Tweeting and plugging

Well this week has been interesting. Sprautumn has become a hot topic of conversation which is jolly exciting. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, my season amalgamation genius appeared in a national newspaper via the mind of the rather lovely Tim Dowling. He is a bit of a favourite amongst most parents I know, so the blow that my claim to fame had been stolen was lessened slightly. Although I was a tad on the miffed side. There is little excitement of any note for an uncool stay at home mother of four, and being able to claim that I had 'created' a new season which made people chuckle was my own little piece of personal pride. So, I decided to email him. Google didn't come up with his email address. And then I remembered that the 'kids' of today like to Tweet. Google did come up trumps with his twitter name. So I dug out my blog post from last year when I quite clearly invented Sprautumn, and tweeted him over my lost claim to fame. Joy of joyous excitement, he retweeted it! As I am not really a 'tweeter' this was thrilling. I used this new fangled thing that is constantly talked about, et voila, it does turn out to be rather marvellous. I can see how people get addicted. I don't suppose for a minute he sat down and read the blog but at least he retweeted it and I have no idea if his comment for 'Dictionary Editors (to) take note' was meant sarcastically or if he genuinely cared that I had a former claim to the invention of the season, but it matters not. I was happy. I felt my feelings were noted. And it all happened marvellously quickly. That is more than enough excitement for this dullard. Especially after a nasty illness wiped me out for the weekend and left me feeling particularly sorry for myself.

Clearly somewhere down the line I have really pissed off Friday night. I have no idea how, but it doesn't seem to matter, it is wreaking a terrible vengeance upon me regardless. After last week's rat drama I was looking forward to a quiet Friday evening, which was exactly how it started off. But then I began to feel unwell. I had and still have NO idea what brought it on. But it quickly became a violent illness.  My stomach felt decidedly odd. I was boiling. Then I got the shakes so badly I thought my jaw would break. I had to run repeatedly to the loo. I thought I would be sick as well but it was just horrid nausea. K was out, it being a Friday night, and I was stuck looking after myself. I sent him a number of texts informing him of my illness. Nothing. I stumbled to bed which meant that as I was upstairs, I had no choice but to frequently visit the 'rat' loo. That made me shake even more.  Although the more visits I made the less I cared and very soon I would have welcomed a distraction from the horror of my illness. I may even have scared the rat. Not that he would have seen my face, but it was bright red, livid, I would say and blotchy. I was boiling to the touch but freezing internally. I was pretty tearful and a bit of a sorry sight. Ted, as per usual joined me at the foot of our bed. K eventually returned having finally got my texts at 1am and again, realised there was little to do to help so fell asleep. Cybs started up at about 3am and I staggered back and forth to her and did what I could until I just gave up and took her in with us. So, there were four of us in a bed. One was drunk, one was dying, one was only quiet when breastfeeding and one had taken up so much space at the foot of my bed I was squeezed in to an odd foetal position which wasn't particularly comfortable and the number of bodies around me made me even hotter. I didn't sleep much.

So, all in all it was another horrid Friday night. I just waited for the morning to come, which mercifully it always does. And in the morning K rallied. Like a Knight rising from his drunken stupor and then going in to battle, he donned his dressing gown and took all of them downstairs first thing so that I could wallow in an empty bed. Ordinarily I might have welcomed an excuse to stay in bed on a Saturday but, just as the year before, the timing of this illness meant that I missed Bea's dance exam. Again. Only this year she had four of them and the bed I was lying in was my own and not a hospital one. I just about managed to do her hair before she left and struggled to look after the remaining children as K ferried her back and forth between exams. He was only gone for up to half an hour at a time but by the time he did return he found all of us in tears. Ted, who is usually my biggest fan, quickly realised I was worse than useless so refused to accept any help from me and kept asking for daddy. That became quite an issue when he stood awkwardly on a piece of lego and started bleeding. His cries were piercing and nothing would convince him to stop or accept a cuddle from me to try to ease his suffering. By the time K walked through the door even Cybs was crawling towards him in tears. It is at moments like that when I wonder what other people are doing on a Saturday afternoon and whether they are all in tears and shuffling around in their pyjamas unable to hold in so much as a dry biscuit as two children cry at their feet. If Facebook is anything to go by then I very much doubt it which always makes the situation feel worse. Although thank goodness it was a Saturday or I would have been totally stuffed. Even with a busy Saturday, I was able to spend an awful lot of it in bed. Even though it wasn't particularly restful, at least it was better than attempting school runs and having an 'accident' en route. It does not bear thinking about.

