Sick of holidays?

Before I start, I need to make it clear that my children are rarely sick. Neither am I and nor is my husband. Honestly. I can understand why anyone reading my blog or who has heard my holiday tales might assume otherwise. It would make sense to wonder why we even bother going on holiday when we’re sick so often. It would be logical to conclude that we’re the sickliest family in existence. But we’re not. We’re really not. It just seems that way because whenever we are sick we just happen to be on holiday. Yeah, yeah, I know, the chances of that happening are directly proportional to the amount of time we actually spend on holiday. But the statistics don’t add up – honestly. Without a doubt, there have been more vomiting incidences on holiday than at home – and, contrary to popular belief, we don’t actually spend half our lives on holiday (or even a quarter). I promise. So why does it always happen to us?!

There was the time at the airport hotel just before a ten-hour flight to Jamaica, when Dylan decided to start throwing up (see Those without a strong stomach, look away now). And there was the time both kids got rotavirus shortly before our holiday to Lanzarote, and Finn was still throwing up as we left for the airport. There was the time when Finn had tummy troubles of a different kind at the airport, just after we’d checked in our luggage (definitely one for another blog). And there have been numerous times when Finn has thrown up in the car due to travel sickness (but only when it’s least convenient and we haven’t had time to get a sick bag ready). There was the time when Lee was sick in Tenerife, just before our taxi arrived to take us back to the airport. And the time we both got E.coli in Corfu – Lee was sick on a coach trip and I was sick on the coach back to the airport. Then I was sick in Prague, due to a cough, and on a mini-cruise from Cyprus to Egypt, presumably due to sea sickness. Not to mention more times than I can count in Majorca and Florida, but that was morning sickness, so I’ll let those slide. There are probably several other examples that I can’t remember offhand, but you get the point.

So you might wonder why we bother going away at all. After our recent break, I’m beginning to wonder too. It was only one night. One night. A night I was looking forward to – it was my birthday present, we hadn’t been away since October, and our holidays will be shorter and less frequent from now on, so every night counts. We’d spent the day in London. To be honest, it hadn’t been the most relaxing of days – the boys had been alternately hyper and whingy. We’d decided to go to TGI Friday’s for dinner and had a 50-minute wait for a table. We’d all had big dinners and big puddings and we’d got back to the hotel feeling rather full. We’d read the boys stories, put them to bed in the double sofa bed and retreated to the bathroom. We had briefly debated the logistics of having a drink in the hotel bar, but it was already quite late and we were both tired. We’d decided in the end on our usual game of cards in the bathroom – just long enough to give us a bit of time to ourselves and to give the boys time to get to sleep before we turned in ourselves. We’d pulled the chair and a little table into the bathroom and there we sat, me on the toilet (lid down, of course) and Lee on the chair, playing cribbage while we listened to the boys whispering, giggling and generally not going to sleep. Eventually, all went quiet. We finished our game and decided it was probably safe to creep in and go to bed ourselves. And then, all of a sudden, the door opened. There stood Finn, looking not unlike something from a horror film. At first, I thought he was sleep-walking, as he didn’t respond when we asked him what what he was doing. I did, at least, have the sense to get off the toilet and start to move away, assuming that was what he’d come for. Then he spoke. ‘I think I’m going to be…’ He didn’t finish his sentence, preferring a dramatic interpretation instead. I wasn’t quick enough. Stupidly, I assumed that was it. I moved the table but didn’t lift the toilet lid. He was sick again. Everywhere.

