Well, what a week this last week has been! Things had been going well for a while and I guess we'd got used to it. However, that changed last week ...
On Thursday morning Claire phoned to say that Alice had been sick a couple of times. Looking after a sick child isn't always easy and even less so with a baby as well. I offered to go round to help out and spent most of Thursday like this, with Alice on my lap dozing on and off. I hate when little ones are sick, you feel so helpless. Alice was so good though and never made a fuss at all. Even when she was sick she let us hold her hair back and stroke her forehead, then when she was done she'd settle back on my lap and sleep some more. :o(
By about 2pm, after she'd had a fairly long sleep, she woke up and seemed much brighter. She hopped down from my lap and was chatting, playing and asking for some juice. What a relief, it was so good to see her feeling a bit better.
Unfortunately it didn't last too long and she'd been sick again during the night. On Friday Claire and the girls came round to the house for a while and Alice was fairly quiet and spent time sitting quietly on the sofa. I took them home again around 4pm as Emily had an appointment at 4.30.
Just before 10pm I got a call from Claire to say she had started being sick too. There was no way she was going to manage on her own so I packed a bag and headed round to help look after the children. I did the night feeds and got up with the girls in the morning.
We had a very quiet day on Saturday. Alice continued to be unwell and slept on and off through the day. Claire was feeling drained and washed out and we took turns with the girls depending on who Alice wanted to be with. Fortunately, by Saturday night Claire was feeling a lot better but still quite wobbly as she hadn't eaten much all day so I stayed another night to do the feeds.
Sunday dawned brighter all round. Alice did some finger painting in the morning and Claire was starting to eat again. We thought it would be quite nice for them to get out of the house so we packed some stuff together and came here for a change of surroundings. Although Alice still wasn't 100% she was so much better than she had been on Thursday and Friday.
Aunty Em was happy to have cuddles with Megan (who fortunately didn't get the virus) who is growing so quickly - can you believe she's 7 weeks now!
Claire tried to do a bit of Project Life, though Mac had other ideas about that. He REALLY thought she should be paying him more attention!
And another one of Megan, just because she's cute :o)
Claire was happy to go home again that evening and I told her to phone if she needed anything.
Monday was a bit of a surprise as we woke to more snow! The weather reports had said it was going to miss us but when we woke on Monday morning, there it was. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough for a snow day so Emily donned the wellies again and headed off to school.
I popped out to Waitrose for some shopping for us, for Mum and Dad and for Claire. The trees in the car park were so pretty with their coat of snow but it doesn't really show up as well in the photo.
So, Monday night after dinner Emily says she's feeling queasy. I had felt the same myself but thought it might just be because I'd had a bit more milk than normal (I have an intolerance). Emily was sick before bedtime and decided to have an earlier night. I thought that was a good idea myself and headed off to bed myself. Jon said he's sleep in the spare room and let me get a decent night's sleep. Ha ha!! By morning Hugh, Emily and I had all been sick and by Monday afternoon Jon had joined us. So, Emily's been off school since Tuesday and I can honestly say that today was the closest to normal I've felt since then. Let's hope that's the last of it.
I popped round to drop off some Valentines chocolates at Claire's this morning (as well as a present I'd missed at Christmas for Alice). It was so good to see them all again and I think we could say that Alice had missed me :) I got big cuddles and was invited to play. She'd got a Playdoh set earlier in the week and wanted to show it to me - though she wasn't quite so keen when I started playing with it!
Claire said Megan must have also missed me because when I got to hold her I got LOTS of smiles. I felt very privileged because although I have had a few, today the just kept coming. What a little sweetheart she is, so cute!
Here's to us all continuing with good health now. On the plus side, my Project Life album is right up to date! I really must take some photos sometime to share. I also realised I never got round to posting my December Daily - feels a bit late for that now though ;o)
xx
