God, I am such an idiot.

As a rule, I hate my hair, but now I hate it even more.

Hate. Honestly. With a vengeance.

I wandered into one of your standard Take A Ticket and Wait Your Turn budget hairdressers last week, thinking maybe a trim? Except now my hair sits at just above my shoulders, which is neither long or short, which annoys me. Then today, amid all the hating and the being annoyed, I remembered that before Wednesday, I was, in fact, in the process of growing it longer. Which wouldn't be as annoying if this new cut didn't make it look even more like ass than it usually does. Which it does. Look like ass. God, I look like ass. I mean, I usually do but now I really, really do. And *drumroll please* I had some stupid wispy bangs cut and god, shoot me, shoot me now.

I'm not finished either. On that same day, I had my eyebrows 'shaped', which is apparently code for 'surgically removed'.

Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.

Fuck.

a funny thing happened on the way home from the store

I've only just finished giving my statement to the police after Daniel and I were involved in a probably unarmed but according to the, uh, bandits? armed hold up earlier this evening.

I suppose I should be in shock or worrying about what could have been but I'm totally amused by the whole thing. Maybe if I'd seen a gun or a knife, or maybe if I didn't live my lie so much in denial. Regardless, I just think it was really neat that we were there and I really hope that the police photographers give us copies because they'll make a really cool addition to the My First Year book I haven't been keeping for Daniel.

Goodness me though, the police arrived in within five minutes, while Store Guy was still on the phone from making the call actually. Then there were cops everwhere when uniforms began streaming into the store, followed closely by detectives wearing coats and talking into two way radios. Even the dog squad was brought in to pick up the trail. This is apparently what they do, saturate the area to find the perps (my term, not theirs. See: too many nights watching Law and Order") because they have to leave the backstreets at some point and when they do, *bam*. At least, thats how it goes in an ideal world.

It really was totally like being on any one of the cop shows on TV today. The head honcho bandit had even done the gangsta overhand 'yo' thing when taking the money from Store Guy. Because he was so cool, I expect. Bandit #2 barely involved himself by muttering something unoriginal and totally not scary like "and you better fuckin' hurry", but it was said so softly that no one but me was close enough to hear him. I was pretty close to the whole thing, about three or four feet I reckon, with Daniel in my arms so we both got front f=row tickets to the show. I found it amusing that #2's contribution to the whole event was largely redundant as by the time he uttered his immrtal words, #1 was already in possession of the bountiful wads of cahs.

The cops let me leave before taking my statement because I'm a special, and came by my house later instead. I don't know if I made it up as I went along, or if I actually did give a 'really good' statement but, whatever. When Daniel's old enough to be impressed, and when I recount the story to him then, you can be sure it will be the latter, adn you can also be sure that there will be certain passages about semi automatic weapons (theirs) and heroic acts saving us all (mine).

not so sleeping beauty

Daniel woke from his nap several minutes ago, squawked for a bit and then, I thought, went back to sleep. I just went to check on him though and as I approached the door, could hear he was awake and carrying on a conversation with himself. It's those kind of moments, along with ones involving the back of his head and/or half worn socks, that give this whole sleep deprived gig its worth.

still ill

Until three weeks ago when we saw another doctor because Daniel had felt a bit warm the night before, not feverish mind, warm, and because my regular doctor had said that if Daniel gets ill with his ear infection, ie spikes a fever, give him the antibiotics, but only if, Daniel had been holding his own. He's copped his fair share of colds, but never really got more than a sniffle out of them. In the mean time, probably because of the never ending nature of all these damn rhinoviruses (virii?) his ears had become a bit bunged up. I of course, went down for the count with each one, sans ear issues, but ol' sporky? He just kept on being the delicious, albeit snotty, goob he usually is. His regular doctor had given us a script, but had said to hold off on the antibiotics until he got ill and/or spiked a fever. Being the indecisive fuck that I am , when Daniel felt that bit warmer than usual, I couldn't decide if 'a bit warm' equalled 'raging fever', so along we went. This new doctor said Daniel didn't have temperature, but that a 'leetle antibiotic, just a leetle one' would do him the world of good, and would get rid of that mild infection he had in his right ear. 'But', I said, 'last week there were two infections and we held off then. Aren't we half way to happy ears already?' while feeling guilty because second guessing my motives is what I'm about. She coaxed, I ummed, then I canned the guilt by filling the script, and cultived a newer, fresher guilt for the four mils of the crap that I poured down the boy's throat twice each day - and waddya know, it only took three days of this for Daniel to develop bronchiolitis, get the gooey eyes, and to top it off with stereo juicy ear infectons, so we got a new script, one that entailed steroids (!) and a different, more kick ass antibiotic.

