Some sort of normality has returned to our household today. After nearly a week and a half of ilness both the twins are back at school today. That said, I'm still expecting a phone call at some point to come and bring Pat¹ home. Not that's he's really ill anymore, but he's in complete mard-arse² mode thanks to a week at home.

In the true style of parent blogging I'm going to moan about my lot. I've no real reason to, the fact I can sit here spending time to blog shows I'm a privilaged person, but parent blogging is all about moaning about stuff. In a moment I may start moaning about stuff I have no real training or expertese in such as the methods used to teach reading at school or the design of buggies, or some other stuff I know nothing about.

...

But I'm digressing. It was a week and a half ago that Mrs Grumpydaddy³ set off on a two day retreat⁴. Last time she went away I ended up with a urinary tract infection that resulted in a difficult six months as documented elsewhere on this blog. So we joked about what might go wrong this time. Thankfully nothing did, other than a sad toddler who woke me up in the night and had to come and sleep in the big bed. It seemed we'd dodged the bullet this time. But upon wifey's return everyone started to come down with a cold.

This was a pretty nasty cold as it turned out. The result was that one four year old twin was off school for four days - including having to come home early one day - and the other was off into the second week. Two year old wundertoddler got ill too and while not too poorly it meant he tended to wake up for long periods in the night. And wifey got ill too and has and still is suffering due to her asthma. No-one has been very ill - but we've suffered a lot of sleep loss. We're particularly knackered. Wifey has gone back to work today⁵ - despite her asthma being bad. And I'm at home with toddler Will. Hopefully though the worse is over.

I feel like I've done a long stint thanks to the retreat and illness. But so far I've not been ill. I don't know if this is down to luck or the fact I'm the only member of the family that has been taking vitamin D supliments over the winter. I'd like to think it's the latter and I've been vindicated. Certainly I've hardly been ill this winter yet last year had every bug going. Perhaps I'm just being an know-it-all arse⁶ and I'll be ill all next week with full-on moany man-flu. I've joked I'd like to be ill next so I can stay in bed a few days and have a rest, but I don't mean it.

As long as wifey isn't too tired I've got a day off tomorrow and I plan to spend it doing my favourite thing. Which is playing guitar and writing/recording some music. I may even inflict it on you lot, if you're lucky.

There was a point to this blog post. What it was, I've forgotten. Maybe it'll come back to me later.

_{¹Or is that DS1, I can't remember how all these Mumsnet blogging terms work. I'll just use his name. He's not a frigging car or robot.
²Teenage Pat, sorry you've read me calling you a mard-arse. It's because we love you. And you're being a mard-arse.
³AKA The Wife or Reverend Wife.
⁴Yes Rev fans, a piss-up with her friends.
⁵Because she's a complete numpty.
⁶It's been known, occasionally.}