I have two sick babies

Against the norm, I am not sick. But I have two little ones who are the opposite. The first story goes like this;

Once upon a time a little girl, named Tara, had a wiggly tooth. She was so excited to be like her big sister and get a visit from the Tooth Fairy. So excited in fact that she wiggled that tooth all day and night in the hopes that it might come out sooner than it wanted to. 

But the weeks past and still the tooth stayed in her little mouth. It proudly sat among its friends and chomped like the best of them. It had been so long that the girls mother had forgotten all about that tooth until one Thursday morning.

The little girl was brushing her teeth and playing with that famous tooth. She was super excited and said: 'mummy mummy, I heard a snap, my tooth is going to come out soon.'

A snap was a weird sound to come from a tooth, but the mother figured if the that little bone was just holding on by a few strings to the gum, a snap might be appropriate. She thought little of it and shared in the girls excitement for the few moment until she was encouraging the girl to wash all the toothpaste off her mouth. The little girl always had toothpaste on her mouth... and cheeks... and clothes... and anywhere else!

The little girl and her sister went off to school like normal. But for Tara it was not normal. All day long she played with her tooth. She had her fingers in her mouth whenever she could and if that was not possible, she discovered she could wiggle this tiny bottom tooth with her top teeth! What a marvelous revelation! It is doubted whether the girl learnt anything on this Thursday amidst the distraction of the tiny wiggly tooth.

The afternoon came and at home she wiggled it some more. She stood in the bathroom in front of the mirror watching it move back and forth, back and forth. Soon she was carrying a small mirror through the house so she could see the movement constantly. Even at dinner, the mirror sat next to her.

She brushed her teeth at the end of the night and was tucked up into bed with kisses and hugs. Her mummy got into bed too, she was just as tired. But something was different. As her mother lay in bed, playing games on her phone, she heard some sobs coming from the child's bedroom then little feet on the floor boards, then the tiniest, tearful voice said: 'mummy'.

Little Tara was at the door saying her tooth hurt, she was crying in pain and there was nothing her mother could do. As after bed door appearances where not an uncommon thing, the girls' mother waited in bed to see if the girl would wander back to her room on her own. Today was different though, the child stayed at the door, little pain tears running down her face. 'My tooth really stings.'

She said this over and over and then asked for a cuddle. Mummy, got down off bed (a little sore because of her own pain in her stretching belly) and hugged the tiny girl. She took the girl back to her room, kissed and hugged her again, but the silent tears meant that the mother was not able to leave. She knew her tiny daughter was in pain and needed comfort tonight.

They sat and cuddled until the mother got the girl to lie down with her. The mother sang songs that made no sense and sounded like;

Close your eyes little Tara, it's time for you to sleep. Close your eyes little Tara, it's time for you to dream. You can dream about a pirate ship sailing out to sea, finding lots of treasure and eating monkeys. Perhaps that's not a good thing to dream about, what about mermaids instead. Dream about their long golden hair and tails swimming everywhere...

This gibberish went on for a little while until she lowered the volume to nothing and the mother laid her head on the pillow to feign sleep. After ten minutes of resting the little girls' breathing deepened and slowly her mother un-wedged her arm and moved out of the bedroom. Back in her own room, the mother drifted off to sleep, until the second story started and woke her from bed with a leap.

The second story went something like this;

Once upon a time a mother had just comforted her sore five year old to sleep when she heard a loud commotion outside her window. There was a bang and cats rowing then a crash and more sounds of a feline fight. It stopped and the mother put her head back to rest. Perhaps it involved her Penelope, but this was not uncommon.

But the mother did not sleep, she lazily texted her husband to see if he knew where the bright orange cat was. He did not, he searched for her and when the fluff-ball was inside, he invited the mother to take a look.

Penelope was a middle-aged domestic cat with half a tail. The mother had got her first child from the RSPCA seven years prior and had loved the strange animal despite her want to be wild. Pene used to chase birds and mice and share them inside, but as she neared eight years old, she appeared to grow tried and lazy. She even failed to defend her territory from the mean neighbourhood cats that lived across the road.

These cats were fierce. Four or five of them lived just across the road with a woman owner. Sometimes you could walk past and see them sitting there on the front lawn eerily watching you. They never appeared friendly and the mother never petted or played with them.

They came into our front yard, stalked up beside our cars and then overtime were so comfortable with our property, they were in the backyard and even in the house! They would eat Pene's food and walk through the house like they owned it. The once wild, street cat, Pene no longer chased and clawed at them.

She fought with them some, usually at night and occasionally growled when they came near to her but until this Thursday night, the cats had only had harmless scuffles. 

Once Pene was inside with the mother and her husband, they could see she was not one hundred percent alright. She was covered in the leaves from the annoying plant that stuck to her fur and was not comfortable walking. In fact she flopped herself on the stair as if she had run out of energy. 

The mother was worried, this was not like Pene at all. She started to take the leaves from the orange fur and although the cat allowed this, she was not about to let her mum take it from her left leg. Pene got up and hobbled into the study, she went behind the couch and sat herself down where she could barely be reached. The husband brought the cat some water and said he would keep an eye on her whilst he watched some television shows. He shut all the windows so that Pene was forced to stay inside.

So the mother went to sleep and in the morning the two stories merged to make one. 

The little girl woke up in pain and cried at the thought of eating. She let her mum know that not only did her tooth still sting, but her head hurt as well. 

The mother found her cat limping out of the study, not running to her bowl eager for breakfast. She was limping more and made sad sounds when she moved down the two steps to the laundry.

The mother did what good mother's do and tried to fix the things she could not fix. She made the girl some soft corm flakes for breakfast and gave her some panadol. She encouraged the girl to just brush her top teeth and said that she would be staying home from school today. Next she made sure the cat was eating something then helped her get comfortable in the washing basket she was trying to climb into.

Before she could focus on Tara and Pene, she had another problem to solve. The girl's older sister Leah was not a happy chappy. For the mother had suggested they may be able to ride their bikes to school that morning and given the nights events, the mother said that simply could not happen. The mother wanted to keep an eye on her two babies in pain and they would need to delay the bike ride until next week. This made Leah cry and sulk and she needed extra persuasion to get dressed. But when she did, Leah sat with her mum next to Pene and saw just how sore the little cat was.

With Leah at school and Tara at home a dentist appointment needed to be made to fix the little girls' pain. As she planned the day she watched the cat and carried her outside to see if she needed to use the toilet, she did not. She just wanted to sit in the sun. The mother would allow this and check on her oldest daughter through the day.

And because it is not yet eleven o'clock, the story is not ready to end... check back in soon to see if my babies are on the mend.