If you live where I live, or anywhere north of where I live, you’ll be pleased with this change in weather. Or more so delighted that you’re no longer sweating your way through every single day, finding you sweated in places you didn’t know you could possibly sweat. Gross? Yes, but true.
But you may have noticed something not so great that happened with the change in weather, and that’s the bugs that came with it. Not the creepy-crawly-insect type bugs, but the cold and flu and sniffles. Ugh.
When I was a nanny I used to look after 4 kids. And when this change in weather hit, one kid would get it… and then slowly each kid would pass it on to the other and then it would go around and do another cycle hitting each kid for a second time. Then I had Lacey and that made 5 kids… and well, I slowly went insane.
For the past week or so I’ve had sick kids on my hands. I’d love to say that it’s been fun, but it hasn’t. There’s been clingy little people who just didn’t sleep. And then the Hubby got man-flu but that’s another story altogether.
Working at home is great when you’ve got sick kids. Well, not great but handy in that I don’t have to call in sick to anywhere and I can hang with the kids helping them get better. It’s not great in that it’s REALLY FREAKING hard to get stuff done.
I had an hour-long phone meeting in the midst of sick-dom. Stressful doesn’t even begin to describe it. But we did it.
And then I stole a few moments to answer some emails later that afternoon. In that short time Luella had her eyebrows painted purple by my resident make-up artist in training.
Kids know when you’re not paying attention. When Lacey was about two and I was working as an social media editor, she painted the walls with her poop while I was in an editorial meeting phone call.
Fun.
I’m sorry but I have to laugh at Luella’s beautiful brows! They really do know when our back is turned and they can just run amuck. My two year old had a wonderful time painting his baby brothers room with a combination of sudocream, powder and baby lotion. On their own I probably could have got these out of the carpet, but when combined into a thick paste, two months on and there are still stains in the carpet 🙁 We’re also LOVING this cooler weather, we live in brissie and had been wondering if autumn would EVER arrive!!
Purple eyebrows could be in vogue soon. You might have a trendsetter there. You never know. My kids just this morning whilst I put up a new post on my blog unravelled meters and meters of hay bail twine from the shed and have been meandering around the lemon tree, around the posts on the verandah, down the side of the house past the veggie patch and twisted in the bicycle. Lucky me with an afternoon of twine unravelling.
I made the mistake one morning to not get out of bed while my then 2 year old sat and watched A DVD or so I thought. I got up to find a jar of Mayo and a jar of corn relish spread all over the carpet . If that wasn’t bad enough I also found my brand new eye serum that I bought myself for Mother’s Day the day before squirted onto the TV screen. He is 24 now and is a clean freak.
Lior likes to climb up onto the chairs and stab the oranges with forks to try and open them when I’m not paying attention. :-/
The other day he tried to feed the dog, which I guess was successful in that yes, the dog got fed (very, very well). But not successful because she ate it all off the floor and none got in her bowl!
Oooh, there are so many times, but my favourite is this:
I was six months pregnant with #3, unpacking our kitchen into our empty new home. Master Three and Master One were playing so beautifully in the living room one moment, then the next, disaster struck. I heard the toilet lid slam from the other end of the house and my eldest son say to my youngest “Cuppa tea, buddy?”, I raced in to find my little boys playing tea party with my vintage silverware, and just in time to see the baby pour his cup of tea, ahem, toilet water, over his head!
My daughter has beautiful strawberry blond hair and blond eyebrows. One day I made her vegemite on toast. When I returned she had eaten the toast but had managed to get the vegemite on her eyebrows. She looked so different with eyebrows. Months later vegemite struck again. I walked in to find her younger brother (also a strawberry blond) with what I thought were cuts allover his face. It turned out they were vegemite kisses from his big sister.
It’s a blessing to be able to work from home but when the kids are sick or on holidays, it can be hard to juggle work commitments at home! If I’m on the phone and my daughter is clingy and whingey I’ll chuck her a chocolate. Once she ate the whole bag of Freddos while I was on a 10 min call with a client!! I would have cried if I saw poo on the walls but I’ve dealt with worse in my profession. Hope the kids get better and that they don’t share their germs with you! 🙂
Once when my dad was meant to be babysitting my brother and I. In reality he was talking over the fence to the neighbour (usually he’d be asleep). My brother would’ve been about 4 and I was 2, we got in to the garage and he managed to spray paint me red, I was totally covered when mum came home and found me. That’s only one story. My dad was a terrible babysitter.
I live north of where you live and I’m HATING the cool change. Bring back the sweat weather, I say! Everything about winter is horrible :p