Letter to the germs

Dear germs,

I know that you need to live and eat and have happy germ sex or whatever it is that is your reason for being. I am really truly grateful that you saved the earth in War of the Worlds. I am impressed by your evolutionary rigour. However, I don't need this rigour and life-loving spirit to be displayed with quite such regularity via my daughter.

When I took her, again, to the doctor today (please bear in mind that I am not fond of doctors and they are bloody expensive in HK so it takes a lot for me to take Eve) and the doctor asked me how long she had been ill for I struggled to think of a time in the last year when she hasn't had a cough or a cold or a fever or some minor childhood ailment that has been just under the surface and mildly annoying for all concerned.

I am hoping that the 8 times she vomited today, including twice on me, will be the last display that you need to make for a while. It has been pretty impressive an I hope that you also found it amusing that I am having to shove a supository up her my daughters' bum to stop her vomiting. Can we just now agree I realise you are big and clever and can you please now just bugger off? For a couple of months at least. I really need to get some sleep and Eve needs to stop wiping her nose on her sleeve.

Thanks

Yummy Mummy

Mummy flu

It's official. I have flu. I have a fever edging up to 39 degrees and ache all over. Thank goodness for the BBC World Service radio. It is keeping me sane and I now know all about hydro-electric power in Nepal and am listening to North Korea go more and more insane by the hour.

The only possible upside to any of this is that the Boy has taken Eve, on his own, to a birthday party for one year olds. After I took Eve to the rain-induced playdate with 6 toddlers last week it is his turn this time.

Back to bed...

Mummy sick

Yummy Mummy is ill. Well, I might be overstating it a bit, but I am not feeling very well. I know this because tonight I am going to sit on the sofa and feel sorry for myself rather than sit on the ergo and it takes a lot to separate me from the gym on a Wednesday night. I have a sore throat, am achey all over, have a headache, and generally feel unwell. Of course this is all coming because we have a public holiday tomorrow,and I am off on a business trip next week.

It has, however, struck me that since I have had Eve I've not really been ill. I've had the occasional HK vomit bug, but nothing else. I've always been relatively hardy. When I was 9 my GP refused to admit there was much wrong with me right up until the point that the locum GP rushed me into hospital with pneumonia. It takes a lot to slow me down, but it seems to take an awful lot more now than it did before Eve.

I was trying to figure this out. Am I actually ill less often now? Have I chanced upon a positive side of all those hormones flying around my body for so long? Or have become much better at dealing with discomfort so small ailments bother me less? Or is it simply that I no longer have the option to spend the day in bed being ill, so I just push on through.

Answers on a postcard please. I will be sitting on my sofa for a day or two sipping lemsip and reading endless books to Eve.

Cough, splutter, snort

Having a little baby is hard work, having a little baby with a stinking cold who can't sleep is awful. Apparently children get, on average, 8 colds a year. Oh goody.

And to add insult to injury, I have caught it now too.

Silence is golden

In addition to her fever, and eye infection, Eve has caught a cold (the more observant will now realise she has reached her quota of 3). The cold brings with it lots of snot and a little cough-cum-vomit. As a result of the latter, Eve has now lost her voice. So now I have a child who is really grumpy, but whose scream comes out as a rasping hack, making her even more pissed off that she can't express her anger. The sad thing for her is that, although she feels awful and wants us all to know about it, the Boy and I just keep giggling at her because she sounds so silly. Bad us.

Is there a doctor in the house?

The Boy is one of the fittest men of his age I know. He does a lot of exercise, eats healthily, and doesn't drink too much (except on occasion!). However, he is a bit pathetic when it comes to his health.

Of course all men get "man flu" (i.e. a small sniffle that means he takes to his bed), but he always has some ailment or other. After about 5 years together I realised that, generally, these are quite legitimate issues. He has, for example, put his back out a few times. He has torn some muscles, had a motorbike crash. He has asthma and tends to get chest infections. This has led to my theory which we both now recognise as the quota of 3.

The Boy always has 3 ailments. Just when something gets fixed or gets better, something else goes wrong. Many are the times when he has wondered why his wrist hurts, foot aches or some other random problem - and I check how many things were wrong before the latest problem and it would always be 2, with the latest unexplained issue taking him back up to quota. He has pretty much run out of things to catch, but has two permanently torn ligaments in his fingers now, thereby ensuring that 2 of the quota are always filled. When Eve was born there was a bit of a joke as to whether she would have my constitution or his. So far all was looking good (i.e. mine), until this week.

Eve has had reflux since she was about 4 weeks old, but it has gradually been getting better so I was fully expecting when we went to the doctors yesterday that she would be able to come off the drugs she has been taking for it.

Except Eve is taking after her father, although starting small and going for a quota of 1 to begin with. The day before we went to the doctors, as if knowing she would be given the all clear on the reflux, she got conjunctivitus, and now she has a fever too just to make damn sure that if the eye drops work she has something else to be going on with.

Like father, like daughter - in the most unexpected ways.