So, as I lay there, dying and not trusting my body, I had time to think. I thought of Bea in her dance exams obviously, I thought of how filthy my windows are and just HOW much I want a bedroom makeover and new bed. And then my mind wandered to butt plugs. I know. It was a leap. BUT. Until relatively recently, when Channel 4 and K informed me otherwise, I was quite convinced that a butt plug was exactly that - something that was used to 'plug' one's bottom. As the wise Joey once said in Friends - you hear a word, you see a thing, you think that's what it is. So, I assumed that it was something used to 'plug' an over zealous bottom so that you didn't have an 'accident'. It never occurred to me that it could be anything used for fun.  Probably because it really isn't my idea of fun and because many moons ago I used to work with a man who always jiggled and wriggled so much if you happened to be talking to him when he needed a no. 2 - indeed it was him who introduced me to the phrase 'touching cloth' - I think I just put two and two together and came up with a very practical idea. It was only a documentary on a booming online sex toy company that brought my misunderstanding to light as I mentioned it to K and he helpfully told me where I was going wrong with my assumption. Anyway, having had to change a number of times already, my mind wandered back to my original butt plug idea and I thought how grateful I would have been for one. By Sunday, with no end in sight and feeling weaker and weaker by the minute, K broke off from his Father's Day jollity (I am jesting of course - as you know very well by now, every day is Father's Day so we don't do anything particularly special on the actual day) and went to the Big Shop (or Sainsbury's if you aren't a child) and purchased me the wonder that is Imodium instants.  Along with Medised (which has sadly and wrongly been discontinued) I think Imodium could very well be the best medical break through of non-life threatening modern day medicine.  By the afternoon I was up, washed, dressed, fully made up and cooking. Remarkable. Luckily so as Bea had a friend over and K was keen to finally take up his Father's Day position on the sofa. Which was for once, well deserved.

Father's Day. He did end up having quite an acceptable father's day in the end. The good thing about having a lot of children is you get a lot of cards - admittedly all home made - but in this case it is quantity not quality that matters. He also got a handsome mug designed by Bea, a toblerone, jumper and, most importantly of all, a Onesie. The children were beyond thrilled with this one. The boys had picked it out and Ted had even managed to keep it a secret for a few weeks - only divulging that we had got him 'pyjamas' - which is a massive leap forward for him. They couldn't believe that he was going to wear it. He did. Bea laughed until she cried. It was hilarious. We even managed to get a family photo of us all in our onesies. Sadly I am not allowed to show it to anyone but I am very keen to have the picture blown up and put somewhere in the house.

So, as I said, a mixed bag. A few good parts with some lovely sociable times and the shiny sun making us happy, my Tim Tweet was clearly my highlight but the illness was quite obviously my lowest ebb although the dishwasher breaking and the tumble dryer taking a holiday from actually drying things have made every day life pretty long and boring as well. I am slightly afraid of tomorrow night now, as I wonder what Friday has in store for its third week, but I have taken matters in to my own hands and organised a night out to try and break the cycle (I say 'out' as it is technically out of the house but as I organised it, I have asked everyone to meet at the end of my road at the Tapas place so that I can run back to sort out whatever disaster this Friday has to throw at me without too much stress - so it isn't out out). The only good to come of my two dark Fridays is that they seem to have kick started my weight loss. I have lost a fabulous 7 pounds in the last two weeks which has made me very happy. I am pretty sure that every woman who gets a tummy bug/flu/pneumonia etc lays in their sick bed at some point thinking 'I might die. Oooh I bet I've lost loads of weight'. I am sure it helps you get better as it gives you something to look forward to and to get up for.

Right, I am off. I need my bed so I don't fall asleep in to my Cava tomorrow night.  A bientot xxx