'twas two nights before christmas

"That's the stuff nightmares are made of," said my friend laughing when I told her about the party I was going to on Christmas Eve where guests are asked to perform a 'frivolous act'.

I had tried convincing River that it was going to be the perfect opportunity to play guitar in front of an audience. He had other ideas. "No Mum I'm not playing guitar, I think we should sing Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer".

Talk about feel the fear and sing it anyway!

We had been rehearsing and then without warning there was a plot twist.

The week before Christmas, Sol came down with gastro. Relentless vomiting that saw him unable to keep water down. Within a few days three kilos had vanished from his little frame.

On our third trip to the local emergency department the doctor said, "I have to send you to a bigger hospital your son needs to be seen by a paediatrician."

So the night before Christmas Eve Sol and I drove the 40 minutes to the bigger hospital and he was admitted to the children's ward and place on a drip. Placed on a drip sounds so simple. It wasn't simple. It was necessary but it was also traumatic. Getting a cannula (a needle for the drip to go into) into the back of a six year old's hand is not fun especially at 10.30pm when all they want to do is be curled up asleep.

I am going to spare you the difficult details of time spent in hospital other than to say Sol is well again, just a bit on the skinny side, and that we were able to come home after a 24 hour stay. We arrived home at 8pm on Christmas Eve. The party in Melbourne had started an hour and a half earlier. I was in no shape to be at a party and Sol definitely wasn't but I thought of our friends at the party when I looked at the clock and felt both relief to be home from hospital and disappointment that we weren't in Melbourne celebrating Christmas, the end of the year and being with friends.

Sol had fallen asleep in the back of the car. The heat of the evening enveloped us. I scooped him up off the back seat and carried him inside the house. We were under strict instructions to continue giving him 30mls of fluid every 15 minutes. I set the timer on my phone and followed the orders dutifully. There was no way I was going back to hospital with Sol, he was going to get well!

He stayed awake for a couple of hours and I kept up his fluids, he then slept soundly. River had placed carrots out for the reindeer and dry biscuits for Santa (lucky Santa?!) "Mum do you think Santa is lactose intolerant?" he asked filling a glass with rice milk.

Once the boys were asleep and I had finished my midnight gift wrapping session I placed a white electric guitar and an amplifier next to the Christmas tree, a gift from Eddy Pop. Perhaps next year River can do a rock version of Rudolph.

..........................

Stay well. Stay cool. Thankyou for reading and thanks for your patience with my on again off again posting. I hope that you are all having a wonderful festive season and are looking forward to making great things happen in 2016. xx

ps I had planned to share this link for a wonderful dairy free grain free trifle before Christmas but didn't get to so here it is now, still good for New Years Eve... Try Jo's Lemon Berry creation.