Monday, 15 July 2013

Blog Challenge: Great Adventure #8

I have noticed that each time I dare to say aloud something that pleases me, within weeks things will take a turn. When Ebony was just three months old, she would go to sleep when we did, and would sleep until around 8am. At a baby group, a health visitor asked me about Ebony’s sleep, so I answered her honestly. Some exhausted looking mums threw hateful glares my way. A week later, when we gathered at the same group, I had the dark circles and poor concentration to prove that my lucky streak had come to an end.


A couple of weeks ago, Ebony had a playdate with her friend. I stupidly said aloud that Ebony hadn’t been ill for months. In fact, she hasn’t had so much as a cough since she had pneumonia in February. I shouldn’t have said it out loud. It was stupid.


Last Sunday we went to Lyme Park for our seventh great adventure, and I noticed as we sat by the lake that one of Ebony’s eyes looked a little pink. I assumed, as one does, that Laurie had accidentally smeared sun cream onto her eyeball while getting her ready that morning. 

She didn’t sleep well that night, and wake screaming every few hours.The next morning, both her eyes were pink and weepy. We had to cancel our playdate that afternoon for fear of infecting a gaggle of toddlers. By the Tuesday, she was suffering with every viral symptom possible. She was covered in a rash that she complained was “itchy”, she had a fever and a runny nose on the scale of niagara falls. Needless to say, we didn’t go any many adventures this week.
In fact, despite the beautiful sunshine and bucket load of fun activities I had lined up, we didn’t get to leave our home. We made the most of the sun by playing in the garden, but I spent most of the week soothing an unhappy toddler. It has been a long week. I kept expecting her recover, but then the next day she would still be poorly.

Yesterday, Ebony still seemed cranky and a bit sorry for herself, but had definitely improved so we decided to take her out. We didn’t want to go far in case she seemed unhappy, so we just went to a nearby stream to paddle. The water was cold, but Ebony had fun skimming stones (dropping stones) and splashing about. She had fun with Laurie, being thrown around in the water and wading in deep (much deeper than I ever let her). She played for about 20 minutes, and then decided it was time to go home. On the walk up the bank, she tripped and grazed her knee which prompted ten minutes of crying on the way back to the car. She’s definitely not quite back to normal yet.

So, week 8 wasn’t our most successful great adventure yet. How did you do?