I’ve been a bit quiet on the blog this week and the reason is another virus. Living with three children can be wonderful but when they are sick it is horrendous. One thing you might not realise when you decide to have more children is how difficult managing them all when they are poorly can be. They never get the bugs on the same day…no it is always one after each other meaning a simple bug can easily take over a week or two of your life.

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It sounds a bit dramatic but it’s the truth, take this one. Over the past 10 days we have a particularly horrible virus in the house. Its started off as a cold: sore throat, runny nose and cough but quickly turned into the most hellish virus ever: queasiness, dizziness, breathlessness, severe coughing fits, headaches, eye ache and earache. It has been truly awful.

Whilst the bug itself can be awful, the worst things about these times are that the well children still have to go to school, meaning the poorly ones still have to walk there and back even if really sick. There is nothing you can do about it unless Mummy and Daddy are both home during the day. For me this means when my big girls are ill they have to do the school runs six times a day (there there and three back) as Daisy only does mornings. It’s not easy at all but you can’t leave them home alone!

The second difficulty is that its hard enough making sure you spread your attention evenly between three of them but when one is sick all those extra cuddles and attention are carefully noted by the others, resulting in extreme jealousy and possibly naughtiness/ attention seeking behaviours. Not fun at all.

Of course there is all the extra work you need to do too. Trying to debug the house means extra cleaning and washing on top of the normal crazy amount you have with a family of five.

Honestly a simple virus which in some homes might only last a few days, can take a few weeks to go through all of you when you have more children. Of course you can’t just sit cuddling on the sofa for two weeks instead you have to juggle all of those extra cuddles and attention with additional housework, multiple school runs with reluctant poorly ones, the usual homework for older ones, listening to them all read and ensuring they all get a bit of attention and don’t feel left out, as well as managing to cook and prevent or manage jealous behaviours. Phew i’m exhausted just reading that.

This particular virus has gone through the whole house including Mummy and Daddy and has lasted almost two weeks. Rosie is only on day two of it and really isn’t well at all. Fingers crossed she gets well soon and thats the end of it.

Karen x