We had some friends over last night (Monday) and I got really fed up with the attitude we were getting from one friend about my daughter who is 5 in a few weeks. He didn't really say anything but you could tell he wasn't impressed!
It was the end of the day, she was shattered and getting upset about eating her dinner, getting ready for bed etc. I was trying to keep calm with her and just being sympathetic rather than getting cross with her. I know to people who don't have sick children that it can seem like naughty and like we're being soft but it's not true! This is also her godfather who knows how sick she's been but seems to judge us based on his own children who would never behave like that. We've also been told in the past we're too quick to take our children to A&E... 
So, she was born at 31 weeks, unexpectedly I went in to labour and progressed from 2cm to delivering in an hour so she never got steroids. She did really well, breathing for herself but she was distressed so she was put on the ventilator during the first night (6 or so hours old). Her immature underdeveloped lungs were damaged because of it (which they say is inevitable because if you're putting someone on the ventilator you don't have time to do it nicely, I also found this having had her by GA my throat and lip were a little scratched) so that led to her being quite weak and developing croup, bronchiolitis, chest infections and being diagnosed with asthma very early on. We were in hospital for a week once a month with the latest infection. Each infection has damaged her lungs further. Around 2.5 years she was officially diagnosed with asthma (chronic and brittle) and put on an incredible amount of drugs. She's still not controlled but there is no where for her to go. The paediatrician thinks she has blocked adenoids because both her ears are perforated but she won't say "ahh" anymore and he doesn't want to traumatise her further by forcing a stick in her mouth so he's referred her on to the ENT. She snores and coughs at night so she's not sleeping and her asthma doesn't manifest by wheezing normally, it's tiredness. She gets these deep red/ purple bags around her eyes which is a sign of lack of oxygen. She's so tired between the lack of sleep and oxygen she gets irritable.
Her bowels are underdeveloped too and she needs Movicol, currently at 1.5 sachets a day which is barely controlling her so she's had lactulose added to it. So meal times are difficult for her and she's in a lot of pain with her tummy all the time so more reasons to be irritable!
She's actually an amazing little girl. She's hard wired to be helpful, she always wants to help out and be useful (I tease her by pretending to be the Fat Controller 
) and she's so friendly and caring. She's not naughty, she doesn't have it in her to be but by the end of the day she's feeling irritable because she's in so much pain and tired. I hate to see people judging her because she honestly isn't naughty - and that honestly isn't just me saying that! Everyone who looks after her says how lovely she is, adults want to adopt her and children want to play/ hug/ kiss her. She has her own sponsor child in Haiti because our church played a video about Haiti and she wanted to help, she boycotts Nestle because she was told about the things they do and tries to convert everyone else! I've been on crutches since she started to walk independently and she has been my helper (my litterpicker as I call her) since, she walks close to me and never wanders off, I had her sister just afterwards and she's been a big help with her. I could talk about her for ages because she's such a lovely child who always thinks about others.
Sorry I needed to rant, well done if you read all that.