The Chickenpox

As is tradition in the O’Neill house any time there’s an event planned, someone always comes down with a horrible illness.
The oldest boy was 7 last weekend. We had been planning his birthday bash for months.. On the night before the party our middle boy complained of being sick. Before bed I noticed a few red blotches on his back. In the morning the child woke and expressed the depth of his illness through the medium of puke. And there were many, many more red spots. Chicken Pox was diagnosed and the day’s plans, so carefully thought out, were blasted off into the stratesphere.
My initial plans for Saturday were –
7am – Rise and feed my happy and contented children with nutritious, organic breakfast.
8am – Bake and decorate a fabulous three-tier Ben 10 birthday cake, which will make all the other mothers gasp in awe at my wonderfulness.
10am – Greet the bouncy castle man with a smile and a wave and watch as he turns our garden into a magical bouncy wonderland. Prepare fabulous party food.
11am – Have a soak in the bath while the paranormal pizzas and mutant milkshakes are bubbling, whizzing and whirring away in the kitchen.
1pm – Prepare my delightful children to greet their guests. Prepare the house with brightly coloured balloons (colour co-ordinated), streamers and flyers. Relax with a nice cup of tea and wait for guests to arrive.
2pm – Start the festivities, greet guests, laugh, smile and eat paranormal pizzas while the sun shines brightly on our back garden.
In an alternative dimension these plans would have panned out and all would have been well with the world. Unfortunately somewhere along my journey of life I’ve clearly done something to upset the natural balance of the universe – it may stem from the time I told my younger brother that he was abandoned on the doorstep by the travelling circus – and everything I have planned since goes pear shaped.
My reality was
6.30am – rise with sickly middle child. Sit with sickly middle child as he pukes at 10 minute intervals.
7am – Holler from the bathroom at other children to get their own flipping breakfast. Holler at children to mop up burst 2-litre carton of milk dropped on kitchen floor.
8.30am – Count spots on child’s face (total 36). Panic over promised three-tier Ben 10 birthday cake, and glaring lack thereof.
9.30am – Race to Sainsburys to seek out a three-tier Ben 10 birthday cake. Seriously contemplate buying three cakes, shoving them on top of one another and covering them with car spray or some form of spray on cream.
10.30am – Ask oldest son if spray on, three cake idea would cut it with his mates. He cries. Husband ponders likelihood of horrendous exploding inedible cake incident if car spray paint is used. Rush to buy ingredients to make real three-tier cake.
11.30am – Mop sickly middle child’s fevered brow, burn stupid three-tiered cake, panic, contemplate spray on cake again, sit down, contemplate crying.
12 noon – Pull myself together, cover burnt mush with white icing and fashion fabulous Ben 10 cake decorations from leftover icing.
1pm – Greet bouncy castle man with a big grumpy face. Tell him don’t care where he sticks the bloody bouncy castle.
1.30pm – Large dollops of rain fall.
2pm – Greet guests with flour covered hair, icing sugar clothes and a half-hearted smile. Present burnt pizzas and mutant milkshakes gone wrong.
2.30pm – Break up prison-style riots over bouncy castle, inform other people’s children that biting is not the answer, put bags of peas on bumped heads, answer complaints about burnt pizzas, mop brow of now scary looking sickly middle child.
3pm –35 children run amok in home as apocalyptic rain prevents bouncy castle play. Panic over lack of party games. Contemplate holding competitions of join-the-dots on sickly middle child’s poor Chicken Poxed face.
3.30pm – Husband saves day with alien making games, t-shirt drawing competitions and generally fabulousity. What a guy.
4pm – Throw children who aren’t mine out, fall down, go to sleep.