Fever

Inevitably, F succumbed.

What a relief! I've been dreading this moment for ages. After her first minor flirting with illness, way back when, she's been relentlessly healthy. So much so that I kept thinking whatever got to her first would be double-extra-grim. Pea soup off the walls, frantic screeching at all hours, a frenzy of health care professionals whizzing in and out of the flat with drip stands, EEGs, etc.

Nope.

F sat down in the middle of the floor yesterday afternoon, looking a bit flushed and confused, and sobbed miserably a couple of times. She was trying to play. All the usual stuff was there - the gaudy aeroplane, a scattering of poker chips, three or four opened and discarded books and some dominoes. But she just couldn't get anything to work right.

She was burning up, but other than being a bit weepy and tired, she was fine. She spent the rest of the afternoon sleeping and watching TV on mummy, then woke up and marched me relentlessly round the flat with the 'plane, screaming every time it collided with anything. That was quite a lot, she doesn't really steer, and the screaming was to indicate to me that I needed to make a course correction. That's no way to fly, I kept telling her, you should scream earlier. But she wasn't in a listening mood.

She woke up today after her usual twelve hour sleep, still feverish but entirely perky. And now very much of the opinion that her morning and afternoon naps should be on the sofa whilst watching TV. I explained that wasn't going to happen (tantrum) and indicated that if she didn't want to go to bed, she could carry on playing (tantrum, no I should remain on the sofa so she could sleep on me), but I did give her orange juice instead of water to drink.

Using the bottle as a brush, she painted most of it under the coffee table, except what she got in her socks and mummy's hat, so I think she's probably better. I wish I'd had it that easy.