Pancake Goddess in the House of Boys

just for the record

Since mid-December, we've had:

-odd coughing illness that hangs on for weeks (3 of us)

- stomach virus (all of us, to some extent)

- strep throat (3 or 4, not sure)

- ear infections (both ears, Ryan)

- conjuctivitis (both youngers)

- infected penis (one younger boy, to remain unnamed) - now

- cold/sore throat - 2 of us, now

- sinus infection - 4 of us, now

Found this image by doing a google image search for "poor me."

Honestly, we haven't been that unhappy or cranky around here, but I would just really like to get OUT of this house more.

it's so hard to be sick

Ryan has conjunctivitis, and his eyes look dreadful. He cries that his eyes hurt; his nose is raw. He spends a good portion of the day with his eyes closed, asking where we are and what we're doing.  I dribble breastmilk into his eyes whenever possible, but obviously he's not a fan of that remedy. When K had this last week, it was just one eye, and only 2-3 days. R, though, gets things worse and longer every time, and he's not as tolerant of my attempts to help him get well. 

We went to the doctor (again), who recommended some drops and another round of antibiotics - it was for strep a couple of weeks ago. Poor bunny... when did we become a pink-medicine family?

The cousins will likely come down with the pox soon, and I'm not at all sure I can bring myself to expose him.  I've always felt the vaccine was a silly idea for a disease that most kids weather without all that much suffering. I'm not sure that would be true in this case.

Here he is, pre-pink-eye, giving me the finger. 

Nah, I'm kidding. He does have a fairly decent potty mouth, though, thanks to a few around here who don't hold their tongues well (yea, I'm one of them). 

Another Ryan update... he's finally memorized Eenie Meenie Miney Moe.  Something he can work on with his eyes closed.

misc updates

There is a new local hs group starting in this town and the next one over - much saner driving than the last group we joined. So far, we've been to a board game day.  The kids were younger than Jeremiah, although I know of at least one family that didn't make it that day with a girl his age who I think he could enjoy.

Dentist - Jeremiah and Ryan and I needing work done, wah. Not a lot but still anxiety-producing for me.

Did I post about bowling? I've got some bowling pictures and a video coming up but the camera is nowhere to be found again. We bowled with WILC. Ryan and Jeremiah had a good time.

Soccer all the time. Jeremiah is on two teams, and has soccer every day this week. He's pretty overwhelmed but is improving and seems to want to continue, even though he can be unhappy about it in the moment.  His team (and he) played very well in the soccer tournament this weekend. We thought they had made the finals but then one team had a big upset and it ended up coming down to goal differentials, and they missed out by one goal. Bummer, but it did result in only a 75% loss of our weekend rather than a complete weekend slurp, since they didn't have to go back for the 4th match.

Jamie is very unhappy with his OWL class. He had to wear a pregnancy suit and care for a fake baby during the time of the class.  It seems the camraderie and mutual respect is breaking down in that group, at least for Jamie.

Today, our kitchen is being painted. We're going to try to stay out of the house a lot and will probably go for a field trip to the newish mall that opened last year.  I think it has some outdoor water play place and Jeremiah is hoping for an arcade.  I'd like to get back to listening to books on tape in the car, to give our fluffy not-so-academic outing a bit of redeeming value.

Right now, Jeremiah and I are working our way through the City of Ember series - I just finished The People of Sparks and JJ is midway through Ember.  I've been basically meeting my reading goals this year, but not posting much since starting to use GoodReads - I'd like to link to my book list but I think you might need to log in for that. It's a very helpful site for keeping track of to-read books, sharing your reading with others and getting suggestions.v

photo catch up

First, two current updates:

1. Ryan is using the toilet consistently as long as he is bare from the waist down. It's a start. Unfortunately, he got a bit sidetracked today in the bathroom and when Evan went in to look after him, he had gobbled half a travel-sized tube of toothpaste. Mint. With flouride. I have no idea what goes on in that fluffy head, but  his sweet little self sat on the couch for about 2 hours, miserably, before vomiting up the freshest smelling puke you could ever meet. It was minty. He fell asleep after that, for about 2o minutes, woke up, and proclaimed "mama! I'm normal now."  Is that so?

