment. But we’re exhausted and tired of fighting with one another. Tonight he climbed out of the shower and into my lap, and demanded I rock him and sing “You Are My Sunshine” to him over and over again. We change it to be “You Are My Sizzles” (which, if you’re keeping up, is his dog persona) so he it calls it “the song about me”.

We made it until bedtime without incident, where I tucked him into his bed/tent, and he asked me to sing his song one more time. In the middle of me singing, I heard him start crying. I stopped, and asked him why he was crying, and with his little lip trembling, he managed to say, “I just want you SO MUCH.”

And when you’re not even three, I suppose that’s the way you talk about that big swell that happens in your chest when you realize that someone you have battled and fought and maybe not treated in the best way still loves you and rubs your back and sings you to sleep.

Shep is not even three, and I’ve already discovered he’s impossible to buy for. We’re doing this thing where the kids only get five gifts for their birthday, and for the life of me, I can’t come up with five things that kid would want. Other than produce.

But then I had an idea.

There’s this brown bear that I bought at the Gap long ago when Neko was a baby. I thought it was darling, and Neko thought it was unremarkable. So it went in a bin in the basement. When Ellery came along, I brought it back out. At the time, we were reading the book Corduroy quite a bit. Shep promptly adopted him, and declared him Corduroy.

However, the Gap sells these bears in the buff. (Which is a little ironic, if you think about it, since they’re a clothing store.) It was clear to me that Corduroy needed overalls.

So I managed to squeeze in a trip to the fabric store, dusted off the sewing machine, and hunkered down with a somewhat-helpful pattern. Four hours later, I have overalls and a birthday gift checked off the list!

Okay, I know four hours is kind of a tedious amount of time, but I had to reacquaint myself with The Machine and tackled the automatic buttonhole attachment for the first time. And not to sound like an über sewing nerd, but omigosh is that attachment a gift from heaven.

And in true Corduroy form, I kept misplacing one of the buttons. I had several long searches for it and began to wonder if my replica was going to be a bit more accurate than I’d intended.

So when you visit after Shep’s birthday (4/23), and Corduroy’s new duds are in circulation, don’t look too closely. They’ve got lots of little oops things here and there. Nonetheless, they make me smile.

Earlier this week Shep brought this little tent up from the basement. And for the past three nights, he’s slept in it. In a tent. On the floor. While his perfectly good bed sits empty.

It should also be noted that it’s not really big enough for him, and his legs hang out the door. So technically, I suppose he’s only half sleeping in a tent.

The first night, I switched him over to his bed after he fell asleep, thinking he wouldn’t remember where he’d fallen asleep. But at 2am he woke screaming and wouldn’t quiet down until we’d tucked him back into the tent.

Did I mention he’s napping in there, too? I’ll keep you posted on how this plays out.