HANDS, FEET AND BOOMPSY DAISY

Picture if you will, the tabloid front page: little Billie covered in mud with soggy, forlorn expression on her face and an accompanying headline of the "No-one wants me, no-one cares" variety. Well that’s pretty much what’s facing our household at the moment. Except that the press aren’t interested in us, there is no European directive forbidding our export, and Tony Blair and a load of vets are not about to visit us. The thing we do have in common with the farming nation, however is that we have an outbreak of Foot and Mouth. That’s not true of course: we actually have ‘Hand, Foot and Mouth’ which is completely different, but does result in us being shunned by the rest of the community and leaves us all feeling miserable.

We first knew Billie was ill when she started complaining of her mouth hurting and on inspection she had an enormous ulcer. The doctor diagnosed a virus and that was that. Only then she got very poorly and had spots and a temperature, which I presumed was a post-viral rash. It was when Olly got an ulcer and spots that I realised something was up. I rang his school to let them know that he wouldn’t be in and described the symptoms. I was told immediately that it was Hand, Foot and Mouth and could Olly please not come in for a week.

So, here I am on Sunday night facing a week at home, alone with the kids and feeling quite miserable at the prospect. I have, after all, just done half term and was rather looking forward to a few mornings with just one child and a bit of Radio Four while I did the ironing. Now I have two very grumpy babies, hot and spotty, and no visitors allowed.

My mum’s medical book says sterilise all bottles and feeding utensils and wash hands after contact to prevent cross infection. Ha! Too late for that and impossible anyway, my two are either kissing or kicking each other every minute of the day. I’ve got out the white emulsion and painted a cross on the door, metaphorically speaking - I have phoned all my mates and told them of our lurgy - and in readiness for the siege I have gone to the shops while the old man’s been home this weekend and stocked the freezer. I’ve bought new puzzles and colouring books and am trying to keep positive.

A positive attitude is hard to maintain when facing a Ninja Toddler, which is what Olly has become since he’s felt ill. He’s felling his sister at regular intervals with drop kicks and karate chops. He is blowing raspberries at me (no cross infection risk there then). After a particularly violent and damaging attack on my wardrobe he announced, "I break doors that’s what I do". Poor old Olly: I do feel sorry for him, and the virus seems to have aggravated his glue ear - he has mild to moderate hearing loss, (temporary we hope) following a virus last year. So all in all he is in a pretty poor way.

Billie goes straight into waif mode when she is ill, repeating her "I want my mummy" mantra, over and over again, occasionally swapping into "I want my bottle and blue blanket". In her own way she is just as wearing and she WILL NOT be put down at all - I have developed a sloping stance and bad back as a result of this limpet clinging to the wrecked hull of my body.

In ER recently the particularly aggressive surgeon yelled at Benson that he chose parenthood and he should just get on with it. I have a lot of sympathy with that view but I guess I didn’t reckon on the nursing side of it being such a factor: teething, colds, chicken pox, sick bugs, sprained ankles and cuts and bruises seem to stop me getting a clear run at healthy parenting.

I’m quite good at the Blue Peter stuff but less keen on the Holby City area in which I seem to have landed a lead role. Like the Eskimos who have loads of words for snow and the Italians who have as many for love, our family now has a thousand different words for sick, depending on content, consistency and delivery. Steve and I are as adept as a hospital crash team when we hear a telltale cough. Without a look at each other we rush to the victim, with towels, buckets, bacterial spray and Fabreze at the ready.

Actually, it is one of the few things that Steve and I do together these days. Perhaps I could get him to don a white coat and wear one of the children’s stethoscopes, then maybe when the kids finally go to sleep we could play Doctors and Nurses. I feel I need some perk of the job!

PS I’ve gone off the idea of Russell Crowe shaped pasta. In fact I have gone off Mr Crowe completely (see recent press and previous diary).

Juliet Jones lives in domestic chaos with husband Steve, son Oliver (aged 3) and daughter Billie (aged 2) in Hertfordshire.