14 things to know about sick kids

Eleven years and two sons in, I know a few things about sick kids. First and foremost – they are inevitable. No matter your lifestyle, diet or culture, your kids will get catch something, probably from another child, and get sick. Your best chance to survive their childhood is to be prepared.

By being prepared I mean I reckon every parent needs the following in their arsenal at all times: age appropriate paracetamol [Panadol] and ibuprofen [Nurofen], an age-appropriate and recommended anti-histamine, hydralite icy poles or sachets, bandaids, the number of an out-of-hours locum doctor, a reliable GP or local medical clinic, a list of any medications your child may be allergic to, a bucket, Glen-20 anti-bacterial spray, a thermometer and a thick skin.

If you’ve got all that, then you just need to remember these tips and you may get through the year without wanting to run off into the bush to escape all germs for the rest of your lives (though I promise that will cross your mind at least once when you’re drowning in the fifth virus your child[ren] have brought home that school term).

1. They get sick at the worst times

Right before a big event or just as you’ve booked an important work meeting or your bi-annual pap smear are the times that children are most likely to get sick. You can count on your plans being completely fucked at least half a dozen times a year and you can double that number with each extra child you have. You can’t plan for it either. Just don’t think you’re anything special when it happens to you. You’re not. You’re just a parent. Suck it up and cancel those plans buddy.

2. It’s always worse at night

This seems like pure sorcery doesn’t it? Kids can go from just being a bit flat and lethargic to a full-blown ebola outbreak the moment the sun goes down… or you fall asleep – which ever comes first. I don’t really understand the science in this. Perhaps there isn’t any but there really isn’t any escaping it either. If your kid is showing signs of illness during the day, then bunker down for the evening. This includes making sure you have enough medicine [yours and theirs] before the shops shut [learnt THAT one the hard way!]

3. Infections come on REALLY fast

This is another disturbing realisation. Bacterial infections multiply at a rate of knots in kids. It’s almost scary. I’ve watched my son complain of ear pain to having TWO burst eardrums in a matter of hours [at night of course]. The best thing you can do if you suspect an infection is to get a doctor to prescribe anti-biotics as soon as possible. Because as fast as those infections come on, the drugs seem to stop them just as quickly. Symptoms of any infection include: localised pain, fever, drowsiness, rash and extreme whingeing. In younger, non-verbal children they will often indicate where the infection is by pulling at or rubbing that area. In older children/husbands there may be declarations along the lines of “I think I’m dying.”

4. Panadol will become your best friend

Oh Panadol, how do I love thee? I have used age-appropriate doses of Panadol since my children were tiny babies. The effectiveness with which it stops a fever in its tracks is astounding and the most help a parent can get when their child is really sick. My eldest hated it when he was little though and would bring it up every time I gave it to him.

TIP: doctors recommend that you DON’T redose your child if they bring up their medication as you can’t be sure of how much they did ingest, risking overdose. 

I would not be thwarted though! They make Panadol in suppository form. *cunning smile* You know what that means right? Any time my son’s fever was too high or he was in pain from infection [throat, ears etc] I just popped him on the change the table and gave him a little paracetamol pressie. Yep, right up the kazoo. My husband couldn’t do it [soft] but I was the master… and ruthless!

5. You can give paracetamol and ibuprofen at the same time

This is a big tip and one that I’m surprised many parents are unaware of. You can give your child paracetamol [Panadol] AND ibuprofen [Nurofen] within the same dosage period. Eg, let’s say you give your child the correct dose of Panadol and after about an hour they are still in pain and/or their fever has not reduced. You can then give them the correct dose [within the usual Panadol dosage period of 4 hours] of Nurofen AS WELL. You DO NOT have to wait. They are two completely different medications and are often used concurrently by medical staff in hospitals. In fact, that’s where I first learnt about it. I have since confirmed it, regularly, with specialists, locum doctors and my own trusted GP. This is incredibly valuable information and could make all the difference during a night of sheer hell.

6. Locum doctors are travelling angels

I have had the best experience with on-call locum doctors. When my kids have been really sick outside of normal consulting hours travelling locum doctors have come TO MY HOUSE and carried out their consultation at my kid’s bedside. It is a sensational service and I highly recommend it. One doctor even let my youngest sleep through the entire consultation as he checked his ears and temp and listened to his breathing when he was really sick one night. It was seriously amazing and I would have hugged him if we weren’t both kneeling on the carpet in a lamp-lit bedroom in the middle of the night… #awkward. They often have at least a couple of doses of anti-biotics in their bag of tricks that will get you through til morning and the peace of mind they bring without having to traipse into an emergency department is worth its weight in gold.

