It’s that time of the year again; flu and stomach viruses, not to forget the mandatory cold and my favourite winter “illness” the man-flu.

Kids run around with “1-1-1” underneath their noses, coughing like the walruses or perhaps (worst case) share their recent meals in the ceramic telephone.

For obvious reasons, it’s not my favourite time of the year.  I hate seeing my kids ill as there’s often very little we as parents can do, other than suffering from sleep deprivation and excessive laundry syndrome.  We try to soothe their pains with interesting home remedies, broths, etc, but these only give little comfort.

Meanwhile the tiny ones lie helpless in their beds or sofa, enjoying their downtime with some well deserved movies.  Thank Steve Jobs for the iPad!

The pleasure of having three kids cannot be explained in one post and has very little to do with this post in general, other than we many times get hit by various winter illnesses three times.  Selfishly, it would be so much easier if they got sick at the same time.

Be careful what you wish for!

Our three kids have just been ill – at the same time, and I tell it has not been an easy week. It has been a rough cocktail of poop, vomit, fever, limited sleep and an excessive use of the washing machine.

One benefit has been that my wife and I managed to get to try different foods from the local restaurants, while the kid were munching on banana, rice and bread.  I know it sounds really mean, but why should we suffer less attractive food when we weren’t sick?

Although it was “easier” for the kids to be sick at the same time, it was extremely exhausting.  We had few hours of uninterrupted hours of sleep and I had to clean most of the house to get rid of the various viruses floating around in the house.  Thankfully we adults haven’t caught any of these evil sicknesses … for now!