Hugh, the book nerd!

There is a new love in little Hugh’s life. Everyone’s started noticing, his parents, his grandparents, even childcare is commenting on this new relationship. 

Hugh is addicted to books. He’s become quite bibliophile and while I should be delighted (as a lover of books myself) this is not all I had hoped and dreamed it would be. 

What started out as an adorable scene with little Hugh sitting and quietly turning the pages of his favourite books by himself on the playmat has turned into an all consuming obsession that needs constant feeding. Simply turning the pages is no longer enough. He needs the words, the story, the thrill of a plot he can’t actually understand to satisfy his needs.

This means that unlike the short lived “throwing balls” phase of March – June 2017, this reading books phase requires a lot of participation and effort from Mummy and Daddy. You can’t use one hand to throw a book while you finish your morning coffee or throw it to the other side of the room to get him to distract him while you finish hanging the washing.  Nuh- uh, book phase requires attention and creativity. All.the.time. 

The book obsession really kicked off with what Tim and I affectionately refer to as Ugly Wiggles Book. There was nothing majorly wrong with Ugly Wiggles Book. It just has a lot of words, a bit of an odd story about Dorothy the Dinosaur meeting Santa and to be honest he has a lot of much nicer, fun, interactive books. But Ugly Wiggles Book was by far and away the favourite. He could pick it out from a pile of books a mile away and wanted it to be read constantly. Over and over and over again. Poor Ugly Wiggles Book got such a work out it started falling apart but that still didn’t stop Hugh. He just started taking groups of random pages around, begging for them to be read to him. Pathetic really. 

The final straw for Ugly Wiggles Book came on the weekend when Tim busted Hugh eating the pages. Dude. When you love a book so much you have to eat it things have gone too far. So Ugly Wiggles Book was carefully extracted under cover of post bedtime darkness and released back into the wild (the bin. We put it in the bin). 

After Ugly Wiggles Book we had Wiggles Propeller Book. Much nicer illustrations and a fun little ‘lift the flap’ feature to keep things fresh but after reading that up to 8 times in a row for 3 days straight Wiggles Propeller Book is also taking a small holiday. As it hasn’t been eaten so far Wiggles Propeller Book is allowed to holiday in the cupboard and has not been ‘released’ to the bin. One day it might be put back on the reading circuit rotation but for now, for our sanity, in ththe cupboard it stays. 

The lasted candidate for a cupboard vacation is a classic. An increadible children’s story by a well renowned author. I never thought I would say this but, Mem Fox, how many f%^ing pages does it take to find one goddamn green sheep? How many different types of sheep are there? Why are we looking for the green sheep anyway? I don’t understand and after the 4th time in a row my little Australian Literature Lover squeals and thrusts this book in my face/neck/mouth to be read again I am pretty sure the plot goes like this “sheep sheep sheep sheep, more sheep, green sheep, the end.” Repeat times infinity.

I do actually adore that Hugh loves reading and I think a love of books is an amazing thing for a child. But for our mental health I’m going send “Where is the green sheep?” to Club Med Downstairs Cupboard for a little while where it can relax, take a load off while Mummy and Daddy rote learn a new book by reading it over and over and over and over and over again. 

The Childcare Cesspit

Before I begin today’s post I would like to state that we were warned. We were told repeatedly to prepare ourselves for the never ending sick cycle that is your child’s first 6-12 months in childcare but in all honesty we were not prepared. Not at all.

To most of you tomorrow is Thursday but to us tomorrow is the ominous “Day 4” of the childcare week. We are yet to make it all the way through Day 4. It’s like Hugh’s little immune system can’t hold out the full 4 days. We’ve got to Wednesday afternoon, we’ve even got to midday Thursday once but a full day Thursday just seems like too much. I’m mentally preparing for what tomorrow brings.

It’s not just Hugh who is crashing and burning at this point. So far the list of illnesses we have encountered in the past month include:

Cold (me, Tim, Hugh)

Shingles (me)

Respiratory Infection (Hugh)

Conjunctivitis (Hugh and Tim)

Tonsillitis (Tim)

Random vomiting (Hugh)

Gastro (Hugh)

Some kind of gross chin fungal infection (Hugh)

We are currently splitting out time between 2 GPs as I am too embarrassed to keep going  back to the same one every week. The two GPs don’t include the home doctor visits or the trips to the after hours clinic at the hospital. I have almost memorised our Medicare card number off by heart and I only half joke when I tell Tim I think we should pull Hugh out if childcare on Thursday as, while I would loose another days pay, the money we would save on childcar, doctors bills and medications would probably make up for it.

The most common sentence currently uttered in our household is “have you sanitised your hands?” followed by ” where’s the Glen 20?” and “do his eyes look pink to you”, “is that pus or just a bit of sleep” and ” do my eyes look pink? They’re itchy, for gods sake are they pink?!”.  At the first sign of illness we try and quarantine ourselves away from Hugh. Hugh has no such consideration and divides his time between openly coughing in our faces and wiping his hands in his snot/ eye gunk and sticking them in our mouths and up our noses on a regular basis.  Charming.

We go though so many cans of Glen 20 at the moment I feel like negotiating some sort of sponsorship deal. If anyone from Glen 20 does read my blog please get in touch. Likewise to the makers of Detol Wipes. Seriously, call me.

Despite these fine products and their germ deterring properties the little buggers keep slipping though into our house! I’m trying to come up with new ways to prevent the spread of germs.  I have considered a self contained bubble suit for Hugh, or maybe a fumigation chamber just inside the front door so he gets a good decontamination process before he gets through the door. On more extreme days perhaps we just torch the whole house and start again.

I am hopeful that tomorrow will be the day the cycle breaks and that we will make it through the dreaded “Day 4”. If not you can find me in the cleaning aisle of my local supermarket. I’ll be the lady with the slightly pink twitchy eyes, the snotty baby and the basket choc full of Glen 20.