7. The emergency department is hell on earth in the middle of the night

I have seen the emergency department in the middle of the night many times in my parenting life. It is never fun. I am usually there for HOURS, waiting, with any number of other parents with their sick kids. There’s screaming and crying and sleeping in every corner of the waiting area. All parents are processing their own internal triage to try to suss out where their kid sits in priority to others. There are lots of hot babies in nappies and singlets sitting on their parent’s lap. There are prams everywhere and exhausted adults and nurses who have seen it all before. Probably just last night. I get all OCD in emergency departments and won’t let my kid touch anything public that I haven’t wiped down first and when I get home I change them out of anything there were wearing in hospital in case they’ve brought home meningitis combined with gastro and polio. This is why, unless it’s an actual emergency, I call out a locum instead.

8. Back rubbing is certain

Oh the back rubbing that goes on when your child is sick. “Rub my back, Mum” is the chant of the sooky child.

9. Losing sleep is inescapable

Expect to lose lots of sleep and prepare for it. Go to bed early yourself if you can. Make sure all medicine is easily accessible and all syringes/medicine cups are clean for the midnight run. If your child has gastro [oh that hideous, hideous thing] do as I do and set up camp with a bucket in the lounge room. They’ll be chucking their guts up about every half an hour so settle in for a night vomitous hell.

10. Fevers can be scary

My kids have never actually convulsed from their fever but they do get a bit twitchy and glassy eyed.  Anything over 38 degrees and I go in HARD and fast to  try to get it down as soon as possible. This includes stripping them down to underwear and placing a cold flannel on their forehead and pulse points if required.

11. They won’t want to eat

Kids will listen to their bodies and will tell you when they’re hungry. If they don’t want a meal, don’t force it. Keep them going with crackers, jellies, mild fruits like watermelon and soups. Let them guide you, within reason but remember the most important thing is to keep them hydrated. A dehydrated child can get into trouble very quickly.

12. Gastro often presents at both ends

At the same time. It can be a total, revolting, explosive nightmare. The best way to tackle that, if your child is toilet-trained, is to pop them on the toilet when they’re ready to spew and let them vomit in a bucket while it comes out the other end straight into the loo.

13. Mother’s instinct is a diagnostic tool

You know your child. Trust that. I can tell when my kids are getting sick before they even know it. I also know what they’re susceptible to. One runs hot and one runs cold so their fever temperatures are different. I will happily question a doctor’s diagnosis if I’m not happy with it and will seek a second opinion without a blink of an eye. You know your child. If all you’ve got to go on is that they just don’t seem right then go with it and don’t stop until they’re right again. Better to err on the side of neurosis, I always say.

14. Kid’s germs travel

They will cry on you and sneeze on you and dribble on you and even vomit on you. The amount of germ-infested body fluids that you will be covered with will be hard to avoid. All I can say is wash your hands as much as possible. Don’t share pillows or cutlery and wash all the bed linen and towels as soon as possible without being a nutcase. But know that even with all possible precautions made, statistics show that you will get at least half of your kids lurgies every year. 

Just pray their father doesn’t get them too.

What it's like to love a 9 year old boy

My 9 year old, Nathan, has been doing my head in lately. And by doing my head in I mean sending me batshit crazy. He has taken defiant to a whole new level and is throwing moodswings at me with the speed and agility of something that is really quick and agile. This week I was ready to sell him for a bottle of gin. But to be totally honest, I would have paid someone to take him away. This whole ‘you can’t make me, it’s my life’ attitude that has taken over his body has appeared prematurely and without warning. I have always expected it, but not so early. I’m not ready for that. I’m not prepared to enter into a relatively grown up argument with a child. And, despite his best argument, he IS a child. He hasn’t even hit double digits yet!

It’s weird watching something that you grew in your belly ‘become’. It’s even weirder to realise how little their ‘becoming’ has to do with you… and how much. He’s becoming a real person. With his own opinions and feelings and preferences. His body is changing. His voice is changing. He is growing up and out and most importantly, within.

This week was his junior school drama production. Two year two classes and two year four classes all performed one act per class. Nathan’s class had the fourth act. The three acts preceding it were excruciating. Not to say that the kids weren’t all awesome and cute and talented and funny. It’s just that I’m tired and grumpy and really couldn’t give a shit about anyone else’s kid [and just for the record, I know and love some of those kids but would still rather be home in my tracksuit drinking wine].