The dirty hippy in me is convinced that it was the original dabbing of the metaphorical toe into the metaphoric pond of all things antibiotic that knocked his immune system and made things go from cruising along to the two trips to the emergency ward we've taken this week.

Since the wee hours of Sunday morning, Daniel has been spiking fevers of 38.5C, and given his temp on a good day usually hovers around a hypothermic 34C*, that's waaay too high. The worrying thing has been that, apart from the fevers, Daniel has had no outward signs of what might be causing them. No cough, no gluggy eyes, no blocked nose, nothing, and our first trip to yet another doctor on Sunday morning, revealed no ear infections either. That doctor wanted to test him for a UTI then see him again in three days for the results. I figured fuck that noise, and took Daniel's floppy little self along to the emergency ward, where they found....nothing. 'It's probably viral, go home', so we did.

Tuesday though, he was worse so we went back, and after blood tests and more urine samples, we're still in the dark. Any infection has been ruled out, which given the dude's immunisation history *ahem*, was what I was worried about so, phew, and it's probably viral, which means we can't do anythng about it excpet wait. Oh, and to fuck the doctor (metaphorically) and come back to the ER immediately if he gets any worse.

While he was still a mere facsmile of his ridiculous self yesterday, he hadn't had a fever overnight, so is already much improved. He was a bit subdued but able to play and smile a bit, until he became a total pill and drove me insane with the refusing to sleep in favor of crawling around my feet whimpering to be picked up before going all McWrigglyfuck on me and whimpering to be put down again. Today is a little better as he's actually asleep right now, but he's still high dependancy boy and I'm still going a little cabin crazy.

In other news, I dropped him on his head on Monday. Well, not actually dropped him, but close enough - and just so we're clear, not because of his pill like state.

I've taken pride in being one of only a handfull of mothers who haven't let their kids fall off the bed, and because Daniel is at a stage where he can safely crawl off the (low) bed, I thought we were home and hosed. However, in a moment of duh, I sat Daniel on the bed and turned my back to do something forgettable. As he usually does when placed so, he leaned forward to go the crawl, except I'd put him too close to the edge of the bed so that when he leaned forward, he leaned right off the bed. I was a millisecond too late and as I reached to stop his fall, Dude somersaulted off the bed and with a resounding 'thuck', introduced the back of his head to the linoleum-on-a-cement-slab floor. Ouch. He was either remarkably calm or almost knocked unconscious though, and barely made a peep so life went on, tra la.





*fear not, gentle readers, my boy is not an amphibian. I just can't use those digital thermometers for shit.

*punt*

Having finished up with my clients by 2.15 yesterday afternoon, I raced back to Daniel's childcare centre to collect the little goober in time to take him with me to a 3-o-clock doctor's appointment. Before he saw me, I stood to the side and watched him play, quite happy in his own company and quite determined to climb the little plastic hill that led inside the plastic tunnel. He was so absorbed in what he was doing that I decided then to leave him there for a couple more hours, in the company of his carers, a shitload of toys, and within a snore's distance of a nice, comfortable bed for when he needed to nap. As I was wallowing in this little picture of contentment, an eighteen month old punk appeared on the hill from the other side of the tunnel, and decided that the only thing coming between being The King Of The Castle and being just another kid on a toy was my son, so as I watched, unable to do anything from the other side of the room except to wave my arms and call out to what appeared to be several thousand inattentive carers milling about, he pushed Daniel down the slope by thwacking him on the head with the sole of his foot and when that didn't work, he began slamming the the heel of his boot into the back of my boy's coconut.

and please, feel free to use your own punctuation for that last sentence.

I can still picture Daniel's little face as he turned away from the danger, and I can still see the big ol' 'What the fuck?!' that was as good as written across it in the instant before he broke out the wails of fear and hurt. By that time, I was there, having lept fifteen small children in a single bound, and scooped him into my arms up while unleashing my death ray glare onto the kid who would be King.

According to the supervisory carer person, wannabe-boy wanted to play with Daniel, but according to me he should be doing ten to twenty behind bars for aggravated assault.

