1.  A Coating

2.  Paintwork

3.  Varnish

0030.  Crying from downstairs. Wailing. I was barely out of bed before: “Mummeeeee!”  Son 1 aged 4y 7m, at the bottom of the stairs, two small splats of sick on the carpet. ”I want a shower!” “You’re all right, let’s get you to the loo.”  He cried.  I mopped him up and he flopped on the floor.  I sent him up to The Man and cleared up the landing carpet.  Then I went into his room to check the bed.  Which was fine.  There was a massive splat on the floor though, with splash marks up the wall.  I cleared that up.  I went upstairs to get Son 1 out of the Big Bed - hard if he was ill again. “Has someone been sick?” asked The Man, blearily.  Son 1 didn’t want to move, so I hoisted him up to carry him back downstairs.  He was sick over me.  We cleaned him up, cleaned me up, cleaned his teeth and went to bed in his room. 

All three of us Gastro Bug victims started the day with stewed apple and banana.    Son 2 aged 19m was weak, fed up and was happy only when he was either sitting on my knee or being held against my shoulder.  Son 1 was on better form, but clearly still wasn’t that well.  The Man wanted to check The Boat, so we put Son 2 in the Big Pram, and Son 1 in the buggy and pushed them through The Town.  The Boat is a sturdy little fishing tub, but is looking sorry for itself.  Rusting and flaking, needs a lot of paint, a mooring rope fraying…  The Man switched on the engine and the pump.  Son 1 and Son 2 pulled off bits of paint and splinters and threw them overboard.  If we’d have left them long enough they’d have chucked the whole boat in the river, one flake at a time.

Son 1 wanted Pizza Express, so we gave it a go.  He ate most of a child’s margarita pizza, Son 2 ate two slices.  They ate dough balls. Son 2 ate asparagus from my pizza.  Son 1 had ice cream.  It was ok - apart from Son 2 climbing out of his highchair with broken straps and clambering across on to my knee.  We got out without incident.  Son 2 was dropping with tiredness, and cried and cried nearly all the way home. When we got back I left him in The Pram and painted my toenails.   This is an Excellent Thing.  BC I would never have had bare toenails.   Even at 7 months pregnant, The Man was painting them for me.  And post-Caesarian, my first Recovery Milestone was when I slapped on the nail polish.  But in my new incarnation as Working Mother With 2 Small Children, I just couldn’t do it.  Now I have new TK Maxx open-toed sandals, and orange toenails.  I am Back.

1.  Revisited

2.  Reunion

3.  Respite

The Man came home at 10pm last night.  He went in the Big Bed, I went down with Son 2 aged 19m.  At 3am he woke, crying.  I went to him, he was hot, bothered and gasping for water.  I gave him water. He gulped and gulped.  I gave him Calpol and he slurped it down. I decided to change his nappy, and lay him down on the changing mat.  He threw up spectacularly, Reflux Revisited.  I put him in the shower, The Man came down.  “Is this wee?” he asked, dabbing at the pool on the changing mat. ”No he’s been sick.”  Son 2 eyed him, barely awake, and then buried his head in my shoulder.  We gave him more water.  He threw that up too.  Son 1 aged 4y 7m came in. “You were supposed to wake me up to see Daddy!” “We both tried but we couldn’t. You wanted to stay asleep.” He went upstairs with The Man, I held Son 2 upright in the armchair till he went to sleep, and then got into the double bed with him. 

By morning I had the bug too.  I was miserable and unable to eat, The Man was instantly in charge of all food and drink-making.    Son 1 was excited and ecstatic that he was back; “Where are we going, where shall we go?”   Very unhappy that we couldn’t go anywhere because Mummy and Son 2 were poorly.  During last summer’s nightmare Walk With Gastroenteritis, I read that stewed apple settles the stomach.  The Man peeled and microwaved an apple for Son 2.  He scoffed it. And then helped himself to a great whack of Son 1’s cottage pie lunch.  And ginger biscuits for pudding.  It all stayed down.

In the afternoon they played outside with the paddling pool, and then Son 2 broke down and started crying for me again. I put him down for his second sleep in his cot, and at 3.30 I went back to bed.  This was an Amazing Thing.  I don’t think I’ve had a daytime sleep since I was on maternity leave with Son 1.  I slept for an hour, till  Son 1 came up to tell me that he’d made some (cardboard) ice cream.  The dishwasher box has become his ice cream house.  He was painting it, in creative heaven,  in the kitchen, with The Man making tea and trying to be patient.  Son 2 woke up, and clung and cried.  But he packed away sausage and peas, and it stayed down.  At bedtime he wanted book after book, again, a Good Thing after so many days when he couldn’t be bothered.

