Our Week's Sicko

Well, what started as a pesky cough and runny nose turned into a full-blown ear ache and a crying boy at eleven o'clock at night.

He was quite pathetic walking out that night, holding his ears, and crying. Nearly broke my heart. We gave him Tylenol, some essential oils, and a very tired Brad curled up in Simon's toddler bed and fell asleep comforting him.

Simon woke up still sore, so I gave him more Tylenol. After that and a breakfast that boy was ready to go. He did school with us his noisy usual self. I had to cancel a date with a friend to be sure we didn't spread cooties, but I have to say I questioned that decision when I saw (and heard) his enthusiasm. But I stuck with it and instead I took the two middle kids to the library. Kaeley babysat the walking sound machine. An hour later I came home and found this...

It looked as though the Tylenol had worn off.

I hunkered down and braced himself for Barton. Barton is our reading curriculum for Nathan and Alynna. It was fascinating in it's lessons (at least to a word geek like me) but its sight words are tedious and the assignments (with certain children) are enough to drive me to tears. Starbuck's in hand we sat in the sun while Simon slept and worked our way through words that just don't make any sense, like "known" and "one" and "would".

That night Simon's fever set it. The younger children watched a lot of television as I made dinner and prepared to leave for a Bible study. But I tell you what, when Simon walked away from the television saying he wanted to sleep in his own bed I almost packed up to go to the ER!

Okay, not really, but if you have young kids you know when they walk away from entertainment to sleep... yeah, they don't feel good.

That day was filled with school work, house work, and tending to the sick.

That Wednesday morning Simon was getting much better, but his ears still hurt him a little and the simple task of taking a bath wore him out. He spent the afternoon taking self-induced naps.

What's interesting though, is as the day went on Simon began improving. I've never seen this happen with our kids before. I'm used to them waking up the next day and feeling more like their normal selves. However, this boy sat up and chatted for a bit. Then he crawled onto the floor to play Legos with Nathan. 

And by the end of the evening the sound machine was back, running around the house, roughhousing.

Also this week Brad and I visited Great Maple. Fun times, but if we end up in the poor house next month it'll be because of that darn maple-bacon doughnuts and that minuscule margarita.