Forest

We are all sharing a bed while we’re in the forest, because one of us is not well. His body is stripped of all but a nappy, his fever is furious and hard to keep on top of. The drugs aren’t working like they usually do. He looks so much smaller, as if the illness has diminished his physical presence. In a foetal ball, perched atop a pillow, he occasionally jerks and shudders before resettling.

I wonder what goes through his head to make his body do that. Fearful, feverish dreams? He seems scared, and it hurts me to know that I can do nothing about it.

His sleep is snatched, sporadic, restless, and so is ours. It’s quiet here, the birds and animals are asleep, there are no roads nearby. A baby’s cry is far more piercing when it’s the only sound.

A poorly boy taking a nap. Aww.

We get up early and look outside at the trees, the water, the rocks and the morning light. I wonder aloud why people have chosen to live anywhere but here. I feel more at ease and at home here than I ever do in the tarmac coated sprawl of a city or town. I suppose there just aren’t many jobs in the forest.

I'm not feeling well, can you tell?

The arrival of morning signals the departure of the fever. The rash remains, to remind us we’re not done with the whining just yet, and woe betide should you run out of Calpol. Suitably dosed, we head out on the bikes, weaving between the other assorte

d short term forest dwellers, most of whom look like they haven’t seen a bike before, let alone ridden one. Crashes are narrowly avoided and the swimming pool is reached.

Cool water laps at our skin and rinses away memories of the unpleasant night time, replaced by chlorine’s gift: desiccated skin. But he loves it. He thinks he can swim, we do not. He wants no aid to buoyancy apart from one of us, so we scoot around the pool, pushing him ahead of us. He remains utterly calm while we change him back into dry land clothing and, though a part of me feels foolish, we believe that the worst of the illness, a reaction to the MMR vaccination, is over.

Bedtime proves my foolish part correct. The fever is back. At 3:30am I meander through the haze of sleep to give him Calpol. He sleeps next to us again.

In the morning I discover I’ve left the lid off the Calpol. An ant crawls near to the bottle. An urgent trip to the shop to buy more occurs. We swim again. He loves it again. I continue to love the forest, continue to love the time I am having with my family, continue to hope it will somehow not come to an end on Friday, when they let the cars back in and we have to leave.

Forest at dusk. Pretty.

Our first holiday as three hasn’t been the easiest four days, but I will always remember it and cherish it.

Cam's War

Sometimes, when he cries, I wake with a jolt. As if I am Frankenstein's monster, my bed is the operating slab, and his cry is the immeasurably powerful lightning strike. Fast asleep to full alert in the 0.014 seconds it takes for the sound to travel from his mouth to my ear.

A fully alert brain doesn't translate to a fully alert body. Several full seconds pass before my limbs and joints can be convinced to join in the party. His lungs are now in full swing, gulping in air and converting it to pure anguish. The sound of being alone, of waking up to a world still so new to him that his brain needs to recalibrate every morning, but mostly the sound of doing battle.

His invisible enemies torment him through the day and through the night. They wriggle, they move, they prod and push, though they don't yet protrude. Dentin Soldiers: milk teeth. Waging war on our tiny boy, whose only defences are copious saliva, chewing on his own hands and those heart wrenching howls of agony.

By the time my recalcitrant hips have been coerced into action my wife is already up and soothing him, the soft shushing is designed to comfort, but to my ears also holds notes of concern and helplessness. What use are we to him? What relief can we give? All the quiet reassurances that he's okay mean nothing to him, or to the tiny incisors moving ever closer to eruption. We can not lull them to sleep any more than we can him. I stay in bed. We are zero help whether we are one or two.

Distraction proves impossible. He is lifted and embraced, held tight in my wife's arms and snuggled to her chest. Rocked and swayed. Regardless, the screams continue, the tears roll and leave their salty trace, the limbs thrash.

He comes into our bed, nestled between us to prevent the rolling over he has recently perfected. A moment's peace as his brain once again recalibrates to his new position, then the crying is back. Was it a moment or an hour? I'm not as alert as I thought. How long have I been asleep and allowing my wife to bear the brunt of this? Too long. Now it is my turn. I pick him up, offer him what I can: the sound of my voice, my finger to chew, my arms and chest to hit in frustration.

My tired brain is convinced he has filled his nappy. We return to his room and begin the changing process. There is no poo. But while I'm changing him from one clean nappy to another he is smiling. We play a little and all seems right for a few minutes. I sense a change which could mean this part of the war is over. I reinsert him in his 2.5 TOG cocoon and lay him back in his cot. Awake but calm I leave him. He is yawning. I am yawning.

Battle recommences within an hour. Feelings of pity and concern for him mix with a notion that we must be doing something wrong. Surely we ought to be able to help him? There is some trick we are missing and we are failing him by doing so. Whatever it is, we can't work it out. So he gets our best shot: 5ml of sugary analgesia poured into his gaping, angry mouth.

I'm given the go ahead to return to sleep. I need to be able to function to some degree when I go to work tomorrow. Today. In three hours. Doggedly, my wife continues to sit with him, singing a lullaby over and over. A statement of her love for him which carries through the air and sends me to sleep.

My battle is over for tonight.

Zombie Apocalypse

I don't want to alarm anyone, but I've experienced a moment of clarity.  Sometime in the middle of the night, with the screams of Baby Babberblog as the backing track to my thought process.

Zombies.  I know where they're going to come from.  I have unravelled how the apocalypse will befall us.  Revitalised dead people?  No.  Carriers of some mysterious disease, passed on through germ ridden bites?  Again, no.

Really, really tired people who've got young children?  Yes.  As I shambled around the downstairs of my house last night, alternating between bouncing on the Swiss ball (Godsend! Thank you Switzerland!) and singing Soft Kitty (that moment when you realise the only lullaby you know is from a TV programme? Upsetting.) to the beautiful creature I held in my arms, I could sense a change.

I felt fuzzy around the edges.  My brain felt as if parts of it were falling away, like the end of a biscuit when you've left it in your tea too long.  Or a simile which you couldn't really make work because you were a bit tired.

As I wandered around, inconsolable ball of cute held tight to my chest, I could imagine how I might end up walking out the door and finding all the other parents, drawn together by their shared plight.  We would then rampage (slowly) down the street, attacking anyone who looked like they may have had more than a few hours sleep.  Maybe we would feast on their brains, to get at the juicy sleep that must surely lie within them.  Almost definitely we'd get covered in mud and assorted other muck, our sleep deprived brains would make staying upright a near impossible task.

Yes.  Definitely.  This was it.  Tonight was the night.  Zombies were coming and I would lead the charge.

Luckily, before my wobbly brain went any further wrong, Mrs L woke from her slumber and rescued me.  We had a loosely sensible adult conversation, without any rhyming couplets, we co-operated to get the little one fed and changed, then settled into a blissful sleep.  Then I went to bed.  At seven in the morning.

Zombie apocalypse averted for one more night.