Colds and Flu Virus, Home Improvements, and School

Our family got hit with a bug of some kind a couple of weeks ago.  It is slowly making its way through the house.  Paige started it with a fever, cough and runny nose.  She was out for 4 days before she began to feel better.  I caught it next and immediately shared it with Mike.  Thankfully, neither one of us ran fevers, but the cough, sore throat and aches have been around for 10 days.  Allie and Amy came down with our bug at the end of last week.  Amy had a light case, but Allie's case has dragged on for more than 5 days.  The poor girl can hardly make herself heard, due to her sore throat.

Throughout our sickness, work has continued to be completed on our former home.  The house has come together beautifully.  It looks gorgeous.  Both baths have been updated, all rooms have fresh paint, new carpet has been installed in the master bedroom and on the stairs, the decks and porches have been painted, bushes and flowers have been planted.  I want to do a final clean and polish on the kitchen cabinets, wash all the windows and vacuum or wash all the floors before I consider my contribution finished.  Mike is planning on painting the basement walls to make it bright and fresh.  We have a number of 5 gallon tubs of elastimer  which is used to paint cement or stucco that were left behind when the people moved from our current residence.

The three girls are working hard on their school work this year.  Considering how much time we've spent ill or working on the other house, I'm amazed that we have accomplished so much.  One of the areas that I've let lag a little last year was writing.  The girls are all using different levels of Writing Strands and the results have been excellent.  The lessons are short but meaningful, so there are complaints when we do writing which is always important to me.  No one feels overwhelmed, but their writing assignments are showing real growth in sentence structure. 

We're still plugging away here and things should begin to be a little less chaotic.  I'm looking forward to time to do creative projects, write more frequently, and do fun, memorable things with the children for the remainder of the fall. 

Recovery Mode

Paige had her tonsils removed last Tuesday. She's been having a tough time since then. Her throat is still really sore and she isn't eating much. The doctors want her on a completely soft diet, and she wants other tastes. We've been giving her popsicles, ice cream, apple sauce, refried beans and melted cheese, pudding, yogurt, smoothies, slushies, pasta, and juice. So far, she's lost 7 pounds. I'm not concerned about the weight loss because she'll put it back on once her throat heals.

We rented Megamind on Demand. It was actually much better than I expected. Because it was a new rental (and expensive) I let the kids watch it 5 times in 24 hours. I think we have parts of the movie memorized. On Friday, Mike ran to Walmart and purchased The Deathly Hallows part one. We had greatly enjoyed this movie in the theater. On our second viewing, we noticed a lot more discrepancies between the movie and the book. It's still a good movie, but we are fussy about movies accurately portraying books.

Yesterday, Steve, Joe and Madelyn stayed home with Paige while I went letter-boxing with the other children. Katie's boyfriend went with us. He spent much of the time scouting up ahead. He would take off running in search of the next clue, while we walked behind him. I think he had an okay time. It was nice of him to come with. We collected one box, that we had searched for last summer. The park has two entrances and we originally used the other entrance. The directions for the box used the entrance on a different street. After we had wandered through the park, hiking endless miles, we realized that the clues matched up better with the other entrance. We back-tracked following the clues and found the box easily. Oh, well! Allie was completely worn out from all the walking, so Katie's boyfriend carried her on his shoulders most of the way to the car. What a nice guy!

It did me a world of good to get out of the house for a few hours. Paige got to watch all the junky cartoons her heart desired. Joe, Madelyn and Steve played hours of Wii. Amy, Katie, and Allie slept really well last night from all the time outside in the wind and cold. It was a good day.

Spring Colds

Paige came down with a sore throat and fever on Tuesday. She's scheduled for surgery next Tuesday. I'm not allowed to give her any medications because of the surgery. Thankfully, she work up today feeling much better. I managed to get her virus too and haven't been able to shake it. My plans for deep cleaning and disinfecting the house before her surgery are on hold. Hopefully, this bug will get out of our home soon. I'm not sure if her surgery will need to be rescheduled. It would be nice to get her tonsils removed soon, before she gets strep again.

