Slippery slope

Dear Dave,

So much for a life of freedom and leisure now the kids are all at school. They're taking it in turns to have a mysterious illness which involves a day of dizziness, three days of feeling not too bad and then another week of stinking cold, sore throat and coughing. The result is that as soon as one feels better, the next is lying on the sofa, huddled under a blanket and coughing over the remote controls. Combined with the February holiday, this means I've barely been able to leave the house for over a fortnight.

It's not even over yet. Fraser stumbled out of bed this morning, ate half his breakfast and then stumbled back again, croaking mournfully about a headache. If the other two are anything to go by, he won't get much further than the lounge until Thursday. Then his right ear will start to hurt and he'll whine incessantly.

Joy.

Ho well. The scary thing is that this spate of sickness has lasted so long, it feels like they've all got older in the meantime. Marie has discovered Nintendo, Lewis has lost his ability to stay out of arguments which don't concern him and Fraser has taken to sitting around in a hoodie while exuding an unpleasant odour. Two weeks with the heating on and the windows shut has turned the house into an incubation chamber. All my little Pokémon have evolved to the next stage.

Is it just me or is the fact that they've gone from calling farts 'bottom burps' to calling burps 'mouth farts' the beginning of the end?

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.