Rearing 'The Whirlwind'

Last week my wife was ill.  This is a distressing event at the best of times, but as she was also pregnant, experiencing stomach pains, unable to sleep and not desirous of food we were a little more worried than perhaps we needed to have been.  She is well on the way to being better now but for a week she couldn’t really get out of bed.  This meant that I had to take some time off work to look after N while she was incapacitated.

o_O

In the end I spent 4 whole days with her and came away with a renewed appreciation for my wife and a hearty dread of ever having to look after my daughter for an extended period of time without proper adult supervision ever again.  It was a grueling four days of playdough, crayons, playdough and crayons, stickers, stickers being unpeeled from crayons, stickers being unpeeled from walls and tables, playdough being scraped from the table, quick run in the garden, lunch, sleep, playdough, Ivor the Engine, tea, bath, all of which took us to about 2 in the afternoon.  I’m pretty sure when she grows up N’s wrestling nickname will be ‘The Whirlwind.’

The illness was the reason why I was dispensed to do the shopping with N which led to the joyous incident that I wrote about in this post.  It was also the reason why nothing domestic seemed to get done in our house for pretty much the entirety of last week.  I just about kept on top of the washing up, but if you are expecting me to have managed to tidy up after each day’s wrecking ball type activities, or done those jobs which are mysteriously being added to the kitchen notice board, I’m afraid we need to have a little chat about your expectation levels.

Each evening after ‘The Whirlwind’TM  had finally been put to bed (which is a blogpost all of its own) I would curl myself into a little ball wondering how much mileage there was in calling in a storm chaser to supervise my daughter for a day.  

And yet my wife somehow makes it all look very effortless, like the moment of complete stillness achieved by Pele in the build up to That Goal, or the moment of time-slowing brilliance exhibited by Joe Montana for The Catch.  She is the area of effortless yet effective calm in the middle of my daughter’s daily imitation of El Nino.

It just so happens to be our anniversary today and there’s really only one thing I want to say.  Thank-you.