Knife edge

It’s Friday and I’m balanced on the edge of a knife (ouch). This is as uncomfortable as it sounds. The knife in question is the possibility of R getting ill sometime in the next 24 hours.

I will explain. Lately, we’ve planned a few weekends away, as you will have noted by my scribbles. They haven’t come off, principally because Mouse has become ill at the last minute.

Despite some obvious mixed-up feelings and negative associations with being pissed off that your child is ill, I am bringing this up, because I don’t suppose I’m the only parent who gets exasperated if their plans are put asunder by a vomiting infant. You are horribly concerned for them, and want to make them better, and of course you will stay put and minister to them, but you wouldn’t be human if you weren’t ever so slightly…. pissed off.

Then there are the less-than-understanding folk you were due to see, who generally don’t have kids or haven’t had kids for an age; you have to explain and apologise, and you feel mimsy, over-protective and as though you’ve put them out.

THEN, there’s the fact you’ve nothing in the house to eat and have wasted three or four hours packing which all has to be undone.

What a crap parent I sound like.

Now, R is not ill. He’s at nursery. He went off happy this morning and ate a proper breakfast. However, I keep looking at my phone and expecting the name of the nursery to appear, like an evil charm, which can only mean one thing. He’s ill. I have to leave work. And we’re going NOWHERE this weekend.

I hope this doesn’t come to pass. I hope. I’ve no real reason to expect that it will. It’s just that it has, twice, and with predictable results, so I’m not getting my hopes up this time.