While I Wasn't Sleeping

Migraines are such a waste of time.

I have lost one day out of each of the last couple of weekends, which considering I have three days weekends won't make you feel too sorry for me. I woke up feeling so thoroughly rotten on Friday that I had couldn't drag myself out of bed and take Anna to school. That sounds dramatic in a Victorian woman-with-the-vapours kind of way, but the nausea and the pulsing headache were far worse than any self-inflicted student hangover I've ever experienced.

Not being able to get out of bed and look after the girls was a first (LK had left obscenely early due to our urgent need. to. make. money). Anna was obviously thrilled with the idea of missing class as I croaked and slow-breathed my way through the call to her school. As I gripped the sides of the bed, trying through a combination of measured breathing and mind control to not throw up my migraine medication, she bounced on my right chirruping, "I get to be Absinthe! I get to be Absinthe!"

Anna was my little Florence Nightingale. She took care of Lucy by putting 'Shaun the Sheep' on repeat downtairs, and she fed her a banana and cereal. Later, she crept up to the side of our bed, kissed me on my forehead and asked if I would like a glass of water.

As the pain gradually subsided, followed non-too-swiftly by the nausea, I started to wonder what the house would look like. We've safety-proofed as much as possible, and Anna is very conscious of her sister's welfare (she's a dyed-in-the-wool snitch). But, a soon-to-be-6 year old is not the best judge of whether a 2 year olds 'play' is 'appropriate'.

I got off very lightly. In the space of a morning almost every toy was unpacked and strewn about, cereal had run amok, and Lucy had been 'artistic' with the toothpaste:

I was very lucky. We were all very lucky - at least I think we were, after all there may still be as yet undiscovered surprises, like the blue crayon in the dishwasher that I only discovered after the full wash cycle, and even then I spent a moment thinking, wait, when did we get willow pattern?

As if to prove the size of the bullet that was dodged, the very next afternoon we were sitting as a family watching Harry Potter. Lucy was hidden between the wall and the armchair - her favourite hiding 'nook'. All was peaceful, all was quiet.

Too quiet.

The first I knew of it Lance was yelling 'Lucy, oh goddammit!'. An ENTIRE brand new bottle of zinc oxide factor 50 sunscreen spread liberally all over her, the armchair, the curtains and the carpet. We need not worry about our upholstery ever getting sun-damanged as that shit is never coming off.

And just to prove that I can laugh about it all, now, I am borrowing this from BrambleScat, I liked her post about migraines as I'm sure you will too, and I had to laugh at the 'footballers migraine':

I'm sure lots of Blackpool supporters experienced exactly the same thing just this morning.