Yes I know kids will be kids and that Daniel has a few knocks ahead of him that I won't be there to protect him from. Yeah. Yadda yadda. I know all that shit, and that's why after I rescurd him, I kissed him on the nose and pretended that having his head squished by some punk in steel caps was no big deal. Daniel's going to get a lot more knocks and I'm okay with that, as long as I never, ever have to watch the beating go down again. It is for this reason, in my newly minted opinion, that god invented childcare. It's a safe and supervised environment where kids can get beaten up by their peers, without their poor mothers having to referee the scrums themselves.

We left then and we spent the afternoon in a doctor's office with only my car keys to play with. I didn't take him with me becuase of the danger lurking behind that other child's dark heart and on top of every plastic contraption, but because have you ever tried leaving your kid once he thinks he's going home with you? I made that mistake on Tuesday, after one of his carers had taken him away before I'd kissed him goodbye. I trotted over to where he was sitting and leaned over to lay on on him. He lit up like a Christmas tree and held his arms out so I could pick him up, which would have worked had an entire day passed and had I been there to take him home. Which I wasn't. Lesson learned: Daniel's childcare days have a pattern he can understand. We go there together, he stays a while and then we go home together again, so having upset that balance, dude's little face crumbled into tears, and I could hear him sobbing as I cried my own big ploppy tears into my shirtsleeves as I walked out the door.

He's wake again so on that note, the end.

the week in brief

Last friday, it was thirteen years since my father died. It was also the first time since that day that I forgot (forgot!) to put something in the paper. Not one of those 'Dear dead person, I miss you' things because as far as I know, dad no longer reads the daily paper so sending him a message there for him to read? Would not work. Nah, I just like his name being seen by whoever reads that section of the paper because he existed once and I like to remember that he did.

Last Tuesday, Daniel was nine months old. He is truly a jolly good fellow, and so say all of me. He's on another course of antibiotics for another ear infection, but his chest is clear and he's back to being his usual ridiculous self. Honestly, I had no idea babies laughed so much. I thought that in between screaming and sleeping, they mostly lay around like logs and, you know, grew, but obviously they're a lot more entertaining than that. And funny? Hooey! When Daniel isn't being occupied by the viruses (virii?) which make him a little less amused and a little more sad and pathetic, you'll generally find him hunkered down with his basket of crap - which, hello. Side bar.

He has this tub 'o toys, a regular treasure trove of plastic crap that is conveniently located in the middle of the floor so that he can at any time, delve into it to pick out whatever bright, shiny and overpriced trinket he feels like shoving into his gaping maw. Then there's this wicker basket in the corner that has a few things in it that kinda got tossed in there because I don't know. Off the top of my head, there's a pair gloves, a hat, a beanie, one of those thermal lunch bags and several assorted postcard thingiedoovers. There's more in there, but those particular items are like crack to Daniel, especially the postcards. I'll plonk him on the floor next to his squillions of dollars worth of toys, and he'll push them aside in the rush to get across the room to his cheap, beloved basket. I suppose there could be a moral to this story, or a lesson, but fuckit.

Anyway, I'll try and pick up whre I left off but I'm kind of segue-less right now, suffice to say that Daniel willl be almost head first in the basket and shoving postcards into his mouth, and because he's so much more amusing than I figured babies to be, he'll also be stopping every few seconds to look up at me and laugh because as far as I can tell, postcards and gloves are hilarious

Dude laughs at everything and everyone. All you need to do is make eye contact with him and it's on - and if I pretend to tickle him, he practically blows a gasket, and if I do tickle him...I was a bit worried about his brain cells dying off or something, but the doctor reckons (yes I asked) that no, Daniel is just enjoying himself, not going batshitcrazy from being inescapably overstimulated.

Mum called today to see how he was doing, but mostly to say. "There was that cold going around the las time I was in MyTown, remember? It was on the news, and they were saying that you should stay away from shopping centres because of this awful chest cold going around". Which is a big pile of steamingly pungent horse manure because that news report never happened. Oh, there was probably some shit about the new 'flu vaccine and how this year's flu is going to be the worst one ever with plagues of locusts and bla bla bla, which is what they say every year because it's marketing and it sells vaccines, but that shit about staying away from shopping centres to avoid chest cold nevah happened. Thing is, she knows I take Daniel to the supermarket on a daily basis, and I know that she wants me to keep him under a glass done on the side board, much like one would a stinky cheese, so her comment was an I Told You So with a dig at my mothering skilz on the side.