1.  The First No

2.  Big Weld

3.  Ballet

4.  Superbug

Son 2 is Latin in his language acquisition.  His word for  ”yes” is “peeeez”, and he had no word for no, either shaking his head or pushing away with his hand.  This morning though, when I offered him some more milk, there was a clear, confident, grown up “no.” And then he went back to head-shaking and batting.  He looks awful.  Some chickenpox spot have scabbed; he’s picked some of the scabs off.  Great flaming red craters, each one with the potential to pock mark.  He at last ate something this morning.  He drank milk and ate hummous, grapes and banana.  He was clingy, tetchy, whining and tired. “All right,” I said. “We’ll put you back to bed.”  Then he threw up all over himself and the hall carpet. A great, chicken-soupy puddle.  Then over the kitchen floor.  I stripped him, put The Wiggles on upstairs and hunted for J cloths.  

They both came down within minutes.  Son 1 aged 4y 7m wanted his pancake.  It was straight out of the pan, cooling on a plate, but then I had to clear up after Son 2. ”Darling I can’t touch it while I’m clearing this up. If you want it, put your own lemon and maple syrup on. Just get your chair and get the lemon from the fridge.”  Clunk, as a little green Early Learning Centre chair was plonked against the freezer. Son 2 pulled baby wipes from the packed and stirred them into the water in the mop bucket.  Son 1 opened the fridge door, gazed in and sighed.  “Oh the lies I have told, the lives I have ruined.”     I looked up.  “Where’s that from?” “‘Robots.’” “Oh. Is it what the baddie says?” “No.  Big Weld says it when he meets the people.”  Of course he does.

Ankle deep in vomit, dirty washing, dirty floors, washing up and with a sick, clingy, crying baby,  I rang a Wednesday Mother.  “Are you better?  Can you have Son 1 this morning?” Yes she could. “Oh good, can you come and get him?”  Son 2 and I had a shower and I put him to bed.  He slept for three hours.  Son 1 was dropped back, scampering through the hall. “Son 2! Son 2!”  Still asleep.  Eventually I rang Wonder Nanny.  “Should I get him up?” “He’s never slept for three hours, even for me. His body clearly needs it. Just leave him.” He woke up within minutes, and wouldn’t eat lunch.  We went outside and played with the paddling pool.  I eventually found the puncture.  Son 1, naked,  pulled on one of the inflatable rings, wedged it round his hips just above his willy and pirouetted. “I’m a ballerina and this is my tutu!”  I took pictures for The Man.  

We went into The Town to find more calamine cream for Son 2. Superdrug didn’t have any.  We went into Marks. Son 2 threw up in the pram. I cleared him up in the ladies’ loo and we came home, Son 1 clambering on the Big Pram abover Son 2. Son 2 threw up in the lounge. I saved the soft furnishings by turning him round so he did it all over me.  I gave him white rice for his tea.  He threw up all over the kitchen. I put him to bed.  The Godmother, out for drinks in The Town, dropped off calamine cream from the Big Town and J cloths.

1.  The Mystery Of Faith

2.  Let There Be Light

3.  The Patience Of Job

Son 1 aged 4y 2m and I went to Church.  First Sunday of Advent.  We sat at the back.  He burnt his fingers on a boiling hot pipe running along the wall just above the floor.  We were taken through a side door to a little kitchenette.  The water was so cold that Son 1 soon decided his fingers didn’t hurt anymore.  He did a puzzle at the back.  Then he reached into his Parkha pocket.  “I’ve got something for you,” he whispered.  And produced a handful of bigger-than-pea gravel.  “Where did you get that?” I asked.  “From the beach,” he whispered.  He coloured in his stones with the Church’s felt tip pens to make jewels for his Treasure Chest.  

Late Afternoon we walked down to The Square for the Parade to switch on the Town’s Christmas Lights.  Son 2 aged 14m was trussed up in his cosi toe, happy in his woolly hat.  Son 1 had four layers on including a fleece and his Parkha.  He was too tired to walk down and rode on The Man’s shoulders.  He wanted candy floss, which his Favourite Thing in All The World, even though he’s never tasted it.  In The Square it was perishing.  Son 1 sulked over candy floss, Santa helium balloons, although a friend supplied some raisins in yoghurt which quietened him.  The Parade started.  We were behind the Samba band and the Mayors’ parties, but in front of Santa.  There were sweets. Lots of them.  Lollies and haribous and chocolates, handed out from great carriers full.  Carols were sung, the Lights went on.  I listed Son 1’s sugar intake as I cleaned his teeth: ice cream, yoghurt raisins, haribous, lollipop, more jelly sweets, candy floss, more haribous and raisins.  He bounced off the walls like a squash ball.