Surgery

Paige is sick AGAIN. Her tonsils are swollen and she has a temperature. This is the 9th episode with her tonsils in the last 9 months. On Monday, we went to visit the ear, nose, and throat specialist. He recommended having Paige's tonsils removed. She is scheduled for surgery on April 12. Even though she's sick, I'm not taking Paige to the doctor unless she is still ill on Monday. She has had so many antibiotics recently, that I would prefer to not use them. Hopefully, after the surgery, she will not be sick so often.

Cough, cough, sniff, sneeze

We have a bug running through the house right now. It's too the point where I take everyone's temperature each morning to see who is healthy enough to be driven through the paper route. The outside temperatures have been extremely cold, too cold for a child to walk through the route.

The kids have been put on a light school schedule until we are all feeling better. I'm assigning work based on how each person is feeling. One day, everyone was feverish and achy. Instead of doing any written work, I read aloud almost all day. Everyone wrapped up in blankets and spent the day lying on couches or on the family room floor with pillows. The fireplace blazed and hot tea was drank. It was one of my favorite school days this winter. Quiet. Restful. Productive. What more could a homeschool mom want?

Today, Madelyn wasn't running a fever, so she was chosen to deliver Joe's paper route. Silly girl wanted to deliver in a sweatshirt and no coat! I'm glad she's feeling better, but wind chills hovering around -20 and an air temperature around 0 mean warm coats, hats, gloves, scarves, etc. No matter what I do, I can't seem to get some of my children to dress warmly.

The temperatures are supposed to reach 40 on Sunday. I'm praying that we're all feeling better. It would be wonderful to be able to go letterboxing in the balmy weather.

Weekend Update

Tomorrow, my youngest nephew is getting baptized. My sister asked me to be one of his sponsors. Our family had planned to all attend church together tomorrow morning, but Paige has broken out in a high fever/sore throat again. So Mike will be staying home with her. I'm not sure how they are going to treat her this time. She finished her last antibiotic just a few days ago. I think that she has tried all the various antibiotics in the last 6-8 weeks. Her system really needs some time to develop good bacteria again.

Steve's good friend, Brian, came to visit this weekend. I was able to bring him to our house after robotics on Friday. The boys always have a good time together. Brian fits so well with our family that I frequently forget that we have company. Katie, Joe, Steve and Brian stayed up late last night watching DVD's. Poor Joe had to get up early this morning to deliver his papers. He overslept this morning, but I had woke up early and managed to get him out the door in time to deliver the papers before the deadline.

Allie, Paige and I prepared food for our family Superbowl bash. Our family aren't football people, but we always watch the Superbowl and eat lots of special foods. Allie began planning the Superbowl menu back in October. Yesterday, she asked if we could play games and Wii during the Superbowl party, not realizing the point in the party was to watch the game. Okay, we watch the commercials. And eat snacks.

Mike helped the two youngest girls make a fairy house last night while I was driving the older children to robotics. The fairy house has a beautiful chandelier, jeweled beads hanging from the walls, ornate windows, and framed pictures hanging on the walls. The three of them are planning on making furniture and knick-knacks next week. I was surprised by the attention to detail that the three of them used. When they finish, I'll post pictures.

All the children have been sledding and snowboarding a lot this weekend. Yesterday, I realized that Paige and Allie are doing jumps off the ramp that the kids built in our backyard. They built up a large mound of packed snow on the edge of our deck (which is 3' off the ground) and them packed snow next to the deck to make a hill. About 10' further, they built another mound. The kids slide down the deck-hill and to jumps on the mound in the yard. It was a little nerve wracking to watch Allie try to turn around in the air, but I solved the problem by no longer watching.

Christmas is Almost Here

It's official. Christmas is almost upon us. I know because years of experience have taught me that when one of my children gets sick, the holiday season has arrived. Paige came down with a fever last Saturday. She didn't have any other symptoms, but her temperature did get quite high for several days (around 104.6.) The fever became much lower on Thursday, so I thought she was recovering. Today, she complained of a sore throat and still has a temperature around 101.5. We took her to the doctor and she has strep throat.

At some point she will probably need to get her tonsils out, but the antibiotics should make her better fairly soon. I wonder who will begin the second round of medicine. Our normal family pattern is to take an illness and pass it slowly through each child, finally ending with mom and dad in bed for several days. Pass the throat drops and Merry Christmas.

