Ice Cream Slurps

It's not often we get a midweek inset day,normally they are at the beginning or ends of the week but today Chips and I had a inset day smack in the middle of the week.

My mum volunteered to look after Chips as I was working at the inset day. And yesterday, I started thinking about what we could do in the afternoon when I got back from work. The morning was taken care of.... the X Box,need I say more but it's easier for my mum that way and Chips would be happy so I was relatively ok with it...relatively ok.

I didn't want him spending the whole day stuck to it though so I began to think of something for us to do together in the afternoon. And I came up with a plan. A quick trip to town to look at the Christmas decorations and visit the library. It would fill a hour and get him out of the house and we hadn't been to town since September so it would be something different.

Well the morning came and so did the rain. Torrential rain. I mentally cancelled the trip to town. Luckily I hadn't told Chips about it so he wasn't disappointed.

Later that morning as I sat at the inset day I glanced through the window and saw bright blue sky....the trip to town was back on!

I hurriedly rushed back home at lunch time and declared to Chips that we were going out and that was that,out we went.

We headed straight for the library,after a quick call at the Body Shop - needs must - new shower gel and body mist were needed,got to have some pleasure in life! 

The library was very quiet,infact we were the only ones in the children's section. I told Chips how to find authors and he went off in search of Dav Pilkey the author of Captain Underpants. This was not a straight forward search but Chips was delighted when we eventually found the author and three books that Chips had not read. We took these books home and Chips is already on chapter twelve and that was before tonights bedtime read.

After we had swiped the books through the scanner we sat snuggled up on one of the sofas and I read Chips a story about the dark...a pretty scary book.

Once we had finished in the library we went on a ice cream search and ended up in McDonalds where Chips had a smartie flurry,it looked yummy and he really enjoyed it,I think the ice cream eased his poorly throat and was just a delicious treat for him.

When the last bit of ice cream was scraped from the tub,ahem that may have been me doing the desperate get every last bit of ice cream out trick,we started to head for home. With a bag of wine gums to share we happily meandered home. Chips looked mega cute in his new hat and I just relished time spent with him.

It wasn't long after we had returned home that Chips began to feel poorly. He began to run a temperature and look very flushed and his wheeze got worse. This did worry me and the day suddenly felt not quite as right. When any of the boys are ill it always makes me feel off kilter,even if it is something small.

So a funny old day. A day full of contradictory feelings and emotions. The miserable dark wet start to the day which then led to a bright sunny November day which eventually turned into a very rainy night.Holding the hand of a happy little boy in his new snowman hat to then seeing him deteriorate into a feverish little boy wrapped up in his favourite blankie. The happy feeling of being with my youngest son and just drifting around town - nothing special to buy or do,just library books to look through and ice cream to slurp and then the nasty sinking feeling in my stomach as I realised that this little boy was poorly and not over the worst. Up and down emotions,swirls and twirls of feelings and lots of ebb and flow.

The strongest memory I was left with though was a smiley one. It was of how relaxed our afternoon had been and how nice it had been giving Chips a few treats. We don't often do this kind of outing so it made it even more special. And although I have been so very worried about this little boy since yesterday evening,the smiley feeling still remains and for that I'm grateful.

 Memories made. 

My little smiley snowman.