Three Ring Circus

Understatement of the Century.

I hate Winter. I know I’ve said it before here but just to clarify; I REALLY hate it.

I didn’t once upon a long time ago, pre children. Winter was a time to rug up, a time for hot chocolate and blankets on the lounge snuggled up close to David. Winter was a time for exciting Scouting activities and holidays away to even colder locations, open fires, hot casseroles, heaters in the car, slowly thawing out every part of you until just the tip of your nose was cold. Super soft downy quilts that you could snuggle right down in and not have to remove yourself from until the sun had warmed the crisp air to an acceptable level.

Now Winter is full of stuffy doctors rooms, just hot enough to breed a hundred thousand other germs that are not already wracking the smallest of my children. Winter is about tissues and mucous, hacking coughs, headaches, sore throats, Panadol, cough mixture, throat losenges, heat packs and nebulisers. It is about, crying, fragile babies and children, who ache and hurt. Winter, for me, is now about feeling inadequate in my abilities to keep my kids well and pushing fate to the end of her tether, to avoid hospital admissions.

Winter is about illness and getting through those long cold months with minimal assistance from unhelpful medical professionals, who are sick themselves and don’t really want to see one more sick child.

A parcel arrived from overseas yesterday. An ordinary brown box but inside that package were promises of sunshine and long afternoons by the pool. Bright, warm mornings and dinners on the verandah. Just clothes to some but when I opened the box I swear I could almost smell Summer.

I was never a Summer girl. In my younger years, Summer meant hot sticky days, too embarrassed to go swimming for fear that Green Peace would spy me, declare me a beeched white whale and lovingly roll me back into the ocean. Summer meant too much salad. It meant long, hot nights where you wake up in the morning sweating and feeling as though you never slept.

Summer now means at least three months, if not more, virtually, asthma and illness free. It means long legged children running around in the backyard with water pistols and swimming until it’s too dark to see. Summer means, happy, stress free faces, free from runny noses and deep dark circles under their eyes.  Summer means warm, healthy glows coming from radiant sunkissed skin, not the pale pallor of Winter.

I am sitting here, hoping that Ivy and Noah will sleep soon. They have been up for a large part of the night coughing and snuffling. It’s been three weeks and they are getting worse not better. Ivy’s ears are discharging goop again and Noah’s asthma is escalating to a point where I am seriously considering hospital. It’s not easy to see the good in Winter today. I would love to just pack everyone up and steal them away to the warmest part of Australia, right now- to a place where the sun could mend their red, chapped, wind blown lips and the fresh breezy air could blow away all the germs.

After the babies are asleep and I have finally had a shower I might just open that box again and set my imaginings free. An escape from reality might just help me get through today.