The best laid plans

Well what a week we have had.

The first two weeks of August are crazy in our house.  Emma and Dan have their birthdays a week apart (it could be worse, I know a couple of people who have kids born on the same day a couple of years apart).  This year we let them both have sleep-overs  (note to self, do not do this again!).  Add to this our cute but naughty new puppy and you have a house in total chaos.

So I thought to myself, I am gonna get sorted this week.  I told the kids things were gonna change, they had new jobs to do and we were gonna get the 3 week crazy mess tidied up all together.  Starting Monday a new system, a new routine. Everyone on board, right, lets go.

Sunday night, Emma wont go to sleep.  She is not happy at all.  I let her back on the couch and eventually she falls asleep and is carried off to bed.

Roll on about 12.30am.  I am woken by unhappy daughter, "I feel sick" and a few minutes later she is sick.  That continues on hourly through the night.

I am not to be detered from my new routine.  When the alarm goes off at 6.30 I get dressed and take the dog for a walk.  He doesnt want to go.  I drag him out the house and down the street.  We get to the park just down the road.  There is a really strange noise and the dog is still pulling to go home.  What is that noise?  Just before it hits I realise it is a monster hail storm.  I pick up dog and run under a tree and wait.  The hail continues.  I pick up dog and run home (dont want him to get hurt by hail).  My great start to the day - we walked about 250m.  I come home and continue on with my plan.

Emma is now lying on the couch constantly moaning and still throwing up.  I take pity on the other two and drive them to school since the weather is appalling and give them instructions to walk home together.  I then take Emma to the drs and insist she is seen straight away.  Her lovely Dr sees her immediately.  He does a few tests and decides she needs to go to Starship for further assessment.  I arrive there at 10.30am  with a miserable exhausted child.  We spend the day with Em being poked and prodded.  She stops throwing up but the stomach pain continues.  And she wont drink.   The only time she shows any joy or enthusiasm is when the cry of "It's snowing" came from around emergency and we all climb up on chairs to look out the window at the white stuff falling from the sky.


They decide to keep her in over night and put her on a drip and observe her.  The only food they can give her is toast and jam.  The only shop open is Subway and she cant eat there and anyway it wouldnt be particularly good to eat when you've been sick all day.  I guiltily buy a sub and scoff it while she munches on dry toast.

We stay overnight.  The good thing about Emma is she has MRSA which means we get our own room with our own bathroom and our own tv and I get a real bed!  The bad thing is she is not allowed out of the room.  In the morning they discharge us.  All her tests came back negative.  Seems like it was just a virus afterall.  Although as she is immunosuppressed a virus can be deadly for her.

So we return home.  The house is even more of a mess.  And I am exhausted.  I manage to do a few things.  Bear is at friends house after school and when I pick her up I stop and have a glass of wine.  I decide that the new routine can wait another day or two. 

Emma still didnt settle last night and was miserable through the night.  I have escaped and gone to work, leaving an unhappy child at home with her dad.

I'll start getting organised again tomorrow...