Summer Illnesses

We've been battling strep throat on and off all summer. Paige had it first. I kept her inside the house until the fever was gone and she had been on antibiotics for 48 hours. Our neighbors didn't do that with their child a couple of weeks later, so we had our second round with Joe. Yesterday, Madelyn came down with high fever and sore throat. It's beginning to get monotonous.

Please Excuse My Absence

In the midst of our graduations and confirmation craziness, our family got hit with a nasty stomach virus. It was the worse one ever. It took me several days to recouperate and then there was the mad dash to get the house ready for a party for Joseph's confirmation.

Everyone pitched in and helped with the organizing and yard work. I ordered in the food because I didn't want to take the chance of making anyone sick. Joe's party was lots of fun and the weather was beautiful, if a bit chilly. The party lasted 7 1/2 hours and we were able to spend some extra time with my brother and his family.

It was a fun weekend, but I'm still a little wore out from all the excitement and preparation. I'll be posting some pictures tomorrow.

I Think We've Got It

Paige and Allie woke me up around 2:30am with fevers and sore throats. They were cold and thirsty, but unable to swallow. I staggered into the kitchen, groping for the Tylenol in the cabinet above the sink. Mike usually handles the middle of the night medicine patrol, because I can't see anything without my contacts. By the time I get my contacts in and struggle to see the tiny print, I'm awake for hours. Yesterday, he spent the day digging 30 post hole for the privacy fence at the new place. So I took pity on him and tried to do the job blind. As I glared at the small amount of Tylenol in the bottom of the almost empty bottle, I noticed that the liquid was really grainy. The girls were given 1/4 doses, because I thought someone may have been dishing out meds without shaking the bottle well first.

The two girls spent the day on the couch, watching movies and sipping on orange juice. They were feeling a little better when I called from Kalamazoo to see how they were doing. (Madelyn and I are still trying to locate pointe shoes in her size!) For a special treat, I brought home a large pumpkin for the kids to carve. We usually carve the pumpkins on the deck where the mess is kept to a minimum, but today we carved on the table. The two youngest girls were allowed to design the face of the pumpkin. Paige wanted a happy, smiling pumpkin with NO teeth. Allie wanted a happy pumpkin WITH teeth that would be blacked out with markers.

The decision (made by me) was to have a happy pumpkin with NO teeth on the bottom and WITH teeth on the top. No one was happy. All the older children wanted scary pumpkins. Paige didn't like the blackened teeth idea. Isn't life tough?

Update

Allie came down with strep throat a couple of days ago. She's been pretty easy to entertain and isn't too cranky. With all the illnesses our family has come into contact with lately, I decided to push more green vegetables in our diet. Today, I made a cream of asparagus soup . Overall, most of the family enjoyed the meal.

The four older kids are really enjoying their Tang Soo Do classes. Madelyn is getting a lot of positive feedback from the instructor, which is helping her confidence level. Joe and Steve practice everyday whenever they have a few spare minutes.

Business has been really slow for Mike. I struggle with fears about being able to make our bills throughout the month. Because Mike is paid by commission, it is very difficult to prepare a budget. December was a really slow month and his earnings were 1/4 of what we needed. I'm stretching the food in the cupboard and freezer to last until the end of February. I know that the job change was really positive for Mike and needed to be done. He has a lot less stress before that he no longer has. He enjoys working with the customers and no longer dreads going to work. We also could not afford for him to drive so far everyday.

I went outside to widen our driveway today and enjoy a little of the sunshine. The wind was very brisk, but the sunshine provided my mood with a much needed lift. I keep reminding myself, only 8 more weeks of winter.

The Stomach Bug Has Hit

We have been around a number of families recently that have had upset stomachs. By God's grace, my family has avoided the dreaded illness. This morning, Stephen woke up complaining of an upset stomach. Twenty minutes later, he was in the bathroom vomiting. Katie woke up around 9:10am, within half an hour she too was in the bathroom. All of my kids are trained to handle vomiting appropriately. No one missed the toilet or bucket. The biggest problem is that by the time it has been through the whole family (no pun intended), several weeks have passed.

Obviously, we won't be swimming today or tomorrow. The weather is supposed to be very cold this week, so maybe missing swimming won't be too bad. I hate frozen hair anyway.