I was mildly unwell over the weekend (a stomach bug, annoying but nothing major) and it made realise that we take our good health for granted. If we’re ill, who looks after our babies?

Luckily, dh was off at the weekend and was able to take full charge of the girls for a couple of days while I stayed (mostly) in bed writhing in agony with stomach cramps, snoozing, reading and watching re-runs of Midsomer Murders, getting up only to deposit the contents of my stomach/bowels and to occasionally flap when one of the girls cried for a little longer than I was totally comfortable with. I was able to get better at my own pace and was recovered enough this morning to do the 7am feed on my own.

It could have been very different. Dh’s shift patterns mean that he is as likely to be working weekends and bank holidays as not and I would have had to contend with feeling ill plus looking after the girls. I’m really not sure what would have happened. I wouldn’t have expected dh to take time off work so I would have just had to get on with it. Not sure they do nappies in my size though!

I HATE being ill. No-one exactly enjoys it, I know but I actually get physically angry about it and have to rail at the world at the utter annoyance of it all. On Sunday I lay in bed actually shaking my fist at whoever or whatever had inflicted this massive inconvenience on me. Does no-one understand? I DON’T HAVE TIME TO BE ILL!!!!! How very dare you/it!

Yet no-one can help being unwell. These things happen. I’m extremely tolerant when one (or usually both) of the girls is ill – except if they wake me in the night(!) – as I believe it is my sworn duty to be their Florence Nightingale in times of need. I am perhaps slightly less tolerant when dh is under the weather: ‘Are you still feeling poorly darling’ (all the while thinking ‘Bloody man flu’!) and he hardly ever gets ill. Literally never. I think he has been to the doctors ONCE in the 7.5 years we have been together and that was for a knee injury sustained in a 5-a-side game.

Our good health is such a fragile thing. Before we became parents we could afford to milk an illness, perhaps throw a sickie (in case anyone reads this who knows me in real life, I last threw a sickie in 2003) and wallow in our misery but as parents we have to adopt a stiff upper lip approach and just get on with it. The health of our children matters far more to us than our own (as it should) but there is no harm in giving ourselves a bit of tlc on occasion as well.

Duvet days for parents? Can’t see the government going for it, to be honest…