Mopped brows

Jamie and Danny woke up this morning (Saturday) with their first colds of the winter. I guess it had to happen at some point. They both looked like ghosts all day, and Danny didn't eat more than 3 mouthfuls of food in the last 36 hours (although he was otherwise fine yesterday). Funnily enough Jamie kept her appetite, wolfing down a stack of daddy's American pancakes for breakfast. Danny was whingy all morning, demanding - as usual when he's ill - that Carmen sit with him on the sofa. When I got back from doing the shopping he was asleep in her arms.

We gave them both paracetamol in the afternoon, and within minutes they were up and about. Carmen mentioned that a friend of ours had jokingly said she thought they put a magic ingredient in kid's paracetamol, like amphetamine or something, because the kids seem to suddenly get a huge burst of energy.

This evening as we were getting ready for bed I heard Danny talking. He was wide awake - and burning up. I got him out of bed, took his temperature (39.3, yikes), gave him another dose of paracetamol and put him back to bed. 10 minutes later I heard him crying but heard Carmen going to his room and thought nothing of it. Then a few minutes later I hear someone calling 'Jim'. At first it sounds like Carmen, then like Danny. I walked to the bedroom and there was Danny in bed with Carmen. He was wide awake, with glowing red cheeks and ears, and was talking 19 to the dozen! Stringing sentences together like never before and using words we'd never heard him use. He told me to get my pyjamas on, like Mama and Danny, and when I'd done so and climbed in bed as instructed, he said Papa pyjamas, Danny pyjamas, Mama pyjamas, WE pyjamas on. First time he's said WE.

Then he kept going for 15 minutes, rabbiting away and not letting us get a word in edgeways, and suddenly the amphetamine joke popped into my mind from earlier... I will have to study the list of ingredients in that paracetamol again.

Kids are even more heart-melting when they're ill than when they're not. This stirs up conflicting emotions - you want them better, but... they're so CUTE!

Danny's back in his own bed now, but he cried again a couple of minutes ago; this time he's hungry and wants soup - at 12.50 am. Of course he's hungry, he hasn't eaten for 2 days, but of course my mind makes the drug connection again - he's got the munchies :) I didn't give him the soup, but made him some milk with a couple of spoonfuls of instant pap in it. Let's hope that keeps him quiet, coz I'm off to bed now as well.