Son 2 aged 14m woke 4 times in 90 minutes after we put him to bed.  He’s been sick twice, crying himself into gagging because I haven’t rushed up.  I’ve just cracked and lay down on the double bed with him to get him back to sleep… and that’s taken well over half an hour.  He has started drooling again, so it could be teeth.  It could be separation anxiety - I don’t feel as if I saw a lot of him today… he could be coming down with something…  it could just be too much stimulus from the Lights switch on.  I really thought we were getting somewhere with his sleeping, but that was awful.  And I’ve still got to get him in his cot when we go to bed.  However.  Today I gathered up my 5 remaining feeding bras and threw them out.  Progress Has Been Made.

1.  The Rash

2.  Rash Actions

3.  Splash

Son 1 aged 4 shrieked regularly and loudly through the night. Till: “If Mummy doesn’t get some sleep she won’t be well enough to go and see our friends tomorrow.”  He woke Son 2 aged 13m up at 0430.  I don’t think Son 2’s spots are chickenpox.  They twinkle.  They’re barely there… they get brighter… they fade… they vanish.  Lots around his neck, front and back.  A couple of very faint ones on his face.  Some angrier looking ones in his little baby nappy creases.  Could be chickenpox, or could be me not believing any child can poo SIX times in one day and leaving him too long sitting in a dirty nappy.

One Wednesday friend has vomiting.  The others have diarrhoea.  And still I took the boys to see each family, separately.  We met Mother 1 and the nearly-3 year old in Costa.  Son 2 is of course the child I do not want to get a vomiting bug. “He’ll be asleep by the time we get there,” I said.   Hey ho.  We went to get Son 1’s hair cut afterwards.  Short back and sides.  He looks great.  If about 7 years old. ”I hate my haircut.”  “Why?” “The hair is in my mouth”  He was really too tired to walk back home, so he sat on the Pram handle, hung on to me and I wheeled them both back somehow.

And then we drove over to the other Wednesday friends’ house.  He played with his Friend, Son 2 played drums, pulled toys out, pulled books out and ate grapes. Late arriving, we didn’t go till three, when both boys were wiped out with fatigue.  At home I got Son 2 to bed for 20 minutes; Son 1 fell asleep watching Scooby Doo.  Son 1 wanted a shower before bed.  I left him in it and Son 2 playing in the bathroom while I drew curtains, tidied beds etc.  “Mummeeee. Emergency!”  A large roll of Andrex had been dumped in the water pooling in the bath.  Son 2 stood by the taps looking pleased with himself.   It took me two hours to get him to sleep.  It’ll be me cutting the breast-feeding/The Man being away/teeth… or maybe he just has got chickenpox.

(The Man has told one of his colleagues about my blog.  I will kill him.  No-one knows.  I can’t put your comment up because you used your real name…  But you did make me larf out loud at ten thirty at night…) 

1.  Pre-match

2.  Kick off

3.  Post-match

Another grim night.  Son 2 aged 1 was hot, fretful, unsettled. He was in his cot at 0045 when he woke  needing a nappy change - and that was that.  I couldn’t get him back to sleep.  By 0330 I was giving him Calpol and water.  Then he needed another nappy change.  If he gets a long sleep this morning, he’ll still be able to enjoy The Party, I thought.  He didn’t.  I got him back to sleep over breakfast, but Son 1 aged 3y 11m, beside himself with excitement, was making up party bags at 7am.    And woke Son 2.  We wheeled them both in The Town for some last-minute stuff we needed… and went 3/4 of a mile to the cheap department store.  And all the way back.  But Son 2, eyes hanging, head lolled over in The Pram, cheeks hot and red, didn’t sleep.

The party was great.  Really good.  20 children - everyone we invited except one who’d got a better offer and two who’d gone camping on the only nice day we’ve had all year.     A whacking great bouncy castle - me and The Man had a go before everyone arrived (harder work than it looks,) a nursery nurse leading games, various children from Son 2 up to a 6 year old in various costumes, and a great spread of mums with four dads.  Son 1 was in his Captain Hook outfit and bounced and ran and played and laughed and chased and danced.  I was needed three times.  To ask if he could take his (Captain Hook) socks off (yes;)  to complain that he wasn’t finding anything first in the Treasure Hunt (no action: an important Lesson of Life;) to ask if he could go and play when everyone was still eating their tea (don’t you want to wait for for your birthday cake?)  We had a Peter Pan cake, black skull and crossbone cupcakes and party bags with Peter Pan finger puppets in.

Son 2, I can safely say, had a miserable time.  He was tired, hot, and not at all in the mood.  I carried him around with me all afternoon.  He ate a tiny breadstick, some strawberries and some grapes - great food for nappy rash.  But all he wanted was to be with me and go to sleep.  His Godmother was brilliant, sorted out drinks for grown ups, arranged the food, did small people drinks when they were all gasping… cut cake, wrapped it in napkins, and put it in party bags.  After Son 2 poo-ed on my hand I thought I’d better keep away from the food.  I am worried about him.  I’m going to sleep with him tonight in the hope he gets better quicker.  Son 1 came back exhausted.  I’d told him he could open Son 1’s presents, as his birthday has been, but not his own. “Is this Son 2’s?  Is this Son 2’s”  You’re nearly four years old now child, learn to read your own name.  I didn’t say. (He did surprise us this morning, by writing a perfect initial when we asked him if he could.  Tum ti tum.  Didn’t learn that at the knee of his highly-educated mother.)  In bed I asked him if he’d enjoyed his party.  “Yes. But we had to come home too soon.”  As I write this there are fireworks across the river.  Might have to have those next year as well.      