At this point, I should mention that Dylan has become quite phobic about vomit – the very thought of anyone being sick is enough to send him into a panic. All the noise had woken him, of course, and he sat there in bed crying and whimpering. ‘Has Finn been sick? Where is it? Is there lots of it? Is he going to be sick again?’ Meanwhile, we’re all standing in the bathroom, Finn, the floor, the chair and the table all covered in vomit, Lee and I standing there dumbstruck and unable to do anything. Eventually, we come to our senses and start to move – although this is easier said that done, due to the huge puddle of sick on the floor that we need to manoeuvre around. ‘Do you think they’ll have any cleaning staff here?’ I ask. ‘I doubt it,’ says Lee. ‘It’s nearly midnight.’ I know that we’ll at least need a mop or some rags and realise I’m going to have to go to reception. I look at the chair and table in the middle of the bathroom and I know it looks weird. So I move them out of the bathroom and start cleaning them with wet toilet roll while Lee attempts to move Finn towards the shower and Dylan continues to cry. I throw my jumper dress back on and clump down to reception in my boots, looking ridiculous and having forgotten that the bar is still open and there are people to see me. The man at reception looks quite frankly terrified when I tell him my son has been sick everywhere, and eventually comes back with some towels, a couple of rags and an apologetic look. I arrive back in the room to Lee attempting to hose Finn down in the shower, Finn screaming because the shower is too hot, and Dylan still crying and saying that he doesn’t want to sleep in the same bed as Finn. We finally clean Finn up, calm Dylan down and settle them both to sleep in separate beds, before setting to work cleaning up a bathroom full of vomit with a few towels. Luckily, due to the limitations of carrying all our overnight stuff around London with us, we hadn’t brought pyjamas, so we didn’t have to worry about hosing them down and carrying them with us the next day. Not so luckily, the bra and socks I’d thrown on the bathroom floor hadn’t got off quite so lightly, and I only had spare socks. Nice…

Once we were cleaned up, we had a decision to make – which bed? The comfy bed next to Finn, who might throw up all over you at any time? Or the not-so-comfy sofa bed with Dylan, who wasn’t so likely to throw up over you (although there were no guarantees)? I chose Dylan. Probably the worst decision of the weekend (other than the decision to take the children in the first place). Lying in bed next to Dylan, my husband over the other side of the room, I remembered the looks on people’s faces when I mentioned we were having a short break in London. ‘Oooh, just you and Lee?’ ‘No, the kids as well.’ ‘Oh… that’ll be… um… nice?’ A night in a hotel bed with my six-year-old son, the scent of vomit wafting in the air, was not exactly what I had planned. But it got worse. Dylan snores. Not gentle snores like you might expect from a little boy, but the sort of loud, rattling snores you’d expect from an overweight buffalo. This was bad enough. It’s not easy to sleep on a hard hotel sofa bed with one pillow, in a strange room when you’re overtired, with the worry that you might all have stomach bugs, and your son snoring loudly next to your head. Unfortunately, Dylan is also fidgety. I’ve noticed this when I check on him at night, but I’d always assumed it was just because I disturbed him when I opened the door. Finn has also complained about it before, but I’d assumed it was just Finn being moany. It wasn’t. Dylan is the most fidgety child I have ever encountered. He didn’t go more than two minutes without rolling over, arms and legs flailing. I got punched in the face, kicked in the back and kneed in the stomach. Repeatedly. The upshot of this was that I didn’t sleep. At all. I didn’t get one wink of sleep, let alone forty. As I lay there at six in the morning, room dark, squashed into a quarter of the bed with Dylan’s arm across my face, having named all fifty American states, boys’ and girls’ names beginning with each letter of the alphabet and started on countries, I felt thoroughly miserable. This break had been a stupid idea.

The next day was hard work. The kids were awake at 7am, wanting the curtains open and not giving a monkeys about my lack of sleep. I felt a little more human after a shower and a nice breakfast and, determined not to let the previous night spoil the break completely, we doggedly visited the Museum of London and the Tate Britain, trying to let the kids’ whinges go over our heads. We stopped at Bluewater on the way home for dinner at Cafe Rouge, conscious of not letting Finn eat too much this time. We made the most of our time, because that’s what we do. Despite all our many holiday disasters (lots involving sick, apparently), we’ve never had a bad holiday. It’s just that some are better than others. And this little break wasn’t one of the better ones.

So what did I learn? Firstly, much as I love my children and I love family holidays, some breaks just weren’t designed with them in mind. In particular, one-night breaks to London where every second counts. I can’t help thinking what a nice weekend it would have been if I could have browsed the museums without ‘Have we finished yet?’, ‘When are we leaving?’ and ‘Is it lunchtime?’ in my ear every second, and if I could have slept eight hours in a comfy bed with my husband, rather than no hours on a sofa bed with Mr Fidget. Secondly, given our history, I really should be more prepared. I always have a couple of sick bags in my handbag already. But maybe I should start carrying around plastic bags, wet wipes, a change of clothes for all the family and a bucket. And maybe a swaddle or a straitjacket for Dylan, just in case, God forbid, I ever have to sleep in the same bed as him again. Shudder.