Sick Week.

The first week of the second term at school is now over. This week has been the single most frustrating, infuriating, stressful week of my whole entire parenting career. Someone please tell me, where do I hand in my application for stress leave?

Sick Mother
I have been very sick.... hence why the lack of blogging. It was just a headcold sort of thing, but boy was it bad. The only times I tend to get this sick are when I am really run down. I guess I have been these past months since I had the baby. Thankfully, my husband was kind enough to take a day off work to tend things around here so I could spend one blessed day on the couch just resting. Days like this are rare for me, and I am so grateful to him for doing it.

Sick Boy
My son has been sick. When he is sick, his autism symptoms are always worse. One tiny thing done differently that wouldn't normally affect him, causes him huge stress instead. Take this afternoon at dinner for example: I went to put his toast on the table, and in my other hand had an empty cup for his drink. When I walked away without putting the cup down in front of him (I went to fill it for him first), he went nuts. This is not normal behaviour for my son. It could also be something as simple as his dad getting him out of bed instead of me.


Sick Baby
My baby has been sick. As a result of this, I spent a literally sleepless night with her last night. I think I got all of 1 hour of sleep: 30 minutes when I first came to bed, and 30 minutes in the morning just before hubby left for work. She has been insanely grizzly all day as well. To top it off, when I try to give her some medication, she just retches and throws it up. (In the end, I mixed the dose with some caramel custard. She managed to eat that, but still didn't like it much). But she growls and cries, and this aggrivates my son even more. Strangely enough, my older daughters seem to choose these times to come to me with requests and silly questions. /sigh.

Sick Daughters
My big girls have been sick too. Though not as severe as the rest of us. And thankfully, being bigger girls, they can tend to manage alright. The one exception here is when I tried to give the middle one a dose of Dimetapp. She clamped up her mouth and refused to open it. Behaved the same as my autistic toddler son! Only she is 6 years old, and certainly knows better! This drove me crazy. I was so frustrated and angry at this point, that I nearly burst into tears. This one also tends to leave her stuff everywhere and ignore my directions to put her things away. As a result, she couldn't find one shoe this morning for school, and made everyone late while 'looking' for it. There were several other small instructions that she failed to follow, leading to annoying consequences at various times. Stuff that doesn't help when you are tired, sick and already have alot going on.

I am hoping desperately that this weekend sees everyone recovered so I can get into a proper routine, and get back to the business of life.




xx