Il est malade!

I think I can safely assume that anyone reading this will have, at some point in their lives, been sick. Call it what you like; hurling, chucking up, vomiting, yelling down the big white porcelain telephone, whatever, being physically sick is no laughing matter for anyone.

Let me tell you though, it is absolutely heart-breaking to watch your child be sick.

I don't know if it's the heat or a dodgy ice cream, but J has been quite sick the past two nights. You hear the faint call in the middle of the night - it doesn't matter because you're not sleeping comfortably anyway because it's so hot - and you both run along the landing, grab the plastic bin from the bathroom on your way past, thrust it under J's nose and whoomph, out it comes.

The heart-breaking bit is watching his little body trying to deal with it. Sorry to be so graphic but throwing up is quite a stress on a body, especially one as little as his. Then of course you have the look of it, the smell of it ......... I won't go on but you get the idea!

Many years ago, I worked in a hospital and I took children down to theatres for their various operations but I never really appreciated the gravity of what was happening; for the child or the parent. Occasionally some parents were upset but I always thought, "well, whatever the child is here for, it's for the best".

But that doesn't matter when it's your child who's sick. It doesn't matter that things might be better the other side of an operation; it's the here and now that matters and if the here and now consists of your child being sick or generally unwell, then it is simply awful.

Poops does have a rotten tummy bug right now but please God, keep him safe and well. The same goes for Missy. Let tummy bugs, colds 'n' sniffles be the worst we have to deal with as their parents.

I don't know how realistic that prayer is.

But it's the only one I have.