... nicely, hopefully. Or not.

Daddy was away this week for three days. In that time, each of the three children got sick, one on each day.

We also had our daughter's eighth birthday, which unfortunately Daddy missed. It was shaping up to be a good day, except for Daddy not being there, when she gave me a hug and turned her head wrongly and cricked her neck and ended up having to stay home from school all day in pain!

She was understandably very disappointed and a bit sooky, so with her moping around and Campbell recovering from a temperature and James getting into everything, it was a bit of a long day.

It wasn't as bad as it might have been though. She said two wonderful things to me at lunch time.

The first: "Mum, you know, I'm glad I had this sore neck. I really understand how Jesus felt on the cross when he died for us."

The second, on watching me prepare lunch, wipe up messes, deal with tantrums and fights and everybody's noise and demands: "Mum, I feel really sorry for you. You work soooo hard. Is there anything I can do for you?"