Plague

This afternoon my beloved spouse waltzed off to the airport, where a luxury jet (hey, any plane without your own children on it is luxurious) whisked him away to the exotic city of New Orleans (see, I wasn't even being sarcastic) where he will man a stand and attend a conference and do stuff-y stuff for four days.

Coincidentally, this morning was exactly when Monkey's cold-of-the-damned turned into pinkeye. (Or conjunctivitis, as we stuffy peoples of the North call it. The other sort of stuffy.)

I had a tiny misgiving about such a possibility yesterday when I registered some gunk on his eyelashes, but I must have missed, or been in denial about, the notice stuck to the classroom door last week letting us know that Somebody had pinkeye. (They always want to preserve the anonymity of the child in quesiton. As if we'd all berate them on their return for bringing illness to school. Well, maybe we would.) When I told him this morning what his ailment was, he said wonderingly, "Oh, that's why my eyes were all sticky yesterday." Would have been handy if you'd told me then. On the other hand, it being the weekend, what could I have done? I'll call the doctor in the morning to find out if they want to see him, and I'll keep him home from school, of course.

The terrible thing about pinkeye is that you can't smuggle the sick child anywhere without being certain that everyone else in the place, whatever place it might be - perhaps the supermarket where you had to pick up some milk and apple juice and, being the only adult present in the household, had to take him along - is noticing his bloodshot orb and condemning you for the terrible parent and human being you are. Perhaps a bell and an "Unclean" sign would help.

But with the other one to entertain and nobody else to delegate to, I took them both to a playground this afternoon, since we hadn't had any fresh air at all and the weather was lovely. I tried to pick one where we were unlikely to run into acquaintances and which is usually pretty empty; but it being Sunday afternoon, there were quite a few kids there and Monkey even made a new friend. (Sorry, Ethan's dad. And mum. And entire class.) Germs can't live outdoors, right? Right?

Anyway, one solo bedtime down, four to go. Actually, apart from the hysterics over the number of pieces of toilet roll he should use (again), bedtime was easy. Mabel's over her regression, or whatever it was, and back to just wanting me to sleep the hours of midnight to 6am with her. And she has a new bed that doesn't creak, so sneaking away is much easier now.

Small girl, big bed