In sickness and in health

Unsurprisingly, Jake's first week at daycare saw get struck down by a stomach bug. Speaking to other parents who have sent their kids to daycare, this seems to be a common theme as your child enters a maelstrom of germs and other children's illnesses with only a basic immune system to protect themselves.

Of course Jake has been ill before with a sniffle or a slight fever, but as my wife was at home, it was always manageable, even it meant a few days of him being more whiny and cuddly. However, now with us both back to work, the situation of Jake being ill changes everything.

Because it was a stomach bug, the daycare's policy (and indeed that of the whole education system) is that the child needs to be at home for 48 hours to clear the bug before they can come back. This is fine if one of you is at home or it's the weekend, but Jake managed to fall ill mid-week. Our aim has always been to make this an equal partnership so we each took a day off work to be with him.

It was a very surreal experience to be at home on a Thursday when it's not a holiday and I myself am not ill. I ran into all sorts of conflicts because on the one hand you want to be on call to look after Jake and on the other, my work ethic demanded that I try and make the most of the day. I eventually settled on working whilst Jake napped (which fortunately was a lot of the day) and making sure that I was with him at all times when he was awake. It turned into a pleasant day as even through being ill, he was still cheerful and easily pleased.

The big concern was being able to get enough fluids into him as he completely lost his appetite and isn't able to drink from a sippy cup yet (though not for want of trying!). It was strange to have to go back to feeding him a bottle of milk every time he got hungry and even then he still didn't eat a huge amount. Fortunately with his recovery has also come a return of appetite and he's back to stretching across the dining table to grab at whatever we're eating.

Watching your child go through an illness is tough because as an adult you know that it will pass, either with medicine or a few days of rest. For Jake, there's no such concept as time, just how he feels right now, and that feeling was pretty bad. Whilst it was nice having a baby who just wanted to cuddle and be held most of the time, I'm glad he's back to his usual self, playing with toys on the carpet and trying eat everything in sight.