A VERY LONG DAY

Alice was slow to wake but quick to say that she was hungry, so hungry that I got up before the second alarm to shower so that we could go downstairs. Alice's appetite varies, she's often hungry first thing but then doesn't eat much for breakfast, usually the popularity of breakfast inversely relates to how well she's eaten the night before. Yesterday she ate very well, this morning (unusually) she ate exceedingly well - 2 W*eetabix, a banana and then 3 sultana rolls, so I wasn't very surprised when she complained of tummy ache in the car.

Wednesday isn't a usual Nursery day, but they were having a special trip and all the children were invited to go to the theatre. Things went down hill when we got to school, she asked to be carried (not a good sign) and was clingy when we got through the door - moany crying when not in my arms, so after 5 minutes of not settling I asked if she wanted to stay or go home, home was chosen so that's what we did. I prompted her to try sleeping in the car and she did (another bad sign). We got home and snuggled for a while and she revived significantly, by lunch she was far better so I decided we'd go to the garden centre to have lunch and choose our Christmas tree (I was going to choose the tree while she was at nursery). Alice said she was hungry so we went for lunch first, ordered and sat looking at the decorations while waiting for our meal (Alice really wanted mashed potato), after 10 minutes or so she wanted a cuddle and then started to cry, within minutes she'd vomited over me. Once I'd cleared up and she'd calmed down I started to take her home which only made her more upset as she wanted her mashed potato. It's not a good feeling to walk through a garden centre, covered in vomit, leading a screaming child - I hope not to do that again!

She was better for most of the afternoon and ate some dry biscuits at about 3pm, but by 5pm she was hot and flushed and not at all happy, then within minutes she'd doze off for a little while, by 6:30pm we were both exhausted and she tearfully agreed to go upstairs for some TV and a cuddle. When she got to bed she curled up and didn't want to know, telling me to leave her to go to sleep. She's in one of those states where nothing makes her happy and she thinks she wants something only to cry when she gets it and change the request to something else. I hope that this is only a 24 hour bug, it's awful watching her go through this, exhausting too, meanwhile we're running low on the pink medicine, I'm down to the sachets so I must get out in the morning.