I Want My Children Back

... I want my children back from this terrible 'lergy that is currently inhabiting their little bodies and turning them into creatures I don't know.

As previously mentioned, J is on antibiotics after a tough weekend of coughing, temperatures and listlessness. By 5pm yesterday I decided that O's cough had reached seeing-the-doctor proportions, and we left him armed (to my alarm) with inhalers, more antibiotics and a scary looking contraption with which to administer the inhalers.

Poor little sausage, O slept in my arms all night last night, wheezing, whimpering and glowing with heat. All he wanted to do today was to lie still and quiet in my arms, but that did not take into account dear J, who, still not herself (still not eaten - day 5), wanted every second of my time.

Cue "The Day From Hell".

Fortunately, my lovely new lady, who cleans on Wednesday mornings, was on hand to drop the vacuum cleaner, the ironing and the dust cloths, to hold O in her arms all morning. I can't believe I paid someone £9 an hour to hold my very sick child in her arms, while I fed her coffee and tried to keep J busy with baking cup cakes, reading and "helping Mommy around the house".

At 3pm hubby was summoned home in desperation. My reinforcements are short-lived however, as tomorrow hubby goes away on business. He returns late on Friday night. I am mildly panicking.

I have endless admiration for single mothers. How they cope I am not sure.

I find winters debilitating. I hale from South Africa, and one would expect that after ten years of living here, I would handle the long, dark winter with increasing aplomb. Not so. With each passing annum I find it harder and harder to see my way through the winter.

I have not been outside for 5 days, due to the children's illnesses. It has been too cold and wet to have them cavorting in the wind and puddles, and the level of cabin fever has gone off the scales. And it is only the 9th of December. We have to get to March/April before we will even glimpse the sun again. Not something I feel great about, to put it mildly.

Hopefully by next week "the little soldiers in the banana medicine" will have fought off all of the germs in my children's bodies and we will be able to re-enter the world, albeit still be shivering in our boots.