Come a little closer

Dash is sick (which is entirely my fault for stupidly - stupidly! - bragging that my children were disgustingly healthy) and I have two posts half-written that have been running round my head for a while now but it turns out they're not very good, or very interesting, or need photos I don't have, or something else unsatisfying, and maybe it's just that I'm unnerved by having my rudely healthy six-year-old completely flaked out on the couch all morning which is just so very uncharacteristic of him that it makes me twitchy.

I think I've mentioned before how becuase my children are rarely sick, I tend to get all melodramatic in my head when they are, and feel like they'll never be well again. On the outside I'm a competent and non-panicky mother, all adequate fluids and keep you warm and no need to call the doctor but I am aware of peritonitis as a thing that exists (and nearly killed my father at the tender age of 5 all those years ago) and check for a rash and so on. But on the inside I'm looking tenderly at his sweet face, so innocent and non-combative in quiet repose, and feeling like Jo in Little Women watching Beth breathe her last. (Okay, not her last. Not just then.) Phrases like "The fever has finally broken" and "galloping consumption" and "youth stolen away" wander across my mind, even though he doesn't have a fever or even a cough.

Mabel seems to have an ear infection too, though it's not in the least bit debilitating except in the middle of the night. Last night after my bringing her a tissue and a waffle and a drink of water (and the boobs, of course, always the boobs) she was still throwing shapes all over the bed instead of falling back asleep, and having wide-eyed conversations with me about totally unrelated things. (Which would be adorable, if it hadn't been 3am.) Eventually she said "Mummy, come closer to me." I was already right there on her pillow, but I put my arms around her and she burrowed her head into my hair and pressed her lips right up against my ear - which tickles, you might know - and whispered "My ear hurts."

Which was great, because then a quick dose of ibuprofen meant she was out for the count and I finally went back to my own bed for a blessed two hours or something of sleep before everyone woke up again for the day. I sent her to school, though, because she's no more contagious with a slight runny nose than she was yesterday, and I dosed her again so her ear definitely won't hurt.

So, sick kids for the win. Remind me to keep my big mouth shut next time, okay?