Sick Boy

Well, it had to happen. Barney has had his first illness. The first signs came when he started making a sad face. No – not just a sad face – a this-is-a-soul-deep-sorrow-I-can-never-explain face. It’s a face he only found recently, a sudden and unexpected downturn of the corners of the mouth and awful creasing all over his face, with wailing. When he does this he is almost inconsolable and the first time he ever did it was when I was with him, and he seemed to be having a perfectly nice time sitting on my leg and playing. Then like a rain-cloud forming on a mountain, darkness descended. It’s such an anguished look that it fills me with guilt whenever it happens, wondering how I have made his life so terrible –and it’s not just crying. If he cries or is upset – say, by finding himself on his stomach ‘unexpectedly’ – it’s easy to fix and the face isn’t so screwed up.

So the first sign was The Face.

This isn’t a great picture of The Face as whenever I tried to snap it he would look at me confused as if to say “Why are you doing this? Can’t you see I’m unhappy?” In my defence, he was in his car seat at the time, so there wasn’t a lot I could do. Apart from take pictures. Which I did. Am I no better than Jill Greenberg (http://arts.guardian.co.uk/gallery/0,,1830504,00.html)?

Then we were visiting my brother, sister in law and niece - Barney’s cousin Iris - and he spent the day grunting and making a weird keening sound. We thought he’d just discovered a new noise and Iris harmonised agreeably all afternoon (Iris is almost exactly 1 year older than Barney and a surprisingly good mimic, nailing Barney’s oddly vampiric catarrhal grunt perfectly when her mother said “What sound does Barney make?”). That night, the keening got worse and turned into a distraught wail, with the aforementioned face. He was unbelievably loud all night and hardly got any sleep – and nor did we, up every fifteen minutes whenever he woke up and discovered he was in pain. This was our first brush with Barney suffering and not being able to help – a terrible, chest-gnawing worry.

The next day was a Monday, I was at work, so Rach took him to the doctor. Or tried to. The doctor didn’t want to see them, claiming not to have the equipment… odd, what is he, a hobbyist? Maybe he just has the stethoscope from the Operation Boardgame. It’s possible, I suppose, that the doctor had diagnosed that mini-dialysis, or baby-traction was required over the phone and he just knew that was beyond his powers – but this is, I feel, unlikely. And so, instead of going to the health centre opposite Rach had to strap a tearful Barney into the car and drive to the nearest A&E. Luckily, this was staffed by actual doctors who checked in his ears and found he had an ear-infection. Arguably I am Superdad, as I had diagnosed this may be the problem, but unfortunately, in terms of treatment there wasn’t much we could do.

We were advised to give him Calpol to ease the pain and wait for it to clear up by itself. Come to think of it, perhaps the local comedy doctor could have handled that if he’d tried.

So it could have been worse. And Barney loves Calpol, going perfectly still while he waits for it’s sweet gooey goodness, so he’s delighted and will no doubt figure out how to fake illness pretty soon.

It could be worse, I had to have castor oil when I was little.

But I dread the day when he’s really ill again. I’d like to tell him it’s not our fault, and that if he gets plenty of sleep he’ll feel better in the morning (hmm, I may apply for a job over the road) but until we can actually have a talk about being ill I know I’m going to have live with The Face and his accusing and desperate eyes for every new cold and infection.

I don’t even want to think about teething.

A few days after this, Barney has his first holiday - when does he rest!