A final putting my hand, foot and mouth in it

Well, that wasn't very fun.

While the after-effects still settle down, I now have my voice (sort of) back to normal. Lolly pretty much looks like she was never so sick just a few days ago, except for the now fading tell-tale spots still around the corners of her mouth, on her feet, around her nappy line and in her mouth. She tells me that eating certain things is still "a bit funny", but this does not also produce pain-filled tears and a need for a cuddle every time she takes a swig of something or puts food in her mouth.

I copped it pretty badly too. The ulcers were confined mostly to the inside of my mouth, with just a couple of sores in the corners of my mouth that really just looked like red scratches to the eye. Yesterday, I got a few more grazes up under my top lip. The virus is still working its way out of my body, apparently (and the LGBB's).

I'm over it. So bloody over the headache (which is there again today and has been solidly since last Friday, despite my good friend, Pana Deine), the general body lethargy, the fuzzy thoughts, not feeling like I can cope with the LGBB, not being able to speak, to sing, to read books in order that I may amuse a steadily feeling-better child, who is getting better much faster than me (who cannot rest it off, due to said child). It's a bit of a vicious circle but we're nearly through it. I'm sick of the weakened joints, I am just hanging out for a decent massage to ease some of the tension built up in my back from the aches and chills of the past week.

We'll be contageous for at least another week yet. Once the sores clear, it is still able to be passed on for another 5-7 days. What joy.

Two stir-crazies, just completely and utterly OVER one anothers' company.

One thing I find lovely, though, is that even after the day in, day out, no break from each other nature of all this, the LGBB chose me to read her a story last night before bed. I felt up to it and could actually speak, albeit through a husky cracking voice to rival Kim Carnes. So I took her down and decided to go for an imagination-story. No book. Flying solo. During tea, she had suddenly piped up, "Little Charlie is at school." See, on the weekend, in an attempt to distract her from her wracking pain, I put on the original (and best, IMO) dvd of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for her for the first time ever. She had lain there, dazzled by the opening sequence and allowed me to explain the story to her as it unfolded. We only got to the chocolate river part. But still, that's a good twenty or so minutes in to the movie. She's seen it two more times since then and lost interest at the same spot so I am quite sure she thinks the movie is simply about a little boy called Charlie who finds a golden ticket and goes and sees a man about a river. And that's it.

So last night, when she started chatting about Charlie, I decided to make a precis of the story and told it to her as she lay there, falling asleep in my arms and desperately trying to stay awake. Good. I wanted her goooooood and sleeeeepy. There were several requests for The Candyman song, which just finished her off.

I lay her down in her bed and she snuggled in, surrounded by her friends - she is SO me as a little kid, she keeps befriending new stuffed toys off her shelf and insisting they enjoy the comfort of her bed, so what started as one bedtime toy increased instantly to three, then four and at one stage before we cut them back, she had six in there. My high count was somewhere in the thirties, so she's got a long way before she beats the master. And I got those little emotional catches of breath in my throat, looking down at her sweet little excited, full face as I bid her sweet dreams, with Charlie and Willy Wonka and Grandpa Joe... her grin got wider and wider and didn't leave her face as I left the room.

I thought I'd done so well. Sending her off to the Land of Nod with these images in her mind. If only she didn't feel the need to then chat to Charlie for the next half an hour. But my God, it was funny listening in.