I get knocked down, but I get up again...Well despite my best efforts, I too received the children's illness and it knocked me out for almost two days. Serona had to work from home and play daddy on Thursday while I spent the day in bed. The kids did pretty well and I believe he was even able to accomplish some work! Of course they were fed an unhealthy diet of videos on Thursday and Friday, i'm trying to comfort myself with the fact that they don't watch that many in a normal week and the fact that they were enjoying themselves. Our daughter of course did not let us go without doing some school activites and reading of course. I managed to spend some time with her in my bed going over her letters and phonics. She would pick up either a felt or sandpaper letter out of the box, make the sound and name some words that started with that letter. We also made pictures and shapes with tangrams and did some simple math equations with some frog foam pieces. And of course we all read some books throughout the day, her new favorite is Quick as a Cricket and I quite enjoy reading that one as well. She also drew me pictures to try to help me feel better and worked on being a helper quite a bit, especially on Friday when Serona went back to work.

Our son must be going through a developmental milestone again, perhaps moving to using full sentences more frequently (he does have a few he uses regularaly) or else was just fed up with the week's captivity and had a rough day on Friday. He was an emotional ball of energy and had several rough temper tantrums. One of the only things that calmed him down was water. One time we just filled the sink and he did the dishes, or tried anyway and he seemed to enjoy himself and calm down again. Another time we went outside (had to drag the oldest outside) and he put his Little Tykes scooter car in the wading pool and drove and bounced around on it, this kept him entertained and calm for nearly a half hour as I swayed in the hammock and listened to our daughter talk about what I can not remember right now.

Serona came home that night and took the kids and the dog on a long bike ride which everyone seemed to enjoy (though it may have been too long for our poor dog's paw) and they came back in a relatively good mood to eat dinner and get ready for bed. Serona headed out into the garage to work on the bookshelves again (he has one nearly finished and the wood cut and sanded for the other two) and I took on the challenge of getting the kids to sleep and then kept Serona company in our garage as he sanded wood.

Today was a very busy day as we played catch up and tried to get things ready for the big birthday bash tommorrow. The kids kind of moved back and forth between us as they fancied, I was inside all day and Serona was outside nearly all day so they had options. I spent the day cleaning and organizing the house, cleaning and catching up from the lost week of illness and getting ready for tommorrow. Organizing as I try to get things in order before padawan number three arrives and throws our lives out of whack again!

Serona was working on the bookshelves and the yard, mowing, cleaning, scooping poop, setting things nice for tommorrow 's(assuming it doesn't pour - which sadly it might) butterfly birthday pool party. The kids alternated back and forth between us - running around outside and playing with their bikes and toys and "helping" daddy and chalking the sidewalk. When inside they helped me clean some, but mostly the two of them played together in their own imaginary world. They got out a pop up tent that grandma sent that has a hospital/fire department/police station/grocery store on each side and played a variety of games in it. When they became bored with that - they headed for their staples, empty laundry baskets, mom's bathrobe tie and some cloth napkins (I am forever amazed at all the different things these three things can become in the course of a day - much less a week) and they were off again.

I did take some breaks with each of them to work with them one on one. Our eldest practiced writing her letters, numbers and a story that I stamped out with dotted letters for her. She also spent a good portion of her time reading quietly by herself or to her dolls. Today she was a princess and carried around a cell phone, two headbands, a ribbon, a wand and of course a cloth napkin. I'm still not sure what it all signified. Our son and I worked on his letters with a toy he enjoys that you roll the letter across the top and it tells you the letter, the sound and some words. He also tried to play with his siser's leap pad and kinderbot. We read together and then he was back outside with daddy. He did actually help me clean, he really is a big helper and enjoys it, especially sweeping, doing dishes and throwing things in the garbage!

We got a lot accomplished but by 8pm we were all exhausted. The kids got a quick bath and then went to sleep with Serona reading to them (I think he feel asleep in our son's bed first) but I went into our bedroom intending to do laundry, laid down and it was all over before 9pm for me.

Peace,
Tenn