It's not my fault...

I've had an interesting day today.

It began with me ironing my trousers on a folded up towel on my bedroom floor because they were far too creased to wear having been in the dryer and I didn't want to wake my housemates by trying to get the ironing board out of the cupboard.

It continued with my almost falling alseep on the bus and almost missing my stop.

And then when I got to work it got even weirder...

One of our babies has been off a lot lately - just last week he had Hand, Foot and Mouth. His mum told us just to be careful because even though he is better the virus can remain in his stools for up to 4 weeks (which I knew cos being the conscientious worker that I am I went and looked it up when I heard he had it). And so today when she came she asked me what colour his poo had been yesterday 'cos this morning it was green and it was green last week when he was ill and she had heard we had diarrhoea going round the nursery. Right now we have chicken pox - which we had a few weeks ago too - Hand , Foot and Mouth, Sickness and Diarrhoea and throat and chest infections in the nursery - in fact I'm coughing so much I'm retching and am very surprised I haven't puked yet. I hate puking - have a phobia of it - in fact I wouldn't eat as a result of it in my early teens and was underweight and had to go to the hospital about it - this is how bad my puking phobia is/was. Since starting at the nursery I have puked and retched so much and dealt with so much vomit that it doesn't bother me as much anymore - talk about facing your fears!

Anyway, I digress! I told this mother that we could call her to let her know how his nappies were when we changed him during the day and her response? "Well seen as though he got it from here, I don't really want to have to take more time off work!" And she said it as if it was my fault her son had caught another bug - um hello, do I look like I have power over these things? Me, the girl who is currently coughing so much her voice is cracking - like I wouldn't stop people getting ill if I could!! Jeez!

A lot of our babies were ill today - one who has been off a couple of days with a throat infection and who is very independent was incredibly clingy today and she cried so hard when I left the room I could hear her from outside the nursery!!! And when I went to give her to someone else she screamed! Poor darling - I felt so guilty when I left at the end of the day!

And then our new manager was really funny with me too. I went to ask my UC if she would call one of our mothers because her son was really upset and he NEVER cries! All I said to my UC was could she call his mum and say he is unsettled, he hasn't got a temperature so there is no need to pick him up but so letting her know. I mean she had already come in to randomly visit him earlier in the day anyway and she used to come breastfeed him all the time. She is a lovely person and takes time to chat to us about our lives as well as her son and our work. She cares and I know she would have preferred to be informed then rather than turning up 4 hours later to be told he'd been crying for the past 4 hours when perhaps she could have adjusted her day a bit to come visit and see if she could figure out what was wrong (I mean she does work on the same site as us - like 5 mins away - it's not like it is impossible). But the manager was reall funny with me and asking what I meant by he was unsettled and why did I need to call the mother and as a working mother herself she knows how hard it is to be put in the position of having to choose whether to leave work early or not. But surely NOT telling the mother when you are 98% sure she'd want to know is not right? And jeez - I am good at my job - I know that when a child who normally plays happily and never cries is crying on and off, really sobbing, all through the day that something is wrong and I know the mother well enough to know she'd want to know about this. This is why my UC has spoken to the new manager to tell her she doesn't want to lose me and they better come up with a way to make it worth my while to stay. I am good at what I do...

And finally, on my interesting day, I have developed some dry, spotty sections on the roof of my mouth and the inside of my lips and my voice is getting worse and keeps cracking completely, enough that one of my colleagues told me she kept wanting to cough out of sympathy lol. So I'm wondering what that is and hoping it goes away cos it's weird and I can feel it every time I swallow!