Home, sick

Fancy a siesta beneath a palm tree, while little monkeys frolic nearby? Then consider spending your vacation at the House of Virus, where germs flourish and boxes of tissues are toted about like this season's must-have fashion accessory. Also in vogue are cracked lips, sore throats and the odd bout of vomiting. Here our days are leisurely, with short activities punctuated by naps (children only!) and temper tantrums from an exhausted and grizzly 4-year-old (and occasionally from an exhausted and grizzly mother, too). 

Here's the exciting story* of how this recent episode of illness (as opposed to last week's one, because according to our doctor this is a different virus) began. I wrote this last night but was unable to post it due to R waking up crying and taking up the rest of my evening and a good part of my night, too. So it's all about yesterday, rather than today. Which was much the same anyway, only grumpier, snottier and with an even more exhausted and impatient mother. So here it is:

*Disclaimer: story may not actually be exciting.

Because K has, of late, been less than enthusiastic about school, and because he's been inventing all sorts of ailments in order to avoid going, we were skeptical when he staggered out of bed groaning on Monday morning. Sure, he had a cold, but there was so much exaggeration and bad acting going on (clutching his head, collapsing on the couch saying he couldn't walk) that it was hard to be very sympathetic. So I marched him off to school despite his protestations. 

Two hours later they called me to fetch him. He looked so obviously unwell huddled up in the sick bay that I felt like the world's cruellest mother. Fortunately (or perhaps not so fortunately) I already had a doctor's appointment lined up for R later in the day. Both children were examined and officially declared unwell with high temperatures. Vindicated, K phoned his dad and said I TOLD YOU SO (or something to that effect) and received in exchange a recap of the story of the boy who cried wolf. 

K asleep in the play-house, where he spent much of the day...

So today was an at-home day, with K sleeping most of the time (in some rather odd places, too) and R feeling well enough to play Tumblin' Monkeys a thousand times but still not eating much and looking skinnier than ever. I made some blueberry pancakes just to try and get some food into her, and we sat outside with my mother-in-law L (who risked infection to come help me out) and had a little picnic while K slept inside.

More sunshine forecast for tomorrow! I hope the kids will be well enough to enjoy it.

Post script: They weren't. I dragged R out into the sun to make a little garden for her Peppa Pig toys to play in; she cried and demanded sunglasses and a jumper. After she had reluctantly assisted with construction and landscaping of the little garden she declined to play with it unless it came inside (it didn't). Well, I still think it looks sweet...

 

...and she'd bloody well better play with it tomorrow!