A busy week

Last week was very intense.  My daughter Seonaid works in Events Management, which means long, long hours before the event.  She was working the Stevie Nicks concert, and I was due to go down and look after Isla for the last few days.  However, a week before the concert Isla developed a horrible viral condition called Hand, Foot and Mouth, involving painful blisters.  She couldn't go to daycare because it's so contagious, so it was Nan to the rescue, and I nursed her through it for 6 days.

Her mouth was full of bleeding blisters, and she couldn't eat anything, which is the end of the world for a little girl who loves her food.  She lived on bottles of formula, and yoghurt when she could manage it. She just wanted to sit with me and draw or play with her stickers, so that's all we did.  Her routine is built around meal and snack times, so when she couldn't eat the day seemed to stretch out in a formless string of hours.  

Seonaid left for work before Isla was awake, and got home at 9.30 when she was asleep; Isla never even batted an eyelid at her Mum being gone for a week, and me being there instead.  It's such a blessing to have been a huge part of her life, so that I'm just as much a comfort as her mum.

I knew she was on the mend when she started playing with her doll again,

and trying to wrap the dog up in blankets, 

and arguing with me about whether she should be allowed to stick pencils in her ear (I won that battle).

Seonaid worked until 4.30am the night of the concert, making the figures from the bars balance, and finalising all the admin stuff, because she and Isla were leaving the next day to fly to Queensland to spend time with the family there.  There was the rest of the day for packing, then we were up at 3.45 the next morning to leave for the airport.  We were a bunch of tired little Vegemites, but at last they were on the plane, and I could drive back to collect Dolly and make my way home, 2 hours north.

In Brisbane Seonaid collected her brother Rhys, and they visited Great Grandma. 

 Isla was a frazzled little camper in the Queensland heat, but was happy to sit with Uncle Rhys and look at his phone,  before flying on to Rockhampton to see Grandad.  This is her third trip, she's a well travelled baby, but she doesn't always behave herself.  

As Uncle Rhys says, "It's a good thing she's cute."