I don’t want this to be a moany post but hand me the wine! The last week has been one where I seem to be battling against everything. You have no idea how easy it is to be ill pre-kids. Yes, I still had to go work but I could come home, hide under my duvet and eat chocolate biscuits. Now it’s a completely different story. For one thing, the chocolate biscuits are no longer my own.

I’m normally a pretty positive person and am always determined to fight off any illnesses. They will not strike me down. However, this cold has come out of nowhere though and knocked me for six. I ache all over, my head is a fuzzy mess and I’ve lost track of the amount of boxes of tissues I have got through.

That would be fine if I didn’t also have to simultaneously get the girls to school, plough through work and of course ensure everyone has clean clothes and packed lunches for said activities. Throw in the fact that it is Christmas in a few weeks and I’m close to having a melt down. I don’t actually think my brain can cope at the moment. It is so not like me.

I actually started feeling remotely better the last few days and now, you guessed it, the girls are now ill. Coughing all night, creeping in to our bed and coughing/kicking me all night. Needless to say I am exhausted. I am determined to fight through it though. That’s just how I am, as it’s not like I can do anything but. That’s the thing, in the words of Dory, you have to ‘just keep swimming’. How I long to curl up under a duvet, watching Gilmore Girls and drinking hot chocolate with copious marshmallows and cream. Bliss.

Instead I find myself crawling out of bed, gulping back a cup of tea and wrestling two wild monkeys in to school uniforms whilst simultaneously getting them to shovel rice krispies in to their mouths. I just about manage to get them out the door with hair brushed, and sometimes teeth cleaned. I’m ashamed to admit that the other morning I failed miserably. I had to call my lovely neighbour and ask her to walk Molly to school as I didn’t physically have the strength. I did think Alice and I could have a nice lazy day watching Disney on repeat but instead I showered, went to the supermarket and spent the day baking cakes and brownies for the school Christmas fair which I had forgotten all about.

Then there was the school carol concert, second carol concert and the obligatory school nativity. I kind of go in to auto mode and have to forget the illness and just get on with it. That’s what we do isn’t it? Somehow I stopped sniffing long enough to watch my little ones do the best disco star performance of their lives. Anything that involves glitter and sequins coupled with some dubious dance moves is good in my books. There was no way I was going to miss it.

I could ask for some help, ring my mum and get her to look after the girls (or me!) but somehow I just plough on. I fear I may have truly sounded at my wits end though as the other day Edd came back from London at lunchtime after being away all week. This never happens. Ever. I can’t express how grateful I was. It’s so nice to have someone else there to dish out the Calpol.

So I guess after all my ramblings what I really want to know is how do you cope when you are a mum and ill? How do you get through? On that note I cheered myself up by applying my lovely new Nars blusher to make me look less like the walking dead. If you are poorly you just might need this.