When the curtain rose on Act 4, I waited begrudgingly for my kid to do his thing, quickly, so we could get out of there. And then he walked out on stage and my heart skipped a little bit and my smile spread so wide that my face almost turned inside out. That was my boy. On stage. In the spotlight. With a gorgeous, strong and loud voice he delivered his lines flawlessly. I could sense his entire essence from my seat in the dark. I could see his confidence like an aura and fuck that made me proud. This was the same boy who was TERRIFIED of even the thought of performing only two years before. I watched him. And I saw him. When you love a 9 year old boy, it’s not often that you have the opportunity to just sit and watch. They’re always moving or scowling or catching you spying on them. But last night, I surrendered to the good fortune of my son performing. I have no idea what his act was about and I don’t know what anyone else was doing because I just could not take my eyes off him. I watched the way his body moved and his head tilted when he was listening. I watched his face light up like sunshine when he laughed. He was beautiful. He IS beautiful.

Loving a 9 year old boy is not always easy to do. It means there are times that he seems to have no interest whatsoever in anything that comes out of your mouth unless it involves football or Pokemon cards. There are times that he will have three helpings of dinner, gulped down without any regard for table manners and a week later a declaration that he HATES that exact same dish and he can’t believe he is expected to eat it. It means he no longer comes to the ladies toilets with me and fiddles with the stereo knobs from the front passenger seat in my car. It’s a time of slamming doors and lots of rolling eyes. My days are unpredictable with my 9 year old. Some days he is entirely full of boyish love for me and happy to cuddle up next to me on the couch for hours and other days it’s almost like he wishes everyone, including me, would just disappear. There’s a lot of bashing up the younger brother and passionate refusal to do the simplest and most regular of things. Like showering and brushing teeth. And the attitude. Oh my lord, what is with the attitude?! That’s not what I was pitching for when I was gently shaping my toddler. I’m all for my kids having their own mind, I just wish it was more like mine y’know?

So, sure it’s not easy but man it’s rewarding. Watching him from the dark of the audience while he was on stage was sublime. In one of the scenes, all the boys had to dance/walk on stage to Michael Jackson’s ‘The Way You Make Me Feel’. And there was mine, entering stage left. All rhythm and swagger. Following the choreography with perfect timing, singing along word for word. I was fixated on his facial expressions and the way he held himself tall and proud. I was in awe of him. Up there, on stage, completely independent of me. I watched him confidently cross the stage at the end of the performance to hand out the gifts to the volunteers and shake their hands. He didn’t tell me about that. He doesn’t tell me lots of things these days. I sat there and understood that I’m just not so necessary to his everything anymore. My boy is on his way to becoming a man and his mum is on her way to becoming obsolete. Once he looked to me for all the answers. Now it seems that he's always looking away. Into the world. I don’t expect the ride to be easy but nothing worthwhile ever is.

What’s it like to love a 9 year old boy? Consuming. Heart warming. Heart breaking. Exasperating. Exhausting. Uplifting. Tumultuous. 

And worth every bit of it.

A Man Called Uncle

When I found out I was pregnant, I wanted to tell my little brother as soon as possible. I wanted to let him know that my baby was going to change his place in the world. I was excited that me becoming a mother would elevate his status from little brother to Uncle. I had already seen what an incredible big brother he was to our little sister so I had it on good authority that he was going to nail the Uncle role too and I was excited because I knew just how important Uncles are.

Growing up without a dad around meant that my Uncles [who have both since died of cancer] were very valuable to me. Cut from the same cloth as my mum, these men showed me unconditional love and family and loyalty.  I watched them with their own daughters and saw them be tender while still being strict as hell. I spent time in their homes and learned that grown-ups could argue and still love each other and seeing them with their sons helped me understand that boys could be affectionate too. They were the kind of men that people didn’t mess with and they knew about man-stuff like cars and laying carpet and plumbing. They helped my Mum in the absence of her husband and they helped my Oma when my Opa, their own dad, died. They weren’t around all the time but their impact on our lives was significant in my mind.

They taught me that being tough is a girl thing too in a way that my Mum [who, for the record was VERY tough] couldn’t because she was too busy trying to teach me to be a lady. Like the time that she found 10 year old me in the local park in a fist fight with some older boys who were bullying one of the neighbourhood kids. She was SO cross with me and drove me straight to my Oma’s where my Uncle Arthur was visiting for lunch. She angrily presented me to him “Look at your niece!” she cried, shaking her head at my tangled hair and bloodied knuckles and scraped knees. “What happened?” he roared, furious. And as I told him of how I defended that other kid and stood up to the ring-leader, with a shaky voice still full of adrenaline and a darkness in my eyes which all my family share when angry, his face softened… and then he almost smiled [and I understand now that he wasn’t furious at me but at who had done that to me] “Did you hurt that little bastard?” Puzzled, I nodded, unsure of where this was headed and he kissed me on the top of the head, put his hands on my shoulders and looked me square in the eye and said “Good. I’m PROUD of you. Now go and clean yourself up like a good girl” Of course, that wasn’t the end of it and quite the debate ensued between brother and sister over the rights and wrongs of fighting things out but what that did for me that day was empower me. I was still in trouble with my Mum but I felt like I was part of a bigger thing and that someone else ‘got’ me and had my back – and that someone was a man. In hindsight, I realise that I have always yearned for non-sexual male approval and I understand that I would probably be in a very different place today if I hadn’t had the support from my Uncles in my formative years.

