Not even a month

It turned out that Number Two came home - very late, but he came home nonetheless, and I was so grateful he did. Some time during my drive home from work, which was two hours long, my cold turned into a horrible, horrible flu. By the time I picked up Number One from her childcarer, I was ready to crawl into bed, but still had bath, dinner and bottle to contend with. And apparently she was a horror for the childcarer all day with her own dreadful cold, so that didn't make me feel any better.

At last she was off to bed, followed quickly by me. By the time Number Two got home I had just about managed to warm up, which was followed quickly by pyjama-and-sheet drenching sweats. So much so that I ended up sleeping half the night on a beach towel to stop myself from getting a chill from the soaking bottom sheet.

By morning I couldn't move. Thank god for the threat of a centimetre of snow in London, which everyone knows causes the city to grind to a halt, and the transport system to fail. This was the reason Number Two decided to come home, rather than spending the night up there (not the fact that his wife and daughter were very sick - I think he was hoping for a good nights sleep). So Number Two got Number One sorted and bundled off to the childcarer, while I slept. Which would have been absolute bliss if I wasn't feeling so rotten.

So I called in sick to work. I've worked for the same employer for seven years now, and I think I've probably had two sick days in that time. I hate taking sick days, and in fact rarely get ill, and I get extremely frustrated by people who seem to see it as their right to take their "quota" of 10 sick days a year. One of my best work buddies and I spend quite a bit of time discussing the work ethics of the young (even though we're not that old ourselves). We have a theory that the younger you are, the less work ethics you seem to be instilled with. There isn't the same commitment to your employer in younger people that there is in the older generation. Young people seem to think that their employer owes them something more than just a salary, and they find ways to claim it back - wasting time surfing the web, chatting to their mates over e-mail or MSN, taking sick days. I've never seen a contract that states that your benefits include £xxxxx salary, 10 hours per week leisure time within working hours, unlimited sick days. We've also noticed that in our team, the most sick days seem to be taken by people who work outside the London office.

And so for this reason, even though I was in a reasonable amount of discomfort (actually quite a lot for a cold), I still contemplated getting up and going to work just so I didn't have to call in sick. I think the fact that I couldn't stand up straight for some reason when I got out of bed kind of put the kibosh on that. I've not even been back for a month and already I'm taking days off. And I'm no longer part of the London team. Hope this isn't a new trend.

What a difference a day makes

After thinking that Number One was coping with her cold really well it all went to pot on Monday. She tried really hard to put on a brave face, but when her temperature went up and she could no longer breathe, she had to let someone know she wasn't happy.

And that's what she proceeded to do. She started with the childcarer, who quickly let us know that she wasn't feeling too great, and then on to Number Two, who thankfully was on hand to look after her for the afternoon. Then me, when I got home from work, and finally the doctor. None of this miserable-at-home-angelic-at-the-doctors-surgery for us - she made sure the doctor knew she wasn't pleased to be there, even though he assured her that her ears, throat and chest were all fine.

So home the three of us went, prepared for a very long night. Following a trip to New Zealand in January, after which we have taken weeks to get her sleeping patterns back to normal, we are back to long nights awake, and feeling like zombies during the day. Number Two and I are like chalk and cheese when it comes to this aspect of parenting. I will let her cry a little bit when she wakes in the night, hoping she'll get back to sleep on her own. Number Two can't bear the sound of his darling crying, and will have her out of her bed seconds after the first wimper.

Maybe I'm not as maternal as I thought. Or maybe this is the selfish side of me, rearing it's ugly head. I really love my sleep, and the warmth of my bed, and while I'm prepared to get up reasonably early in the mornings, it take a lot to get me out of it before the alarm goes off. Number Two really loves his sleep too, but he loves to keep Number One happy even more, and what has resulted is two nights now of him getting up, taking her into the spare bedroom, where they sleep together until the next day. And when she wakes up crying, he's right there to comfort her. I love that he's prepared to do this, and I think she does too. I only hope he's not making a rod for his own back.

Number Two is away overnight, at least he might get to catch up on some missed sleep. So tonight I'll find out if the special treatment Number One has had lavished on her has spoilt her. And whether my mothering instincts will outweigh my selfish desire to stay in bed when the going gets tough.

Getting to be Number Two

Number One had her first week at her childcarer last week, and promptly caught her first cold. She's being a star about it, she still smiles non-stop and apart from a cough that sounds like that of an old man, and a bit of a snotty nose, she's in great spirits. We even managed a trip to Brighton on Saturday, and what a joy to get to sit on the beach eating ice-creams at the beginning of February.

But on Sunday morning, I woke up feeling terrible. I don't usually get colds, but I think all the lovely kisses Number One gives me are just a little bit too intimate, and there's not really any getting away from a cold virus when it's slobbered all over your face by your daughter (but I'll always let her kiss me - I know it won't last forever).

There were a couple of points during the day when I actually thought I'd caught Man-Flu, I felt so awful and generally useless, but it was because of this I was promoted - to Number Two. I had a lovely lie-in, and then was allowed to lie on the sofa pretty much all day, with the remote control, while the original Number Two brought me endless cups of tea and orange juice, and did all sorts of Number Three-style chores, including washing the car.

I don't think the cold is going to come to much more than it has, and I think I've already been relegated, but now I know what it feels like to be Number Two, I'm going to have to start pulling a few more sickies.

One-to-Three

There are several things in life that are new to me. This whole business of blogging is one, being a mummy is another, slightly less new thing, and being part of a married couple is yet another. And then there's the whole thing about going back to work in a new job after seven months of blissful maternity leave. Added to all that, the upheaval of leaving the relative comforts of living within the six zones of the London underground, to live on the South Coast of England, and STILL having to commute up to three hours a day to get to and from work.

I've been learning a lot about myself over the past months. While I wasn't sure, I suspected I was a pretty selfish person. I do like my own company, I do like things to be done in a particular way ("There's two ways to do things, my way or the wrong way.") I don't like mess and I do like to be in charge of the remote control - especially if it's my television. Getting married has certainly meant some compromise - especially on the remote control front. All in all, though, I did manage to survive ten months of being part of a married couple while maintaining a degree of selfishness.

But with the arrival of the third member of our household, that's all changed. And amazingly, for the most part, I'm quite happy. While I still don't like mess, I still like things done in a particular way, and I still wish that I could get my hands on the remote control, I seem to be okay with quite a bit of mess, quite a bit of chaos and endless Sky Sports/MTV2. And I've realised that for the forseeable future, I am no longer Number One, but most definitely Number Three.