Phew! Thank goodness that's over...

So, it's been an eventful few days at our place, and not always in a good way!

Mum is still here, hooray! and it looks like she's going to extend her visit with us for another couple of weeks until the middle of March, which we couldn't be happier about! My younger sister is available to take care of the family dog and so there is no rush for Mum to get home. Hubby and I are under no delusions that this has very little to do with us and is all about Moomy. But who cares, it's all good, the longer she stays the better! And that's the good bit.

The bad bit is that Molly has been really sick for the first time, and it was bloody awful, terrifying, exhausting and God am I glad it's over now. If possible I would like this to be her last illness until she's a big girl and can tell me what's wrong, rather then the 'hit and miss', guess work that took place this time. I wasn't prepared for the helplessness that comes hand-in-hand with a sick child, when you can't fix the problem for them and you can't explain to them what's happening either.

We went to Hanmer for the weekend, another trip for Molly and she wasn't doing so well this time, a bit grizzly and cross. We put it down to teething, she was (and still is) dribbling like a leaky bucket. Friday night she woke crying every hour on the hour. The next day she tried to be her normal chirpy self but you could see it was an effort, she didn't really eat and was tired, so we gave her paracetamol before bed on Saturday night. She was even worse, and was awake more then she was asleep.

Sunday morning we'd planned to go and do some go-karting or quad biking or something (treat from Mum), but instead I called the shots - over-protective Mummy, I thought at the time - and we came home. She slept most of the way home but when we got here she was burning up. I checked her temperature and she was 38.9 degrees, after calling the Plunket helpline it had shot up to 39.4 degrees and off we went - at high speed ('slow down, darling!' was the most we said to each other) to the After Hours Clinic. Thankfully, the Doctor didn't make me feel like an over anxious first-time Mum, and after a thorough checking over told us that Molly had an inflamed throat and ears, it was probably a viral infection. He prescribed Brufen to bring down the inflammation and lower her temperature quickly.

Excellent, so she's not in fact dying, (stupid I know, but it went through my head!) and once we could persuade her to take the vile tasting medicine - not easy with an already cross little girl! - she almost immediately began to improve. By the time we'd got back to our place she was sleeping peacefully - not the jumpy, whimpery sleep she had been having - and her temperature was dropping. Phew!

She's really on the mend now, her smiles are back and she's tearing round the house like a rocket again. Oh yeah, forgot to mention that she's crawling properly now, in the midst of all this angst she started to really crawl, really, really fast! and climb furniture too, the fun never stops in our house!