1.   Another bug

2.  And another one

3.  Lost and found

Son 1 aged 3y 11m was so ill last night.  I was doing some Office work downstairs when there was a gruesome, bubbly, hacking, choking coughing session from upstairs.  I went up and I could smell the sick as soon as I got in the doorway.  (I have next to no sense of smell.)  He was lying in a pool of it.  On the bed.  On the pillow.  On his hair, on his pyjamas.  Son 2 aged 1 woke up. I put Son 1 in the bath, stripped him off, put on the shower and used J cloths to gather up the vast pile of undigested solids from the bed.  Then rolled it all up into a ball and put the washing machine on.  All the time, Son 2 was HOWLING.  It took me 45 minutes to clear up, wash Son 1, cuddle him and put him upstairs in the Big Bed.  Son 2 barely drew breath, and just got louder and louder and more and more extreme.  “I’ll just go downstairs and settle Son 2,” I said to poor, hot, ill Son 1.  “He’ll be so tired after all that crying that I’ll be back in a few minutes.”  It was nearly 1am by the time I got him to sleep.  He was just so wound up and worried and needy.  I rang The Man - on his way back from the Airport - and told him he was in with Son 2. 

He got back at 3am.      I woke up at 6.  Went to the loo and threw up.  I’ve been really ill all day.  But I’m off on Monday and Tuesday, and there was an Office meeting in The City, so I soldiered on.  The Man stayed at home with Son 2, whose nappies are still unfit for group childcare situations. Raging nappy rash as well, poor lamb. All this and our mega-both-boys-party tomorrow.  I took Son 1 to the New Nursery.  He ate toast for breakfast,  slept in the car on the way there… was very clingy when I was dropping him off… But looking on the bright side as always, it was School Photo day, so hopefully I’ll get a nice pic of him.  And he went swimming, and the teachers said he’d brightened up afterwards.  The Man brought him home at lunchtime.

I had a rough time on the way to The City, while I was there, and on the way back again. It’s a three-hour round trip, it was really hard and I probably shouldn’t have done it.  But… there’s a Waitrose near The City, so I bought a pile of food for the party.  It’s pretty low maintenance stuff but I think my bug gets me out of any food preparation.  I’ve never been to Waitrose before.  I lost my credit card wallet, and just as I was pushing the trolley up and down the aisle looking for it, my name was called over the Tannoy.  A lucky star overhead, obviously.

1. I said that my baby had reflux, and they said “no, no, no.”

2. The Treat

3. Down to the river

0530. “I DON’T WANT TO LIE IN THIS POOOOOO COME AND CLEAN ME UP”  Son 2 aged 9m.   Conveying with noise what he can’t yet manage in words.   Son 1 aged three and a half joined us.  I gave Son 2 a really good feed.  Drank loads, both sides, no twisting or yanking, no fidgeting, no sudden wails.  I could cut out the Gaviscon on this feed I thought.  He’s older now, he’s more comfortable, he’s been doing so well since we stopped the thickened milk… we’ve dropped a whole dose at lunchtime, we might be able to get away with it at this first feed if we’re all quiet and careful.  Then he threw up. Gallons and gallons of it, gushing out of his mouth like a little Cathedral gargoyle in the rain.     Cushion, sleepsuit, pyjamas, carpet.   Wringing.  The Man heard it from upstairs.

Son 1 has got to the end of the lines on the sticker chart. For being good while The Man was away, for staying at the table during meals, and for asking nicely if he can get down at the end.  He can have A Treat.  We pushed him into Town in the buggy, - he was too tired to walk after his swimming lesson.  He chose a Playdoh Operation set.  Son 1 loves Playdoh,  He loves rolling and stamping and pressing and squashing.   Making cakes and biscuits. And Christmas trees and tin men.  Luckily, now he’s older, he understands not to mix up the colours even though the marbling looks pretty,  he never leaves little flakes of it everywhere, and it doesn’t end up embedded in the lounge carpet and everyone’s clothes.   And I am Marie of Romania.  

Went out running for the first time since The Man went away last week.  Down to the bridge over the river and back.   It was hard, but I was running down into a Northerly… and it must be nearly two weeks since I last went out.  Returned alive, feeling very fit and healthy, and only the bright red heat of my face to suggest it had been more of a grind than usual.