Julie Jay: Caught on the hop when we got sick once again at this time of year

Despite both being on antibiotics, I am still chasing my children around shops, because even when fuelled by penicillin, they have yet to meet an automatic door they haven't wanted to run through

Despite seeming to always be unwell around the new year for as long as I can remember, I was still caught on the hop, with just the tail end of one Calpol bottle left when the epidemic made itself known. Picture: iStock 

The five-year-old is sick, the two-year-old is sick, and their mother (ie, yours truly) is definitely sick.

To be fair, we were all bound to get some kind of scurvy after a December of eating our weight in Quality Street and Tayto crisps, so this bout of illness shouldn’t have taken me by surprise.

Yet, despite seeming to always be unwell around the new year for as long as I can remember, I was still caught on the hop, with just the tail end of one Calpol bottle left when the epidemic made itself known.

First to high-tail it to the doctor was our toddler, whose symptoms persisted over a Friday, ensuring a trip to the emergency doctor in Dingle on the following Saturday morning. Because he is an all-or-nothing kind of guy, it turned out he had a chest, ear, and throat infection, the Holy Trinity of maladies if you will. 

We toddled off to the chemist to procure his medication, only to be back in on Monday with a prescription for the five-year-old, who had probably watched as his brother had got away with blue murder over what had remained of the weekend and decided: “If you can’t beat them, join them.”

A throat infection was the diagnosis of the day for Number One, leading me to gleefully regale anyone in the pharmacy who would listen how I, too, had suffered from many bouts of tonsillitis before my tonsils had been removed sometime in the early ‘90s. This was during an era where surgeons tended to remove body parts willy-nilly, so I did well to emerge with both adenoids and appendix still attached.

No doubt the staff in the chemists thoroughly enjoyed me somehow bringing the children’s illnesses back to myself, but my self-centred anecdotes were cut short by the youngest causing mayhem.

Yes, while in the chemist, the two-year-old defied all medical diagnoses by running around like a lunatic, repeatedly making for the automatic door, which is located approximately 1m from one of the busiest roads in Dingle — where our footpaths, much like our chances of getting a decent public transport system, are narrow.

As one customer manhandles the toddler while he attempts to escape, I can’t help but wonder how the kids could be so sick and yet so full of beans. Surely the one advantage of having children under the weather is that there is less chasing them around shops?

Apparently, even when on antibiotics, my kids have yet to meet a door they didn’t want to run through.

I can’t even begin to tell you how tired I am, but let’s just say I’m pretty sure my biological age is that of somebody who has just qualified for free travel and voted ‘no’ in the divorce referendum.

At home, we quickly change into our pyjamas, and I also throw on my fluffy bottoms, accepting I probably won’t see the outside world for a 72-hour period with the way the chesty hacks and whoops emanating from the sitting room are sounding.

Number Two can’t get enough of his medicine, which is impressive considering it has the luminous shade of something radioactive and smells like something the cat threw up. In fact, so mad for medicine is he that I have had to wrangle Number One’s medicine bottle out of his tiny paws on more than one occasion.

In the shop, the chemist had very kindly made a show and dance about how delicious the medicine was, in an attempt to persuade the five-year-old that this was, in fact, quite the treat. To be fair, unlike Number Two’s medicine, it smells relatively pleasant, and I’ve definitely consumed worse-tasting alcoholic shots in my time, but my five-year-old baulks at the sight of it.

Every sip has to be coaxed to such a degree that at one point I find myself on my knees pleading with him to have just one more spoonful, eventually resorting to paying him cold, hard cash to get it over the line.

The past five days have been nothing short of a Bluey-Lemsip daze. This morning, I have no idea what day of the week it is, only that my husband is coming home later today after being away for the week, and I am looking forward to someone else administering all the medicines for the evening.

When he lands home, the husband announces he has been suffering from a bit of a cough. It takes all the self-restraint I have not to Google a family law solicitor immediately to find out how I walk away from this marriage. Instead, I inform him that I have also been sick this week. His response? Have I considered making a doctor’s appointment?

Making a doctor’s appointment at the moment is up there with getting a bikini wax in January — it is nothing short of an indulgence at this stage. I am just about to Google how to dissolve my marriage when he finds my laptop charger, the one that has eluded me for at least four days, and which a child has stuffed into a toy box. Maybe I’ll hold off on the divorce for now — at least until all the Lemsip is out of my system and we are all thinking, and breathing, clearly again.