A Week Full of Chuck Up and Poo

January 20, 2013May 8, 2019 Claire Parkinson

It all started last Sunday evening when I realised that my youngest Little Harley was getting unwell. It’s horrible when your children are sick, especially when they are so young as it is much harder to disguise the root of the problem. How did I know Harley was getting sick? Anybody who is a mother will know what I mean when I say it was mothers intuition!

Harley was moaning for England and I had this feeling it was just the start of something worse to come!

Yes, Harley got a temperature that refused to shift, he became clingy, so bloody clingy I couldn’t take a pee without him hanging from my ankles.

What happened next was all too much for this mother to bare. Little man returned home from school Monday evening removed his coat and shoes and fell onto the sofa! Before I could count to thirty the child who doesn’t sleep till at least 3 am was snoring heavily.

“Please god… No”

This wasn’t the usual Little man, by now he would be in his bedroom building buses from Lego or sat at his computer on the hunt for new buses in-order to record their number and destination, but instead sleeping… something wasn’t right. Again this was mothers intuition and mothers intuition is never ever wrong!

Some hours later he woke complaining of a headache.

“Brilliant, just Brilliant!”

I gave both the boys some medicine and prayed it would be over quickly! You see when your child has Aspergers he either has a high tolerance to pain and discomfort or is highly sensitive! There’s no guessing to which category Little man falls into!

So, there I was with a 22 month old sat on my hip, trying to cook a dinner that no one even touched. I was ready to fall into bed but found myself clearing up sick ten times through the night.

These are my children and of course I love them like nothing else, but I don’t love they’re whining, sick and sorry… Shit!

In the days that followed there was plenty of the above to deal with. It was Harley doing all the throwing up which in a weird way was better than Little man. You see, Little man really can’t do sick! He gets really upset and scared when he throws up. He panics and actually screams and shakes… So thank heavens it was the other way around.

Of course like a true pro my words were spoken too soon and yes, Little man began chucking up on Wednesday night… 3 days after first becoming ill and 4 days after Harley. By now I was a flipping mess, Harley was still clinging and the only time I got to see the bath tub was when I was putting my sick brood into it in-order to wash the smelly sick from their hair. Seriously I even tried to engage in a quick strip wash with Harley having a full-blown tantrum on the floor screaming,

“NO MUM, NO…”

… like the flannel was trying to murder me or something!

As I first suspected, Little man didn’t deal with the sickness side of things to well. He refused to eat & drink in the fear that he may chuck up again!

It may sound selfish but I was losing the will to live!

It’s funny, Harley is quite a daddies boy, but he wasn’t interested in daddy it was mummy he stuck to like glue. Children do seem to have a tendency when sick to seek comfort from their mothers.

Luckily the sickness side of it passed quickly for little man but by Thursday when you would have thought God had dished out enough crap, I heard the sound of coughing coming from my daughters bedroom and yer, I knew it!

Alice-Sara, was sick on the stairs (better than my hair, Harley had already fulfilled this task).

Now I ask you is it true what they say about “Man flu?”

OK, OK, Little man is highly sensitive which is down to his Asperger’s and Harley would be clingy after all he is still a baby, but Alice at eight just got on with it! I felt kinda bad that I couldn’t be more hands on in her care but what with Harley becoming an extension of me, I swear It was as if I had grown an extra limb or something, and Little man telling me he thinks his dying, I was finding the task at hand pretty difficult.

There was once or twice I think I shouted,

“Oh… shout up Harley”

As he throw himself on the floor every time I tried to detach myself from him. Yes, it’s true I even cursed loudly (Bad mother) when Little man woke in a panic, waking his sibling resulting in myself flying out the bath, (the bath I waited so long to get in) slipping, falling hard on my arse, I may have shouted..

“For F…. sake….”

I am only human!

Yes, by now, I was a baggy eyed, bruised arsed, over sensitive mother!

So my question is…. Why do people always state, “Its better they all get sick at the same time?”

Please…. People are you mad lot serious? How is this somehow better, better for who, for me? Doesn’t it make sense to be dealing with it at different intervals, at least getting some shut-eye in between?

It’s now Saturday and the first day in what feels like forever… that Harley has sat and played with his toys.