so I had 2 very important meetings at work today, it's only my second full week of work, dh has gone away, have no family nearby and ds has bad croup and breathing problems

[foxinsocks]

bollockyfuckingarsewipes

sigh

Oh no.

Any friends locally? Emergency nursery care?

That's just pants.

Is your employer understanding? Can dh come back (if he isn't too far away)?

You have my sympathies - been there.....
All I can suggest is that you make the most of your home-day, because there's nothing you can do about it.........

no, dh can't come back (grrrr).

A friend has offered to have him but I work 90 mins away and if he got much worse, I think it'd be too far to come back quickly iyswim

have sorted out someone for tomorrow in the hope that even if he's still ill, he'll be a little bit better (he's 5 so should get over it quicker than when he was a little thing!)

It just pisses me off (not ds, not at all) - just all the hassle!

Oh gawd.

Can you take the meetings by telephone at home?

Poor ds too.

ds is not too poorly. No temperature, it's just his breathing. But we are well used to dealing with croup/astham type things so he's not feeling that bad. I just can't take a risk with his breathing. This is, OF COURSE, the first time either of them have been ill in months!

I am trying to reschedule one of the meetings (the one I called ), the other, more important one, will have to go ahead without me there!

This is exactly what puts me off returning to work, (and I really need to do something to stop feeling so bored and frustrated). My dd has got viral induced wheezing at the moment and I was up with her for 2 hours last night, (why is it always worse at night?). How are mums supposed to cope with this sort of thing when they don't earn enough to employ a nanny?

Don't worry - Xenia will be along in a moment to tell us where we are going wrong!!!

lol helenn.

I think, even if we had a nanny, I probably couldn't have left him sounding so bad. I would have sat in work thinking about him all day and wondering whether the nanny was going to be able to spot signs of him getting worse! There's not much you can do about viral wheezing is there!

Our situation works fine when dh is around because we shift parent. But when he goes away, it's hard to get someone to cover the hours he does with the children (I start work early and finish early, he starts work late and finishes late).

Can't you dial in? - ie conference call type thing? Otherwise - sympathy.....

oh much sympathy fox...been there
and this is also why i'm becoming reluctant to do it again.
Hope your ds gets better soon.

oh god, how stressful. Sympathy from me. It all hangs together by a thread, doesn't it, and when things go wrong it's so blummin stressful. Hope your ds is better soon.

And hope your employers will understand and not be negative about it; I think that's the MOST stressful part; where I work everyone has kids who are older teenage, or totally off their hands, and they have obviously totally forgotten what it's like to have a child you can't leave when ill! Seeing their faces looking all judgemental the next day is worse than any inconvenience caused by having to have the odd day off with my five year old

My Ds just had a bad asthma/viral wheeze again Sat and all sat night. Luckily a lot better now. Big sympathies. I work 1.15h away from nursery and well recall the time I had to drive back 'quite fast' because Dh was in a meeting and couldn't be reached and Ds's asthma had come on really badly very quickly and nursery weren't able to cope.