Vomiting Bug

It’s hard work looking after sick people when you’re not feeling too flash yourself and you’re not a good nurse at the best of times.

It’s been a week of: “Mum, I need a drink of water.”, “Mum, can I have some medicine?”, “Can you put a dvd on?” “I need a sick bowl.”

This all being yelled at me from various rooms of the house. And then the latest: “Mum, I have the hiccups.”

I know how to get rid of the hiccups: “Ragghh!” There – fixed.

In case you hadn’t guessed, the tummy bug hit our household this week. It has been doing the rounds and, if it hasn’t hit you yet, don’t be too smug.

You can pretty much guarantee that if one family member comes down with it, it will wipe out the entire junior associates at least.

So after the twins had vomited throughout their dad’s car and all through their beds and then had the subsequent days off school from lethargy, I was pretty amazed when a day or two went by without their older brother getting it.

Master Eight has had a change in attitude of late, earning him stickers for his sticker chart left, right and centre. But one night early this week there was a slip-up. I reminded him what it felt like to be unwell and how he would like it if this was antagonized by someone saying something unkind.

And then I followed with the usual: “Remember, bad things happen when you’re naughty.”

I was actually a little nervous of this happening – I guess it’s one of the many downsides to being a working mother – but it was just a matter of waiting for the inevitable really.

Sure enough, that night, just after I’d drifted off, I was awoken to a slight choking sound, followed by “Pitter-patter, pitter-patter.”

I turned on the light, just in time to witness a large volume of vomit fly across my ensuite.

He almost made it on time and I had to give him ten points for trying.

My poor little man was sent back off to bed with a sick bowl and I cleaned up the mess and went back to bed.

However, it just wasn’t my night. I’d no sooner switched off the light when I heard the unmistakable sound of a cat coughing up what I thought was a fur ball.

On went the light again and I leaned over the bed to witness something resembling a string of sausages erupting from my cat’s mouth.

I’m sorry, I should have warned you not to be eating your breakfast before reading this.

It seemed I was up to my eye balls in barf and I resigned to the fact that sleep would be eluding me that night. It was going to be one of those nights.

It seemed to be just a 12-hour thing but when you times that by three and take into account the subsequent days of lethargic kids listlessly rolling round on the couch with empty stomachs, it all adds up. Because, instead of coming down with bugs in unison, it’s one after the other like a domino-effect.

However, Master Eight’s tummy bug lingered. When I was sure it was over, I arose that morning with a positive attitude, certain everyone would be back at school and I could return to work.

But, minutes later my plans for the day went down the toilet literally as I helplessly watched an entire stomach’s contents land in it.

So, if all this fun and games hasn’t hit your household this week, here’s a head’s up: if your children uncharacteristically go off their food, line their beds with towels and have spew bowls at the ready.

Maybe steer clear of feeding them meatballs and noodles too …

Cats and Cars

“Dude, you need to seriously wash your car,” remarked my work-mate gazing out the window at a shockingly filthy four-wheel drive that had just rolled into the car park.

“He probably lives on a dirt road and takes the same route every day and doesn’t see the point in washing it in between,” I commented.

“I’m terrible at washing my car,” I added. “Before I had babies, my car and my cats used to be my babies and I’d take good care of both – now they both don’t get a look in.”

It’s true – you know your biological clock is ticking when you put your cats down for afternoon naps. Did I just admit to that? Woopsie.

Did you know a new toy came on the market recently called The Crazy Cat Lady? Well that is no longer me.

I’ve warned many a pregnant friend, whose pet is their pride and joy, that this will happen to them and they always respond with “Uh-uh, not me!”

“Believe me,” I will insist. “I once taxied home from a night out because I had the sudden fear that my kitten had jumped in the fridge and got locked in.” (This actually happened, although the kitten was spotted before the door was shut.)

Sure enough, the baby is born and their animal is out the door.

Mind you, if they’re anything like my cats were, once they first hear the startling, foreign sound of a baby crying, they’re out the door off their own accord.

This lasted a few months until they got over their ‘pip’ and gradually but tentatively migrated back indoors, which posed its own set of problems. Once the cats had got over their jealousy and accepted the new member of the family they also cottoned onto the fact that a baby is quite soft and warm to cuddle up to - slightly alarming to a new mother.

Likewise with the new cot and bassinette that one day appeared in the spare room pre-baby.