2. Since the last post 2 weeks ago, Kellen has started saying more words than I can count. Off the top of my head, he says everyone's names (Meemee, Mimah, Ryee, mama and daddy), water (watee), ball, bowl, banana, apple, socks...  He is also signing more and more - he love the signing video and asks for music to be played every day. He is also obsessed with playing at the sink or in the bath.

Now, this is going so far back, that I'm not even going to try to guess (ahem, November) how behind I am.

I have actually still been knitting, although not a lot. Also crocheting. Jamie has been enjoying taking photos of small objects at close up range, and he got this very nice shot of me in the act of crocheting a Christmas stocking. I didn't get a photo of the FO, but check back next December and it will turn up.

Well, it's taking forever for photos to load tonight so I'm already tired of this. I'll add two more before I go, though, for the grandparental units who are away.

checkups

Jamie:  106lbs, 5' 0.25" at 12yrs, 9 mos

Jeremiah: 67 lbs, 53" at 10 yrs, 2 mos

Ryan: 39lbs 38.5" at 3 yrs, 6 mos

Kellen: 22.7 lbs at 1 yr, 1 month

Trumpet

Jamie's friend A plays trumpet. One day he was over after school with his instrument. Ryan was fascinated, to the point of vibration. Something about that trumpet was really hitting the spot for him. He was desperate to try it out, but A couldn't let him on that particular day. For a while, I've been trying to find a trumpet that was realistic but not real - something he could easily play. I found success on kidsurplus.com and it arrived halfway through Ryan's illness (which, after some goggling, I've realized was a very typical but intense case of influenza).  He spent the second half of the week sleeping with that trumpet. Every once in a while he'd crack his sleepy eyes open and give us a single loud toot. The smiles in this picture were among the first we saw in at least 4 days, and that is a very long time to go without a Ryan smile.

It's been an odd week

On Sunday night, Ryan started to seem sick. He was congested and had a fever. By Monday, he was also having tummy trouble and it got worse from there. It's Thursday morning and he's finally kept some solid food down, although he's still sleeping all the time (slept all day yesterday). The faint silver lining is all the quiet time around here, during which we finished our read aloud: Bridge to Teribithia. I managed to read it without crying.

updates

 

The fossil and rock in the Buddha's hands were given to us by our friends at Family Hour at the Dharma Center - we have been attending regularly, 2x/month.

There will be new photos in the weekly albums to the right.

The babies are still sick although fevers seem to be gone. Coughs and snot remain. Sleep deprivation is severe.

The big boys are enjoying the snow, which is quite beautifully falling all morning. We're planning some sledding by the weekend if possible.

I'm reading An Abundance of Katherines, which is so far excellent. The characters are very smart teenage boys - one a prodigy and one a Muslim boy who was homeschooled until his current grade, 1o. He is at once dedicated to his religion but also irreverent about many things and very typically 15ish in his boy humor and attitude.  The story isn't doing much, which usually annoys me right away, but is fine this time - the characters are so engaging.

The near-end of January should console me

... but February isn't usually much better.  Very sick toddler is now medium sick, but up since 3am bc of medicine (?) and infant sick with same symptoms that made toddler very sick. Praises to the coffee gods. Curses upon mucus.

whining, naps, art, consonants

1. Kellen is sick with a bad cold. He didn't sleep for more than 30 minutes at a time last night, and the more typical amount was about 15 minutes. I'm a zombie. And a grumpy one. My big boys are going to find that the house rules today are very flexible.

2. I'm really tempted to see if Ryan can cut out his naps, at least a few days a week. I'm really craving an earlier bedtime for him, and I know Evan would like it - last night he sat in there with him for 2 hours. Granted, we probably started too early, but dang.

3. Kellen has begun the consonant-babbling; already we're getting bababa, mamama, and galgalgal.

4. Here is the aforementioned craftiness from Ryan last week: