The girls have spent a grand total of 6 hours at nursery this week rather than their usual 20-odd hours. On Monday afternoon I got 'the dreaded phone call' telling me that R had conjunctivitis and that I had to collect her. Of course, this meant that I had to collect a perfectly well G and take them both home.This meant that they couldn't go into nursery on Tuesday either.
R's eyes cleared up very quickly, so armed with drops, I took them in to nursery this morning. I had just settled down to some work at my desk and got another call. G has hand, foot and mouth (no, not that one - the viral children's thing), complete with a lovely collection of blisters and sores. Apart from administering calpol and nurofen as needed, there's not a lot that can be done but I got an emergency appointment with our GP as a precaution. Apart from looking a bit like a plague victim, she's fine but apparently it incubates for up to a week before the blisters break out so she's actually been crying for a reason for the last few days. Cue lots of parental guilt.
Minor illnesses such as these are not that much of a problem in the great scheme of things and I'm always grateful that it's not something much worse. It's just irritating - I pay a fair chunk of money for the girls to attend nursery (my choice) and I may as well have spent this week's fees on crisps and cider. Plus, I've had to take quite a lot of time out of work to ferry the girls back and forth from nursery and to the doctors. Luckily I have an understanding boss but there are plenty of other workplaces that wouldn't be so sympathetic.
It also means that G won't be able to have her MMR tomorrow. R isn't showing any signs of contracting the virus yet so I'm hopeful that she'll be able to have hers, but we'll see. We'll definitely have to reschedule G's.