Daniel gets a kick out of colours and lights and people, and he gets a kick out of going for a walk in his carrier, so shopping for him is not about consumables, its about experiencing all those things going on at once. We spend ages in there for only a few items, strolling up and down each aisle while his head swivels around taking it all in while the store detective follows us from what she thinks is an unobtrusive and totally not suspicious distance. She used to follow us more closely, I think to intimidate me into not cramming bags of rice in my pockets or something, til I swung around one day, and before she could disguise herself as a regular shopper by reading the label on a jar of chutney, asked her to quit following me so closely because she was ruining my shopping experience. Or something. I don't quite remember what I said, but I did use the word 'harrassment' which I think sent visions of lawsuits her way because while I still know she's there, it's not because I can feel her wedged in my butt cheeks. Granted, if I wasn't there most days of the week, I probably would look like an shoplifter, what with the leisurely pace and the only two or three items I leave with, but I'm there most days. Even shoplifters aren't dumb enough to go back to the scene of the crime day after day. Sheesh.

bla di bla di bla

I was over on Idiosyncratic Routine reading about Kate's last week today (wtf?) and I got to thinking. Then the baby shat his pants and I lost my train of thought, but whatever.

There is nothing wrong with going out with a guy friend.

There is nothing wrong with porn either, in the right context, but that's a whole 'nother page right there. Personally, I don't get off on it, but I respect that it has its place in some people's lives. I'm more likely to spend my time stifling giggles at the sound effects or scoring them on a scale of 1 to 10 for authenticity. Oh wait! There was this one time when we were watching a group sex shindig thing where there were, like, twenty guys taking turns giving it to this sheila right up her poopchute. Firstly, choice of two, so hello? Secondly, there was this one guy who faked it. He actually pretended to ram the star of the show so while he tried to hide his lack of adequately inflated equipment, I could see that all he was doing was banging his thighs against her arse and moaning. We rewound that section several times while I held up my "number 1" score card. But I digress. Suffice to say that if my sex life isn't fucked up, no pun intended, because my guy likes porn, then his relationship he has with his hand is none of my business. Unless of course he's whacking off to pictures of children or women blowing goats or the like because that's some serious fucked up shit right there. Seriously though, getting to a point in your life where you think to yourself "You know what'd be really hot? Giving head to a farm animal." is pretty fucked up in itself, but going ahead and doing it? On the internet? Good lord, I hate to think of the path that preceded that particular moment of glory.

Back to my original point which is, jiminy crispers, does sleeping with one guy mean you have to ignore the fact that half the population on this planet is a guy too, and that given the odds, you're likely to enjoy the company of seventy billion of them too?

Men (and women) who get jealous, in my judemental little opinion, get so because they know their contribution to the relationship isn't enough and so expect their partner to be dissatisfied enough, or sad enough even, to look elsewhere. People who get jealous usually, in my other small minded opinion, do their best to diminsh their partner's self esteem, the logic being, if they're insecure enough, they won't leave them for an upgraded and more loving model, rather, they'll hang on to the jealous partner like they were a life buoy as by this point, their jealous partner has them convinced that they're unloveable.

If you know you're making your partner feel special and loved and cherished, why would you worry if she or he went out for a beer with someone else? If you truly and selflessly love someone, you want them to have fun, you want them to enjoy life, and you want them to have a life apart from the one you share with them, because that kind of partner knows that love isn't about ownership, or about each 'completing' the other. They're already complete so they don't need anyone to 'complete' them (god, I hate that phrase). They know that love and need are NOT the same thing, and they know that love is about sharing a life, not owning one.

If that kind of partner feels insecure about their equal partner in life going out - and they do - they own their insecurity, they don't pass it off for the other to wear. Think "I worry that I'm not enough for you" or "that you'll like him/her better" versus the Other Half's (to whit, ick. I mean, who determines which half you are? Are you, the left side or the right? Bottom or top? Or d'ya think the half is more evenly distributed so that you get two arms and one leg while the rest of the other half belongs to your Other Half?) accusation of "You fucking slut!" when all we're talking about is a beer and a few peanuts. Seriously, which is more likely to be rewarded with reassurance and love, and which with lies and deceit? How do you spell 'deceit'? According to Dictionary.com I'm right. Well then - and you know what else?! Practise is the verb, practice is the noun. Yeah, I know. Who fucking knew? Not me. Man, I swear. Language, eh? It's weird.

But where the fuck was I? Oh yeah, relationships and stuff. I forgot where I was but I'd say that I know that the rest of the world doesn't agree with me, and to that 99.999 (recurring) percent of the population I'd like to say this: I'm right, you're wrong. Neener.

well then, that didn't work.

