Three Ring Circus

…in this world that is worse than gastro. It is called PMD or Pathetic Male Disease. It only afflicts the men (boys) of the household. What it means is that when they do catch a cold (or in this case gastro) they catch it FAR worse than any woman (girl) ever could (in their humble opinion). Such is the nature of the disease. When it rears its ugly head it gives them liscence to moan and groan loudly, lie in bed, when everyone else has to get up, hover closely to the matriach of the household and look pathetic. In baby boys’ cases, this insideous illness turns ordinarily independent boys into quivering lumps of human flesh who cannot possibly walk anywhere for themselves. They can no longer talk, only point and grunt to the object that they require (This applies to older boys and adult men too). When boys are struck down with this it makes them grizzle loudly and whinge at everything, no matter what the matriach of the house tries. Men who come down with this bug make an overstated point of soldiering on, even though they are obviously dying, so that the women of the house will praise his ability to go on.

While many women believe that this disease is confined to the male population in their home only, it is believed that PMD is a worldwide phenomenon.

Take heart ladies. Most men who are afflicted with PMD turn out to be very good caretakers if the matriarchs ever contract anything!

*** WARNING, DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE SICK OF HEARING ABOUT THE SICK*** (hey, I just realised I can use colour on this blog!)

It’s very early on Monday morning and I know now that Lily’s vomiting was not just a random act of kindness, in wanting to paint my bathroom. In hindsight, it was foolish of me to relax after a respiratory illness as bad as the flu that has just swept through our house. It was foolish and complacent (there is that word again) of me. Did you know that some viruses can cause respiratory infection AND tummy upsets? Adenovirus springs to mind and, obviously, in this house, influenza too. I have had personal experience with my friend adenovirus. Imogen aquired it some years ago and after a particularly nasty ‘cold’ with asthma involved, it travelled through her system, into her gut and…well, you can imagine the rest. So, now gastro has come to reside in this house. As far as I can tell, it comes in varying forms of disgusting. From the throw everything up and feel better in 24 hours to the nauseated feeling of something isn’t quite right that lasts for days and everything in between. Yuck. If there is one thing I hate more than snot, it’s vomit and if there is one thing I hate more than vomit, it’s diarrhoea. Somebody get me a bucket…

When David discovered Ivy had…soiled her bed in the wee hours of the morning he rapidly made his way to go to work. He washed and dressed (while I cleaned Ivy up - he did strip the sheets for me) and while I was dirty (pardon the pun) that he was about to make a clean (oh I crack myself up) getaway, I also had to laugh because his running commentry really lightened the mood.

Ivy and Noah were sitting on the bed, carrying on with their regular banter of babble, squeals and screeches, when Ivy made a rather loud rasberry "thbrrrrrrrr!" sound. David pipes up …’it was like this’ he explained in a high pitched imitation of Ivy’s voice. Then Noah let out an almighty blurt "Thbbbbrrrrttttt"…"more like that, actually," said David, "I’ll tell you how it really happened". Narrating on his son’s behalf. I fell about the bed laughing, the babies staring at me as if I had forgotten to take my crazy pills this morning. Seeing my mirth, he made to leave and I grabbed him and said, "You think you’re going to work and leaving me with the gastro kids, think again Buster!"

His reply to that? "Buster thanked the mice for the wonderful party… and then he ate them" (apparently an old family saying) and with that vacated the quarantined house. I live in a crazy world people, how is one supposed to stay sane?