My boys have their dad in their lives. He’s present and hands-on and an amazing role model but that doesn’t make their Uncles any less relevant or necessary in my mind. They adore their Uncle Jason. He grew up with their Mum and can stand up to her without getting into a fight. He tells them stories of when we were kids and the things we used to get up to. He makes a point of sharing his time equally between the two and uses every opportunity to teach them any small thing. He demonstrates that family doesn’t have to all live under one roof to love each other and that siblings are siblings forever. The time that he spends with the boys is all about the boys. There are no chores or distractions for him. His job isn’t to discipline them but we share the same values so his messages are consistent with mine. He’s a bit cool so the kids sort of idolise him and he knows it so uses that status to educate them without them even knowing what’s going on. He is always respectful of and to their parents, though he often makes a point of telling me what a bitch I am to them when they’re out of earshot.

Of course there are plenty of lessons that he can’t teach my boys but that’s the thing about Uncles. They don’t have to. For me it’s enough that my kids know that someone else knows them and loves them. That a man, who is not their father can show them strength and affection. 

And that I was right. My little brother is a kick-arse uncle.

Children Versus Career

So I had breakfast with Mark Bouris last month. No biggie. He’s only the thinking the woman’s poster boy with a presence that heats up a room the moment he walks in. Articulate, charming, incredibly handsome, humble, powerful and success in spades. And he’s funny. He may well be my soul mate and having breakfast with him was certainly a highlight of my year so far.

I laughed and listened and learned and flirted outrageously. Tilting my head to the side when he looked at me and flicking my hair as I nodded to let him know that I ‘got’ him. There were moments that I felt we connected on a subliminal level… if only I could be sure that he was actually looking at me and not one of the other 350 women in the room

But of course he was.

And it was when he was looking only at me that I took in the message that he was trying to make me understand. Greed is good. No, wait… that wasn’t him. The message, I think, was that if you want to be a full-blown, screaming success that there is no easy way to do it. It involves LOTS of hours of work. If you want the top job then you need to be prepared to work the hours that the position dictates. This is very important [because he said it multiple times].  He said, he doesn’t choose the hours he needs to work. His position, or the job, does. His position at the head of a global empire dictates that he works approximately 16 hours per day. He said if you want to only work 8 hours a day, you need to find a job that allows for that. And I nodded. Emphatically. Because it makes so much sense. Everything he said made sense. His observation that there are three virtues required to succeed 1) Empathy, 2) Work Ethic – broken into 3 parts – endurance, fortitude, courage and 3) Accountability. Yes, yes and yes!! So much sense. And then his further observation that women have all these in spades, largely due to our inherent ability of being mindful. I was practically fist pumping the air as I bought into it all. I’m a hard worker. I’m empathetic. I’m courageous and strong and can endure. I own my failures as earnestly as I do my successes. My mind wandered as I imagined running my own global empire. Or at least a local empire. And then the penny dropped.

I’m a mother.

So how the fuck does this apply to me? In my 24 hour day, where can I find 16 hours to work in my, albeit imaginary, high-powered role? I have 6 hours a day without the kids while they’re at school. For me to work 16 hours, someone else would need to look after my kids. And cook for them. And attend their school meetings and performances... and so on.

How can I lean in when they’re leaning on me?

I’m not complaining. I chose to have children and I chose to forfeit my career to raise them. I am happy with the choice I made. I’m just pissed off at the constant implication that women can have it all and I’m pissed off at what ‘having it all’ is supposed to be.

For me, I think ‘having it all’ means having choices. And it means knowing what will fill your cup.

When I was younger and kicking around with my best friend we used to laugh at how different we were, though exactly the same. As is usually the case with your bestie. We loved all the same stuff and admired all the same great leaders. It’s just that I would fantasise about marrying them and she would fantasise about being them. Before we even understood what that meant, our hearts were hinting at what they desired. And my heart’s desire is to be a mum. That’s the job that has filled my cup for the past 9 years. And the hours that job dictates cannot be contained in a 40 hour work week. Or even an 80 hour work week.

So I guess I won’t be applying for the next season of The Apprentice… or running a global empire any time soon.

Though I’d give it a go just for the opportunity to be fired…