Balloons, was the advice I was given in a bid to stop said cats sleeping in the new cot, because cats are meant to be scared of balloons right?

Not mine, instead I came home from work to find them asleep on top of the popped balloons! Same with the plastic bags I next placed in the cot to deter the moggies.

Anyway that’s enough about cats – apparently subsequently bringing two babies home from the hospital at once was too much for one of them anyway and she skedaddled and never came back. But that’s a sore point so I will bring it back to cars.

This was once my pride and joy pre-babies too. It was in immaculate state. Mind you, it was a completely different vehicle – isn’t if funny how one tiny baby generates an upgrade to a big four-wheel drive?!

Today’s car would be lucky if it gets a wash twice a year. And the interior is worse. It is not uncommon for family cars to be lined in a permanent thick layer of sand and raisons with sticky hand prints smeared up the windows.

So while my priorities may have shifted for the next 20 years or so, I know one day I will have an immaculate car once again.

The disturbing factor that comes with that is the return of the crazy cat lady.

Teenage Master Eight

I think I’ve had a glimpse of Master Eight’s teenage self this week. 

Carrying on from last week’s theme, I obediently refrained from greeting him with a kiss and cuddle at the school as requested and we proceeded to walk home.

I don’t recall what I said and did on the way home that embarrassed him but he was acting strange.

Once we’d turned down our driveway he let me have it.

How was I to know a girl from his class had been walking behind us the whole way?

Once he got over his humiliation, the second incident occurred. He’d built a hut which took up most of the lounge and his little brother walked over part of it to get to the tv remote.

A rather forceful one-sided scuffle ensued, tempers flared and Master Eight was sent to the naughty stair. There, he proceeded to kick the wall and verbalise abuse aimed at his ‘mean mummy’ which was just loud enough to reach everyone’s ears upstairs.

“Mean Mummy, I don’t love her anymore. I want to go and live at Daddy’s. My Mummy’s dumb.”

I left him there a while to cool down. This took a while after I paid a visit to notify him his ipad privilege had been deducted for the rest of the evening.

Eventually he was allowed to come out, once he’d decided he was calm enough to go and put things right. He knows the drill - it involves an apology and kissing the place he hurt, a cringe-worthy task.

He skulked up the stairs, went through the procedure, before grabbing a pen and paper and, shooting me an evil stare, stalked off to his room.

I carried on cooking the dinner but couldn’t ignore the uneasy feeling that something was up. Surely he wasn’t going to run away from home. He was mad enough that I wouldn’t put it past him. 

I crept down to his room before he could slam the door in my face and was just in time to catch a glimpse of a ‘Hate List’ with my name up the top.

Charming.

This was particularly naughty as I’ve taught the kids that ‘hate’ is a swear word. Still, at least it wasn’t a ‘run-away from home’ note.

“This would break my heart,” said a fellow mum to me and I realised I must be hardened. It probably began when he was two and, after being sent to his room, waged a personal vendetta on me by tearing up every single photograph that I featured in.

I ignored him and his mood for the remainder of the evening until I found him back on the ipad.

“Right, no Shortland Street for you tonight either,” I declared. “Go to bed.” I’d had enough of this monster who’d taken over my son. I could only hope the monster was replaced by my nice sweet boy in the morning and I told him so, although he pretended not to listen.

It’s amazing what a good night’s sleep can do and the next morning I was greeted by my happy, charming little man.

This lasted until we got in the car to go to school. Clearly he was back in ‘pick-on-my-siblings’-mode.

“Mum did you know Jai’s name sounds like ‘vagina’? announced my bright spark of an eight-year-old. “Va-jaiii-na,” he said.

This, as you can imagine, went down well - cue World War Three.

Luckily this war abruptly ended with school drop-off. I could only wait and see what mood emerged from the gates at 3pm.

Farewell Etiquette

Apparently I’m so uncool Master Eight doesn’t even want to be seen with me inside the school grounds anymore.

Long gone are the days when he’d happily give me a kiss and cuddle goodbye outside his class. This evolved into a sheepish smile at age six, and then me chasing him and his giggling friends across the field, arms outstretched, at age seven.

It was fun embarrassing him then because he didn’t mind too much.

But this year it’s gone from requesting I give him a kiss and cuddle inside the car at school drop off to this morning’s: “Mum, can you say goodbye to me now?”

