Dad’s World with Jonathan deBurca Butler

FIONN was sick last weekend. It started, as these things so often do, in the middle of night with a nightmarish shriek from his bedroom.

When his mother rushed into his room she found two little blobs — one on the bed and one on the floor— and a bewildered little man who didn’t know where he was, what he had just thrown up and why he was feeling so poorly.

We took him downstairs and for what turned out to be more than an hour and a half sat with him and watched several episodes of Paw Patrol while holding a large plastic bowl close his chest (I say we but it was mainly Ciara).

Eventually he returned to bed and we heard nothing from him until the next morning when a sprightly little man climbed down the stairs and announced himself to us. He looked much better, a little tired perhaps, but definitely better.

It didn’t really bother us that he didn’t want any breakfast. An early morning walk with his Mum, Dad and little brother would sort that out and when there was mention of a croissant there was a noticeable pep to his step.

Off we went for our walk and our croissant which was duly demolished. He was back, we thought to ourselves. As far as we were concerned the bug or whatever it was had disappeared. For the next couple of hours, all was good except for the fact that Fionn was exceptionally cranky.

With the illness now gone he was being, as far as I was concerned, indulgent, he was acting the maggot, being a bit of a brat whatever you want to call it, and by the time lunchtime came around I was beginning to lose my patience with him.

I did lose my patience with him when I put a plate of pasta in front of him and he informed me that he didn’t want it.

“Eat it,” I said in no uncertain terms.

We had been up with him in the middle of the night, we had looked after him, we had indulged him all morning, we were tired ourselves and it was, I felt, time for him to feckin’ well play ball. He wasn’t happy however and soon he began to sob.

I ignored him and, as he mouthed at his macaroni, myself and Ciara discussed plans for the afternoon. We had planned a day trip and now that Fionn was OK it was back on the cards.

“Mummy,” he said. “I don’t want this.”

“Fionn,” I chimed. “Eat your bloody pasta.”

He started to cry.

“Do you feel OK?” asked Ciara.

She had twigged it and sure enough a couple of seconds later she was holding a bowl under his reddening, tear-strewn face as he got violently sick into it.

I felt like doing the same myself. I had messed up here. I hadn’t read the signals. I had got the little man totally wrong. The bug hadn’t gone away and he wasn’t being cranky to spite me. He was being cranky because he was ill. I felt awful.

“Why didn’t he say something?” I asked Ciara later, trying to justify my lack of patience with him.

“He probably just didn’t know,” she explained, looking at me with a mixture of sympathy and a look that said you-dozy-git-you.

That afternoon, Luke (1) and Ciara left the house and went on the planned day out — no use everyone losing out. Myself and Fionn plonked in front of the television with his favourite blanket and pillow.

“How about Frozen?” I whispered to him.

“Tee-hee.” he said, his lovely smile struggling to shine through his heavy-eyed face.

I put in the DVD, lit the fire, threw the blanket over the two of us and pressed play.

“Fionn,” I said. “Sorry for getting angry with you.”

“That’s OK,” he said.

We cuddled and got on with the business of watching the movie.