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The Mickley Plague

Posted by Lisa on September 3, 2010 Leave a Comment

When we first moved to our house in Derbyshire (we moved from near Heathrow), within a couple of weeks of settling in, everyone came down with (what is affectionately termed as the) Mickley Plague.  This consists of sickness, diarrhea, dizziness, etc.  And, of course, the size of our family means that once one person gets it.. it goes round everyone at least twice.

I mentioned in my last post how Cody was sick on Wednesday morning, so I’m sure you can imagine my joy when, at 5am this morning, I heard Erin whispering in the doorway “I feel sick, mummy”.. followed ten minutes later by Shannon screaming (she’s a little more dramatic than Erin) the same thing.

The pair of them have spent today on the sofas, periodically sleeping (thankfully only one vomiting session courtesy of Erin this afternoon).  Erin seemed to have perked up a bit, until about an hour ago when she started sobbing.  I asked her what was wrong and was given the explanation of “I smell bad, mummy… Cody smells of poo.. but I smell of sick and it’s horrible!!!”  It’s terrible, I know, but I had to swallow a laugh – it just sounded so funny.

You’ll all be pleased to know that she smells much better now, having dashed upstairs for a shower before Matt (a family friend) arrives!

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Walk a mile in my shoes . . .

Posted by Lisa on September 1, 2010 Leave a Comment

Actually I think it was closer to six by the time we got home!

Yesterday, I dropped a text to a friend to see if she fancied taking all the kids to the park – in an attempt to burn off some of their energy since it was a reasonably nice day.  An hour or so after, she phoned and asked when the kids were due to return to school.  When I told her they go back next Tuesday and that I had everything except their school shoes, she said she was in the same position and had the “brain wave” of walking to Alfreton with all the kids, getting their school shoes and taking them to the park there for an hour before coming home again.

Great idea, in theory. . .

Of course, it sounded great so I agreed, met up with her at 12.10 and with 4 pushchairs and 13 kids between us.. yes, you read that right – thirteen!. . . we set off.  To walk the 2.7 mile journey to Alfreton took us until 1.50pm!  This was a walk that alone I can do in about half an hour.

After calling into the local bank to get some funds, we counted up the kids and set off toward the bakery to get them some lunch.  We had all the kids with us when we began to cross the road, yet when I came out of the bakery, my middle daughter, Cate (who’s 4), was missing.  To say I panicked would be an understatement.  My kids are never out of my eyesight when we’re out so I sent the oldest (who’s 15) who she had been walking with back toward the back with the uttered threat of killing him if she wasn’t there.  Thankfully she was!  I don’t think I can describe the terror of those few minutes when I thought she was missing.. I feel sick thinking about it even now.  What we think happened is that when we started to cross the road, she let go of the pushchair he was pushing and stepped back toward the bank, maybe thinking I was still inside.  Either way, thankfully she’s safe.

After that traumatic experience, we did the shopping thing – finding shoes, lunch boxes and a cute t-shirt or two for Cody (who’s 18 months) and then headed to the park for an hour where they all ran themselves ragged.  At approx 4.20 we set off for home and that 2.7 mile walk again and didn’t get home until 6.20!!!!  Talk about shattered!

The kids all had a quick easy meal and showers then went off to bed exhausted.  And I was in bed by 10.30 too.  Unfortunately, a good night’s sleep was not to be had since Cody then decided he was going to throw up all night long and when he wasn’t being sick he was going to cling.

So, at 3am, Cody and I were lying on the sofa watching Rory the Racing Car followed by FiFi and the Flowertots  - not really what I wanted to be doing at that time!

He finally settled back down at around 4.30 and we headed back to bed, where he insisted on sleeping between me and his dad.  He’s spent the entire day today crying and yawning, my poor little man!

On an up note, my new laptop arrived today – a nice shiny Samsung R530 – and very sexy it is too.  After spending a couple of hours setting it up and then removing half the software it came with – I’m almost at the point where I have everything I need installed.  Got a few more bits to do tomorrow and then it’ll be perfect :D

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A recap over the last few weeks!

Posted by Lisa on August 30, 2010 4 Comments

. . .  or something like that,anyway!

I figure I might as well start as I mean to go on and tell you straight off the bat (just in case you didn’t read the short blurb on the sidebar or the About Me page) I’m a terrible parent.  I am!  I mean (for those of you in countries other than the UK) the kids have been on school holidays since the last week of July and, I swear, I’m going crazy.  I’m now literally counting down the minutes until they go back (which is next Tuesday – 7th September – incidently).

The problem has been that the car has broken down – I’m told that the head gasket as blown and – while that brings up interesting visions of exploding heads I’m pretty sure that’s not the case – that meant we haven’t been able to take the kids anywhere other than the local park and, unfortunately but typical of the UK, the weather has sucked LARGE and hasn’t been park-going weather.  So, instead of the usual gorging of days out we’ve been cooped up at home.

Just imagine, if you will, the following (and at the same time I’ll introduce you to the cast of regulars!)

  • 1 small 4 bedroomed house, with two sitting rooms and a tiny back garden
  • 5 young children aged 8, 6, 4, 2 and 1
  • 2 teenage boys aged 15 and 17
  • 2 adults (that would be me and Gary)
  • 2 dogs (although to be fair, it was only one dog until Saturday 21st August)
  • 1 cat (with 4 kittens – not ready to be let loose on the world for another 4 weeks!)

And for the whole six weeks holiday, for the majority of the time we’ve all been stuck inside!

Torture?  Hell yeah!

So we’re five weeks into the holidays, we managed to get a day out to Gulliver’s Kingdom at the beginning of the holidays, borrowing Gary’s dad’s car to get there and back.  Other than that, we’ve had parent & toddler group on a Wednesday morning and that’s been pretty much all they’ve had to do outside of the house.  Can you even imagine the frustration with this amount of people confined to a small space?  The kids have been up at 6am every morning… yes, every morning!…. and I think I’m so tired that if someone offered me an hour extra in bed I’d bite their hand off.

I don’t know about the kids but I’m sure as hell ready for them to go back to school… and so I’ve come to a conclusion.  The six weeks summer holidays aren’t done to give children a break, it’s an accceptable and unrecognised form of torturing adults!

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