Can you beat him this week? I think I can...... email from my brother down under

A vomit fuelled early instalment this week from my brother.

I will let him explain

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi Fay,

Good news at your end I read.  Hurrah!  Ready to hear how hard my life is?

So another week’s gone by, we still haven’t got any hot water and everyone except Eva came down with virus.  Now I must warn you that this e-mail has got a lot about puking in it so you may want to avoid it if you’re not feeling the best at the moment.  Still reading?  Okay then, you’ve been warned …

On Sunday Sam kicked things off by puking in our bed a couple of times before I elected to stay up most of the night with him in the baby sling while Juliette began retching in ever increasing decibels into the toilet.  She was talking on the Big White Telephone and if it’d been an episode of Countdown she’d have found that she was all out of consonants.  So the reason I put Sam in the sling was that

(a) there’s only so many times you can change a mattress cover before you realise that the ratio of clean mattress covers to dirty ones isn’t going in your favour and

(b) Juliette was busy.

When Sam is in the sling he’s basically strapped to my chest facing me so I just let him puke down my front every ten minutes for five hours solid.  When he was finally bored with the puking I unstrapped him, tossed him back into his (clean) bed with his mummy and peeled off my T-shirt.  No hot water, eh?  I’ll just throw some sawdust over my chest like they used to do with puke puddles in primary school.

Just to finish off the entertainment when we got up on the Monday morning Sam puked into my lap minutes before I had to take Eva to school.  Inevitably after I sponged myself down it looked like I’d wet myself.  Good job it reeked of puke otherwise the other parents at school drop off might think I’m disgusting.  I was thinking at the time that I might have to change my jeans for a fresh pair and I never like doing that.  It’s a waste to change jeans too early unless I’ve spilled at least eight of the following filths on my jeans; puke, wee, poo, cat dribble, mud, slopped beer, slopped tea, slopped coffee, milk, pancake mixture and alpaca cud.  After the puke that morning I was only up to six of the eight.

I will not be flexible on this (and after two months neither are my jeans (boom-tish)).

So me and Juliette have been playing “Who’s The Most Unwell?” Top Trumps with both of us claiming to have had it the hardest.  No other couples play this do they?  “Yeah, well, I had three hours sleep before I started vomiting, at least you had a good night’s rest before you started hurling.” “Well I had to breast feed Sam and I never got any sleep during the day because of the workmen ripping out our new bathroom.”  “Eeee, you were lucky,” (at some point it always turns into a bastard version of the Four Yorkshireman sketch), “, I actually went to sleep, dreamt I was awake and woke up tired.” “You had it easy, I used to dream about waking up tired...”

Truth is Sam wins Most-Unwell-Top-Trumps hands down because he’s still sick and yet as only a toddler can he’s happy as Larry in between the occasional puke. Yay, bird!  Burp.  Puke.  Yay, tractor!  Eva also remains in the pink of health despite our constant worries that she doesn’t eat properly, is too skinny and is sickly pale.  I suspect she may have some X-Men Wolverine healing gene that is only now becoming apparent. The healing gene is poised any day now to kick into full and cure those little inspect bites on her legs that she keeps getting me up in the middle of the night just to put “magic cream” on.  Or maybe she’ll just keep that private torture going for a few more years.  “Eva, it’s two thirty in the morning and more to the point you’re thirty six years old now, you can put your own “magic cream” on.”  I'm tempting fate now.

Also despite being the only one of us who hasn't been unwell she continues with the whining.  This time it’s whining about Sam getting too much attention when for example he barfs onto his dinner plate during a meal.  Yeah, what’s all the fuss around Sam for?  It’s normal to puke after eating one of daddy’s dinners isn’t it? And why has Sam suddenly got carrots on his plate when I don’t?  It’s not fair!

So to get off the subject of puke I’m just reminded by the mention of cooking that the other week it was Mother’s Day here in New Zealand and Juliette asked for pancakes with chocolate spread for her Mother’s Day lunch.  We added sliced banana to the pancakes to make it more healthy but personally I think that once you've reached for the Nutella jar you might as well drive the concept of “healthy eating” to the airport and wave it off on a long holiday.

I was trying to save on the washing up by tossing the pancakes rather than use a spatula but the uncooked liquid part of the pancakes kept sloshing back over the pan and onto my shoes.  I never realised that when you toss a pancake you always instinctively toss it back towards your exposed face when it makes more sense to toss the boiling hot fat mixture away.  And yet it’s impossible to toss a pancake any other way.  Go on, mime tossing a pancake and tell me I’m wrong.

The upshot was that when it came to bed time I thought I’d picked up some horrible new foot disease because of the mess on my socks.  Luckily it was just pancake mixture that had gone through the holes in my Crocs. Your feet smell of cheese!  No they don’t, they smell of Shrove Tuesday.

Hope I haven’t made you feel too unwell with this e-mail.  Good luck for Monday with the operation and take care of yourself.  Maybe have some pancakes with Nutella on them, they’re most delicious.  Just don’t think about my jeans while you’re eating them.

Love Mark,

xxx

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hey Mark

I have pictures in my head and they aren't good ones! I remember James throwing up from the top bunk. The height meant it hit the floor at velocity and managed to hit every wall! So even though your life is much harder than mine, I think I beat you on the vomit score.

And if anyone else can beat him (and in the process, of course, make him see his life isn't that bad) please join in and leave a comment. I know he reads them (Well Juliette does and passes them on!)

And as always, dear Brother

<<Previous  <<Home>>