Day 66: Sick day

Today did not go as planned (which honestly could be an alternative name for the blog)! Boy woke up coughing and with a fever, and just got sicker throughout the day. And I’m not feeling great either. Usually I find that if the kids get sick, I get a little sick too, even though I’ve got a mature immune system and don’t often get as sick as they do. So we still didn’t decorate our lovely little tree, much to Girl’s disappointment. (Thankfully our tradition is to keep the tree until Jan. 6, so we’ll still have ample time to enjoy it.) We suspect Boy has the flu.

But here are some nice things that happened, even on a ‘sick day’:

I stripped Boy down to just shorts and gave him Tylenol trying to get his temperature down, but more than anything else he just wanted me to hold him in the big comfy chair while he watched episodes of Korra. So we did that, for a couple of hours, while Girl played by herself quietly. It was bright and warm and sunny in the living room, and I loved just being there with the kids, doing nothing.

Then Boy wanted to go to sleep in my bed (!) so I lay down with him and rubbed his back until he fell asleep. (Unfortunately, I also fell asleep, and slept through something really important I was supposed to do, but that’s a whole other story.)

Papa took Girl to the library and let her pick out books, and got Boy some new Magic Treehouse books, and then took her to the park where she made a friend and played for an hour. The other girl’s mom even gave Papa her card, to see if we could get them together for a playdate sometime. (Either that or she just really liked Papa!)

When I posted online that I couldn’t get Boy’s fever down tonight (holding steady at 103) and that I was feeling worried, I got a number of helpful messages from other moms I know here, homeschooling and not, with advice and recent experiences, and even offers to drive some homeopathic medicine over to the house. In the end, my neighbor down the street walked some over, so that if Boy wakes up and his fever is high, I have something else to try.

Without being overly sentimental, I want to say that I love the mothers I know here. They are good and kind and generous. I like them as mothers, I like them as people. My children are still pretty young, so we’ll be doing this, homeschooling, for another 10 years or more. I’m glad I’m doing it with these people. I’m happy about the friends my kids will have, the adults they will know, and I’m looking forward to time spent with these women.