The fi rst hint of a sore throat will have most parents of small children groaning with dread.
It’s not the illness so much as the thought of fulfi lling parental duties while in the grip of a thumping headache and raging fever, with nostrils that feel like they’ve been shrunk to the size of a pinhead.
The typical senario plays out thus. The small person is unwell for about a day before bouncing back to full strength. The bigger people then succumb to the same illness but are fl oored by it for around a week.
Smaller daughter came down with a cold- type bug a few weeks ago. She slept lots and drank lots and - hey presto! - within a day or so she was back to her old self. Phew, I thought. We got off lightly there.
Ha! Within days, her dad and I were shivering and sweating, sneezing and sniffi ng, and aching as though we’d summited Kilimanjaro.
We both felt so bad, each assumed the other was suff ering less. Parenting duties were shared grudgingly as we both fantasised about cool, clean sheets and silent darkness.
Instead I found myself agreeing to play the part of the mountain in a game of Lego man mountaineering, purely because it allowed me to sit with my eyes closed for ten minutes.
Then, a few days later my voice disappeared without trace and I didn’t even have a croak to call my own.
Imagine the look of disbelieving delight on the faces of a four-year-old and a one-year- old who have just realised that a whispery hiss is the best Mummy can do when they’ve been up to extreme mischief. This was the
Please mention thewire when responding to adverts 61
Mum’s talk... by Sarah Reid worst part.
My voice took almost a week to come back. On the plus side, I now know what Bonnie Tyler
singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star sounds like.
This revelation amused me no end in the course of my suff ering, but seemed totally lost on my young audience.
They were just anxious to know if I would be able to shout at them when I found out they’d blocked the sink with cardboard...
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100