“But we haven’t even left home yet!”

“I know,” he said leaning over the hand brake to give me a hug while we were still parked inside the garage.

“Mum can I be second?” piped up Master Five from the back as we went up the drive.

This wasn’t because he finds me embarrassing – I don’t think the thought has crossed his mind yet – but because it’s a race to get into school.

“No, you will be third because you have to get out your sister’s side and you are going to be a gentleman and wait for her to get out first,” I replied.

 Every morning we have this trouble. With Miss Five seated closest to the footpath – the side they both need to get out - Master Five, always chaffing at the bit to race to class, pushes past while his sister is still trying to pull her bag out. This causes a tangle of limbs, bag straps and sibling abuse while I stand nearby giving Master Five a dressing down about manners.

By the time he lurches out of the car he’s in a fouler and doesn’t want a kiss and cuddle anymore, Miss Five is usually upset and Master Eight has already slunk off.

So this morning I began to lecture him about being a gentleman.

“You’re going to find it really hard to get a girlfriend one day if you don’t brush up on your manners and become a gentleman,” I said.

“I don’t want a girlfriend!” he declared while his siblings cracked up.

“You will one day – trust me. And so will your brother,” I added, because he was by now laughing hysterically at his brother’s expense.

But it was too late – Master Five had dissolved into tears. Apparently the thought of having a girlfriend – even as an adult – was unbearable.

I decided to save the lecture about opening doors and learning to dance equalling being a ‘chic magnet’, for another day when they were older and when it wasn’t directed at their retreating backs.

Because, for now, they were too intent on rudely tripping over each other to get into school.

Momentos

“Now I understand all the posts from mums wishing for school holidays to end, and it’s only kindy we’re on break from – Arrrrggghhhh! - :( Feeling frustrated,” read a friend’s Facebook post this week.

This was followed by a series of both empathetic posts – “Haha, I know, patience is my new mantra at the moment”, along with the number of times their child has been in time out, to the opposite reaction from those enjoying being in holiday-mode.

It’s always a challenge entertaining the troops during the rainy season holidays. In a bid at killing two birds with one stone – a form of entertainment, whilst achieving something the kids could help with - I decided to clean out their rooms these holidays.

Help out? Yeah right, and it was entertaining to them for all of one minute. Instead I found myself regrettably standing in the middle of a room that was knee-deep in toys and, err … paper.

How I got myself in this predicament was by pulling out the twins’ beds and unearthing all manner of material. I won’t go into detail here, although expecting to come across a dead mouse in Master Eight’s room the following day made for slow and tentative progress.

Although there were no dead animals or even decaying food matter (bar the standard raison), it turns out, underneath the beds is where they shove everything and anything they don’t want seen. This applies to contraband – (yes there were some ‘aha’ moments), long-forgotten home made cards which never made their way to the intended recipients, and all the items which they were too lazy to put away when I’ve told them to clean their rooms.

But most of all were all the stacks of paper – I’d say about half a forest’s-worth – and this, I realised, was my fault.

You see, at least two of my three are budding artists and it is not uncommon for one of them to produce up to 20 pictures a day. But what does one do with all this artwork?

Every night when they’ve gone to bed I edit their work and filter out the best ones, placing the more effortless ones in the recycling. (It is not uncommon for someone to pull a poorly-hidden picture from the recycling the next day and ask: “Mum, why have you thrown (insert name) picture away?!”)

More often than not they are too special to throw away (how can one bin a picture covered in love hearts and the word ‘Mum’?) So, already with my ‘special drawer’ crammed full of such momentos, I shove the others under their beds aiming for the pile I once started which has subsequently spilled out the length and height of their beds.

So while I was standing in amongst this mess, my friend came around. She gave a knowing look and said: “Ah, I did the same thing last week and it stayed tidy for half a day.”

It turns out the mere sight of all their unearthed and long-forgotten toys all lined up neatly where they should go is high-excitement and the kids go to town. Mine were no exception.

The next day I must’ve been a bit grumpy about the state of their upturned rooms because the twins, who’d clearly helped themselves to my stationary, produced a card printed: “With deepest sympathy. May the sympathy and love of family and friends comfort you at this sad time.” And scrawled in childish handwriting: “To Mum. Get better soon. I love you Mum.” This was surrounded in red love hearts.

Another one to add to the drawer.