And that's a wrap

OK, so it didn't happen. Six days of patrolling my son's skin for every little blemish, six days of preparing for the worst - six days, incidentally, of on-and-off fever, coughing and snot, six days of showing ALL the signs he was about to launch in to chickenpox and nada. And, in Bad Mother news, I feel totally, completely and utterly cheated.

So. I admit. It's not the greatest thing in the world, hoping for one's darling little bundle to get sick but frankly he has to get chickenpox at some point and it was sort of convenient this week a relief to get some warning. Now that I know it's out there lurking in wait for my little pudding I rather want to get it over with.

The main side-effect of all this waiting around is that every time he complains a little... maybe his Thomas is a few inches too far away, perhaps he's woken up with an itchy toe... anything, basically, that he chooses to complain about after midnight, particularly if he complains for more than 30 seconds, lands him up in our bed with two over-attentive parents feeling his head and holding his hands and paying him loads of attention and all the while not getting any sleep of their own at all.

This morning, I woke up having completely forgotten that I'd carted him into bed at 5am; to see his smug little smiling face nose to nose with mine (alright, it was quite cute. OK, very cute. Dammit let me get on with this). He proceeded to wrap his arm around my head and administer several damp kisses to my cheek (Shut. Up. No, I don't have pictures for crying out loud). His next move was to hightail it over to his Dad, wrap his arms around the frog's sleeping shoulders and say 'Mmmmmm, Dadai!'.

Yeah I know. He has us wrapped.

The upshot of this is that bedtime is now a big struggle as he sits in his cot shouting for us to take him to the proper bed: 'Mummai, Mummai, Mummai, Mummai, Mummai, Mummai, Mummai', (we only get 'Daddy' and 'Mummy' when he's in a good mood. The rest of the time we get Eurotrash) 'Mummai, Mummai, Mummai, Mummai, Mummai, Mummai, Mummai, Mummai, Mummai, Mummai, Mummai, Mummai, Mummai, Mummai, Mummai, Mummai, Mummai, Mummai, Mummai, Mummai, Mummai, Mummai, Mummai, Mummai, Mummai...' you have no idea. He can go on for a Very Long Time. Last night he did it for about an hour. Every five or ten minutes, or however long it took one of us to cave under the onslaught, we would go in and he'd gurgle a bit and look sleepy - but as soon as we left he was back at it like some sort of public announcement machine gone wonky.

The thing is, because we're not as cool as we like to make out, we get worried that perhaps THIS time it's for real... maybe he's done a poo or maybe he's been sick or perhaps the evil pox has come in the night to rampage over his dewy epidermis... you know, the one time you give up because you're convinced he's crying wolf is the one time that the wolf is squatting over him with evil intentions. Or something. Either way we have now had no sleep for about a week and so our judgement is sorely lacking.

Anyway, I forgot that this was supposed to be about the kitchen fire he set this morning. I'm so tired I have actually forgotten the entire thing - the failed fire extinguisher, the flames, the panic, the smoke detectors, the shutting down of the mains and eventual dousing of the guilty toaster with a bucket of water; the frog repainting the entire kitchen. This morning. All that. And I forgot.

Tonight we have agreed no spud in the bed... but then we agreed that last night. And the night before. Oh yeah, we are W. R. A. P. P. E. D.