Saturday 21 August 1999
Last weekend was a bit of a nightmare. You started behaving a bit unusually on Friday night (sleeping a lot), then you were whining all day on Saturday. I thought you were teething, so I gave you some Calpol. You were either awake and moaning or asleep… We went to sleep and at 4:30, Sunday morning I felt these very hot little hands on my chest. Then you started screaming your little head off. We gave you some more Calpol (we didn’t take your temperature, as it was obvious that you had a fever and we were so dazed and half asleep…). After crying for nearly an hour and waking up the whole house you went back to sleep and cooled down too.
We woke up at around 8 on Sunday morning and the fever was there again. This time I took your temperature (while arguing with R., who thought the thermometer should go up your bum, and I was saying that under the armpit was enough). You had a fever of 38.5 C. So we phoned the doctor, who phoned us back an hour later (by then the fever had gone down again) and said you had a viral infection and to just carry on giving you Calpol and then go and see the GP tomorrow. How the doctor knew what it was just by my description of the symptoms on the phone is beyond me. He should have came around to see you! We had another very tiring day of Calpol every four hours, whining, you not wanting to eat anything… Fortunately, I still breastfeed you, otherwise you would have spent 2 days without eating at all (you didn’t even want formula milk).
Finally, on Monday, R. took you to the GP (I had a driving lesson) and you had an inflamed throat. He wrote a prescription for antibiotics but suggested we didn’t give it to you, so you could build up resistance against this particular virus. If you didn’t get better by Tuesday, then we would give them to you. Tuesday came (after a terrible night – see below) and you were a bit better. Then Wednesday… By Thursday everything was back to normal. For about a week you had hardly said a word, except cry. By Thursday you were talkative again (saying bababa all the time) and it was just such a joy to hear it again! Especially after the night from Monday to Thursday, when I slept with you downstairs so R. could get a proper night sleep for work the next day. That night you woke up at around midnight and you were screaming so much. You wouldn’t even take my breast, you wouldn’t calm down if I rocked you, or walked around with you (it always works). After trying everything about 3 times, I just gave up for 10 minutes. Your little body was very cold this time and I kept thinking something terrible was happening, so I was going to give it another 10 minutes and basically phone an ambulance… I was trying to cuddle you to keep you warm, but you just kicked me away, I tried the breast again, you would have it for 10 seconds and then start screaming again… The whole think went on for 40 minutes altogether (only it seemed to go on for hours…). I was about to phone an ambulance, but you settled down and went to sleep again…
Waking up on Tuesday morning was a joy, especially as you woke up in a much better mood! From then on you just got better and better. Now you are just your wonderful self again, babbling away, moving all the time, super curious, screaming when we change your nappy, with a great appetite. Scary episodes like this just make me love you even more!
Oh, yes, we watched the eclipse (on the 10th) in Highbury Fields (fullness started at 11:17). R. got an hour off work and we went there. It was lovely, it got cloudy which meant we could look at it and see the outline of the sun covered by the moon. In fact the whole country stopped to watch it. It was a very special day. A lot of people were disappointed only because they didn’t know what to expect and expected too much. Anyway, the world didn’t end, but if it had we would have been together! Oh, it also rained all the time in Cornwall, and they didn’t see the eclipse, just the darkness… The view was better in London, but it only got dark enough here for the streetlights to go on (like a sunset darkness, only with the sun high in the sky).
I have my driving test on Wednesday! Today we went to Swiss Cottage to meet your grandma Cesca and watch the community Festival that was happening there. It was ok, but nothing big like the Islington Festival. We bought you a couple of toys, a fake mobile phone that makes a lot of noises (as you are crazy about phones anyway) and a posting box, so you can start learning about shapes. You loved the phone, but all you wanted to do to the posting box was chew it…
Today I also got a 17″ monitor for my computer courtesy of Francis, who ran out of space in his room (he has 3 computers in there) since Evelyne moved back in. Now I’m babysitting his lovely monitor. When he takes it away, things will look pretty small on my old monitor…
So, yes, Evelyne has decided to move back (she lived here before, but went to live with her boyfriend and sublet her room to Francis). She got pregnant by somebody else (someone called Tony, who is 57 years old, already has a girlfriend and doesn’t intend to leave her). Her boyfriend, whom she was living with, didn’t mind, but she said he was taking over the pregnancy, like it was his baby, and she couldn’t take it and decided to move back here. So now we are overcrowded…
Evelyne is sleeping in the living room, Francis is kind of refusing to leave, Tony is supposed to be leaving in a ‘couple’ of months… We can’t afford to live anywhere else and the council won’t give us a flat because the waiting list is massive. To make matters worse the rent has gone up to 51.00/week, my housing benefit has not been paid since January (due to their incompetence – I’ve written 3 letters, filled forms, phoned everyone I could think of) and the landlord served me an eviction notice! All I can do is sit and wait, as I have done everything in my power to sort this situation out. If I become homeless the council will have to rehouse us, so I’ll cost them even more money… It’s their choice, so I think they’ll just pay my rent eventually. I can’t wait to get a job and tell these people to shove all these stupid benefits up their arses.