A Week, Briefly (Mar 27, 2023)

 I. Am. So. Tired. Of. Hand-Foot-and-Mouth Disease.

It's been going around and around our kids (daycare babies and my own) for 2 full months now.  Some of us have never had it.  Some of us are on our second go-round.  

Fevers, runny noses, aches, pains, sores, blisters, scabs.

At various times, various family members have had to miss church, dance, activities, and library days.

*sigh*

It could be worse.

Spring wasn't sure about it most of the week, but it seems to be deciding to stick around!

Monday

Beowulf hurt his neck over the weekend, so I barely got through Morning Meeting and Symposium before I was running him to the chiropractor.  He was adjusted, and the chiropractor told us to come back the next day, so we set an appointment for the afternoon.

We got back after snack was over, so I let Beowulf eat while I tried to provide some relief to Nature Angel and Little Princess.  I also got lunch ready for everyone, then packed Brother, Beowulf, and their lunches into the van for a trip to their psychiatrist.

I love her.

It was a good visit.  We made some plans for med adjustments, and she said we could have a telehealth visit in 2 months to save us nearly 2 hours of travel and office wait time.

By the time we got home, the babies were napping, and it was all I could do to set the kids up with the skillet and some eggs and let them have a second experience frying eggs.  

They were thrilled.

I was utterly exhausted by a phone call from a parent asking us to investigate their child's statement that Ladybug touched him inappropriately.

I freaked out.

I pretended to be calm.

After a lot of questions and some reenactment, we figured out that while wrestling, she did accidentally grab him in the crotch on the outside of his diaper and pants.  He was telling the truth about being touched.

He was also not being sexually abused.

His parents were completely satisfied with our investigation and answer to their concerns.

I felt limp and exhausted.

 

Somehow we made it through dinner, stories, and bedtime.

Tuesday

In the early morning, I arranged a couple of trays with odds and ends out of my craft cabinet, some glue, and some heavy-weight paper, and let the kids do what they wanted with them.

Not everyone finished chores in a timely enough manner to get to experiment, but the ones who did really liked it and are asking daily for me to do that again.

I'm working on it; I just have to do some clearing of the craft cabinet and buy some more glue.

Morning Meeting, Symposium, and snack time passed quickly by.  

When it was time for me to give the younger kids some school attention, we got to work organizing binders.  I gave them larger binders for their art and projects, and we changed their smaller blue binders into history-only binders.  

They were assigned to make new binder cover art.

We read, and the kids spent a lot of time playing basketball.  It's spring break for the schools in our area, so our yard was filled with kids that are suddenly aware of my kids, and everyone played until I made the neighbors go home so we could have dinner.

I started painting walls in our living room while the babies slept, and I forgot to take Beowulf to the chiropractor. 🤦

We ate, read, and went to bed.

Wednesday

I have a love/hate relationship with costume play.
Love the play!  Hate the clean-up.

Someone carried an entire box of sidewalk chalk on our walk.  The kids raced to each stopping place and drew as long and as much as they could.

We also found deer tracks in a line.

Fun climbing the fire hydrant

Daffodil in our yard--photo credit: Nature Angel

The rest of the day was a repeat of Tuesday--with the exception of actually adding the kids' history pages in chronological order in their newly assigned binders.

Thursday

Show day.

The only picture I got--the babies entertaining themselves while they waited for their turn to put on costumes and dance (at least the boys are still waiting--Sugar Bear is mostly ready)

Laundry, costumes, packing up, driving, dancing, packing up again, driving again, eating, finding library books, going to the library, eating, and activities . . . sort of.

*It was the 5th Thursday of the month, so no activities for the younger kids.

*The girls' activity was scheduled for during our show, so we missed the activity.

*Little Princess missed both dance and CAP because it was the worst day of her HFM symptoms.

*Mister Man's HFM symptoms exploded during and after dance (heaven help us if we shared it with fellow dancers or the senior citizens), so he stayed home.

And that left Brother to go play chair soccer at the church with the other boys, and Nature Angel to attend the high school musical that her friend was in while I let the at-home kids watch Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile.

Sir Walter Scott had a bad night when one of Pixie's Jeep tires detached from the axle when he was almost at the church, so he had to coordinate rides for Brother and Nature Angel, wait for AAA, message our mechanic, and arrive home exhausted.

Friday

Everyone woke up on the wrong side of the bed!

We limped through the morning, but when we got to school time for the kids (ok, I've got to call it Kid School again), I couldn't stand one more minute.

I started scolding them all . . . reduced some of them to tears . . . realized it was my job to get the day back on track . . . admitted this to them . . . thanked them for what they had done well so far (which reduced the rest of them to tears) . . . told them I needed a praying time-out in order to figure out how to get the day back on track . . . prayed . . . received inspiration . . . and took everyone outside to pick up trash because serving is the best way to heal grumpy, self-centered hearts.

But that means we never used our sit-upons because I replaced our planned nature activity with service.

Next week!

We'll use them next week!

We picked up so much trash!!!!

The neighborhood is definitely cleaner.

Saturday

While I stayed home to clean our house for General Conference, Sir Walter Scott took the kids to the church for our turn to clean the building.

Little Princess sent me this picture of Lola literally standing on the chalkboard tray to clean.

And then we settled in for General Conference.

At various times, I caught the kids doing what they do as we listened to the speakers.

And that leads us to Sunday.  As of this writing, there is only one session of General Conference left, and I've been preparing for Holy Week lessons and activities that I hope we can do in order to have a joyful preparation for Easter.

Oh!  And Belle's passport came!  She'll be set apart as a missionary in 21 days!