Daniel will be asleep, all going well, for another few minutes and hopefully I'll have time to jot off a few words.

The deebs is really ill today, which is really sad because after a dodgy start yesterday, he woke up a new man after his morning nap, all bright and chipper and goo-less. It was in the wee hours of this moring that things turned back. My "uh oh" wasn't far off target when he turned into a regular Mr Whineypants at around 3 or 4am, because by this morning he had one eye swollen and gummed shut, the other eye goopy and sore looking, he was lethargic, wheezing and crusty. Factor in his newly minted, antibiotic fuelled undergarments and you've got one sorry little sight. The little trooper still tried to smile though, and got confused when he didn't have the strength to sit up and raise his arms to give the universal signal for wanting to be picked up. He wouldn't eat, but as I rushed around collecting the copious amounts of crap every mother needs to take when they're nipping out for to the doctor's, he sat in front of the clothes dryer and enjoyed the show.

The upshot is that offering Saturday's antibiotic to the germs in his right ear was much like offering sugar syrup to a couple of ants. The party went wild so now Daniel has a stupendous infection in his right ear, a monumental one in his left, and he has a roaring case of the craps in his chest which has given him an horrific emphasemic wheeze. Consequently, my little, sweet, pure and previously drug-free boy is loaded with prednisone (!) and augmentin, has had chlorsig poured on his eyeballs, or rather, all over his face in order to get the requisite one or two drops in each orb, is having saline spritzed up his nose and paracetamol poured down his throat.

He won't be in childcare at all this week, which I'm really glad about, but because I've had to cancel the two classes and nine clients I had scheduled for this week, I feel guilty. Then again, I feel guilty that the little one is sick, I feel guilty that he's in childcare, I feel guilty that I work, but if I didn't work, I'd feel guilty for that too. He likes childcare, and he gets more stimulus there than he'd ever get at home with me. He's a social little creature too, so childcare provides him with the king's ransom of social opportunities that he'd never experience at home. Sure, I take him out and we meet up with friends and babies, but it's not the same glut of baby focussed entertainment he gets to indulge in for a few hours three times a week. Then again, when he's there he's not with me, and that ain't natural - but then again again, the extended family that once worked so well once upon a time is rare these days - and it's non existant in daniel'sworld, so childcare provides him wiht a stable group of carers that approximate that extended family shiznit. Oh, I could go over the pros and cons forever, and as much as the pro column is full to exploding, I'll still be consumed with guilt for not having him strapped to my back as I till the fallow ground.

And he's awake.

my big return

In a true twilight zone fashion, shortly after confirming with a friend that while this eMac has been loyal and good to me, yes I would toss the fucker aside in favor of any of the second hand, clapped out old iBooks I could find on eBay, and bloody oath I'd do it in a heartbeat, the damn thing shat its pants. That'd be my eMac, not my friend. Anyway, I've been incommunicado for the past week and oh my, hasn't my blog suffered for it? Because god knows I'm usually so there with the updating. Yes. Anyway, my mac is back and now you could go postal in my bank account without seeing even a single dollar ducking for cover.

Truth is, I was hoping my computer really had shit its diodes so that I could go over all woe is me on the outside while on the inside, I whooped it up and started shopping for something lap toppy. Of course, I'd need to sell something in order to afford it but phooey, that's why god gave me two kidneys.

******

As I write this and because I'm such a responsible parent, Daniel is sleeping it off in his car seat, in the car, in my driveway. Outside. He's been there since around 3.15 this afternoon, and I've been in here filing my nails and eating bon bons. He passed out on the way home from seeing what ever doctor was available today as long as it wasn't that freak from a few weeks back, so I figured he needs his sleep more than I need to not be reported to child services. He had a bad night last night, experiencing his first bout of something worse than a cold and consequently, his first fever. The little thing whimpered from the wee hours onward, and when he wasn't whimpering, he was aimlessly crawling around the bed and frequently almost off it, while I spent the night patting and shushing and retrieving him from plumetting over the edge. He finally fell asleep at around 7am, and we languished in bed til about midday. He was sleeping and I maintained a vice like grip around his ankle with one hand and with the constant patting, a Parkinsonian twitch with the other. By the time we got to the doctor, his temperature had dropped to 37.4C, which may or may not still be high, its been so long without a computer that I didn't think to google that til now, and I'm being either responsible or irresponsible and haven't filled his script for antibiotics yet, mostly because he fell asleep in the car on the way home and I didn't want to wake him by going to the pharmacy. I reckon I'll wait 'til tomorrow to see how he is. Last time we saw his own GP, Daniel had a mild infection in both of his ears and the doctor said to wait and see. Today, while he was obviously unweller (it's a word), only one ear was inflamed, so despite having a fever earlier in the day, he's already kind of twice as well as he was last week. Sort of. Oh, whatever. If he wakes up in time, I'll fill the damn script and be done with it. and just so we're clear, my reticence to do so is not a money issue. I'd never deprive my child of a medicine he needed because I was being tight arsed about it. No, it's an issue because antibiotics are often given before the body has a chance to seek and destroy whatever bacteria is creating havoc, and I'm in a quandary because his is such a little body and while it's okay to decide to let my own deal with shit on its own, is it right to make the same decisions for someone else? So you see my dilemma. Or was that a tangent? Yes? No?

********

It being Father's day tomorrow, the childcare centre, I mean, Daniel made a card to send to his dipshit sperm donor. An aside, I've put my issues with the idiot aside because we have a lifetime of sharing this little boy ahead of us, and the bigger picture necessitates, in my opinion, being an adult and just getting on with the business of being amicable. So I've been nice and kind and thoughtful of his daughter who - hang on, I forgot to tell you the background story. Rewind to the end of June, if you will, back to a time when the child support shit had finally been, uh, finalised. I got a letter from the agency with all the details on it: the father's name, the names of all his dependants, and the dollar amounts payable to each. I thought it a bit weird at the time, to have his other kid's details listed on my letter. I mean, she's his kid too, but her information, even her existance, isn't really any of my business. Obviously, the sperm donor's ex-wife, H, got the same letter. Remember now, that the sperm donor hadn't yet told anyone about his latest and in my opinion, greatest child, so when H opened what she expected would be a routine letter from the agency and found out instead that her payments would be reduced because Oh My GOD!! there was another child, she lost her shit. She also collected their eleven year old daughter, T, from school that afternoon screaming and wailing and asking T, who is, I repeat, only eleven fucking years old, if she knew about this other child, and as any eleven year old would do when confronted wiht a mother who was yelling and crying and being a general dick, she responded with her own yelling and crying and wailing and generally freaking her own shit right out of there. Then H telephoned the sperm donor, S (are we following the secret squirrel code here?) and lost her shit all over him all over again with T in the background screaming and crying and still losing her shit all over the place. Way to break the news to your daughter, H. Kerist. The upshot was that T found out about her brother in a pretty traumatic way, and bla bla bla, more of the story goes here, so I, being awesome and despite never wanting to see this dipshit again, realised it was about the children, not us, and told S that T could see Daniel whenever she wanted. He was all 'I appreciate that' and then set about appreciating it so much that he cancelled on us three times in a row an hour before he and his daughter were due to arrive. It's not the cancelling that pisses me off, it's the timing and the lack of courtesy. I mean, how hard is it to send an email or a text message or even make the frikkin' phonecall earlier in the day to warn me that he'd call or text me later to confirm or cancel? Thing is, S lives only for himself. He makes his little plans and as he always has with me, doesn't bother to keep me up to speed with what's going on, even if it directly affects me, so when I had to chase down his second child support payment because he'd decided to move the goalposts yet again, without keeping me informed, I figured fuck this shit, and am a little unwilling to put a stamp on that little card because fuck that shit too. I can't make things easier or less secretive for T if her own parents are unwilling to do the same, and while I feel sorry that Daniel won't grow up knowing his big sister, I'm also as relieved as shit that he won't be growing up exposed to that mob of lunatics.

******

It's several hours later and Daniel is asleep. There's a new vaporiser chugging out the eucalyptus and peppermint smelly stuff, and the little dude is chock full of antibiotics and paracetamol. He slept for more than three hours in the car, and then he tried to smile and play, but really didn't have the energy to do anything more than be weak and pathetic all evening. It's heartbreaking. His eyes were glued shut when he woke too, and when I pinned him to the floor so I could bathe them in saline, he shrieked and crieds and threws his legs around in what I hope was protest and not pain, because I've got to do it all over again several more times to try and clear up the goop. If it doesn't clear by the time we go back to the doctor on Monday, he'll be getting some antibiotic stuff for them too.

I hate that he's in childcare, and I hate that because because he is, he's always fighting off one thing or another. I wish I didn't have to work.