We don’t do anything by halves in this house. Not content with having twins, and all of the extra challenges (and joys) that come with them, we are now going through our second round of double chicken pox quarantine in less than 6 months. With the benefit of hindsight, I don’t think either of our girls had chicken pox back in October – although DD1 was diagnosed with chicken pox by the doctor, so perhaps it was a mild dose that simply hasn’t given her enough immunity to avoid it this time around.
Chicken pox is one of those things that really isn’t any worse with twins than with normal siblings – so I can’t really complain about the frustration of DD1 coming out in spots 2 weeks after DD2 did, and therefore extending that miserable period of being trapped in the
house to its maximum. And really I’m very lucky with the timing this time around because my hubby is having a short break between contracts, so for once I don’t have to cancel all of my meetings. But its still a challenge, and all the more frustrating because we thought we’d got it out of the way in October!
So here I am again with small poorly children playing havic with my sleep and my workload. Thank goodness I work for myself so I can be very flexible about when I work and I can fit it around ill toddlers. And I’m very proud of my girls and their new found independence which means one is OK going to nursery or the childminder without the other. But I need to figure out some better coping strategies before the next time!
What do you do when your children are ill? My best approach at the moment is simply to drop everything when one of my girls needs me, and to be VERY proactive in managing my diary and particularly meetings with clients. As a result I get behind and have to do more and more late nights (when I’m not cuddling an itchy girlie) in a desperate attempt to stay on top of key deadlines. Very definitely not ideal. Any other suggestions are very welcome…
