Sick day..

We had a "sick day" today. We all have colds. Boo etc.. Actually, as colds go, it's not a bad one. Ethan is in pretty good spirits in the daytime, it's the night that's not so good. His cough wakes him up and then he finds it hard to settle without me being in there and holding his hand. Which I don't mind of course. When he's not ill, we have quite strict rules about bedtime routine and not going in to him unless he's crying out, but when he's ill it all goes out the window and I will happily spend hours lying on his bedroom floor holding his hand until he's in a deep sleep. I say happily, that's perhaps not quite the right word, but I'm his Mummy, I want to be there for him. It's just hard at 3am on a cold floor when it's -3 outside!

So, today I decided we wouldn't go to tearless and fearless or story time as we normally do on Mondays, to avoid spreading the germs. This is always a tricky decision to make. Obviously don't want to be that Mum who rocks up to a group happily spreading germs around left, right and centre, leaving snot trails behind. But equally it's hard committing to a day spent at home, just Ethan and I. Not that I don't enjoy spending time with him, I do, but he's two and a half, always on the go and needs a lot of stimulation like all toddlers. So it makes for an intense day!

I actually ended up enjoying it a lot though. Sometimes it is nice to slow down for a bit. I think Ethan enjoys the opportunity to play with all his toys at home for longer than he'd normally be able to on a Monday. I was pleased we didn't rely to heavily on Cbeebies. Not that I'm against that, there are occasions (especially if you are both ill and low on sleep!) that a day of TV is just fine. But it is nice to know that even on a day when both of you are well below 100% you can still enjoy some activities.

We started the day with snuggling on the sofa, but then ramped it up with playdoh which we haven't done in an age! Ethan was really getting into it. Since we last did it, he's really mastered the rolling pin and using cut outs. We actually managed to spend an hour doing that which surprised me. I remember reading something on a forum recently (I think it was on the SuperNanny site) saying something like toddlers of Ethan's age should be able to keep their attention on a craft activity for 15 minutes or so, and I wasn't sure if Ethan could, but this smashed that, so WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

After playdoh Ethan ran around the house with his Trunki (he is mad for that thing!) whilst I cleared up, using my new handheld vax (whoop whoop!). We then watched about 3 million episodes of Uki on YouTube (you don't know who Uki is? You lucky SOB! Well, have a look here. This then led to Ethan telling me every 30 seconds for the rest of the day that "Uki's light goes out when he goes to sleep, he doesn't need it on when he sleeps!". Now, whilst I say I enjoyed today (and I did) I was ready to lynch Uki and his bloody litup antennae thingy by 5pm.

In the afternoon we went out for a stroll (I strolled, Ethan chilled in the buggy whilst singing and talking about bloody Uki). Once home we played with fuzzy felts, drew in thank you cards for Christmas presents, played trains, threw knitted fruit and veg at each other and STOP PRESS Ethan ate fish fingers for his tea! Oh yes, oh yes! I know this is an odd thing to cheer about, but Ethan just won't entertain foods like that. Which is great, but sometimes you want a quick easy meal to make (beyond pasta and sandwiches). So, yes, we ended the day on a good note. After drawing pictures of Mummy as Uki that is.

If you want something really odd to watch, check out Hopla on YouTube. Makes Uki look like a top notch BBC drama..