Cough Into Your Elbow

There seemed no better title to describe this past week.  All three kids had a very rough cough.  Caroline had her fever last weekend, Henry got his mid-week.  Just a tough lingering cold.  Because of that we have had to go over certain lessons in proper germ etiquette.  "Cough into your elbow" became a favorite mantra, since coughing was the major symptom.  We also went over the fine art of blowing one's nose.  While what would appear to be a simple lesson, it proved to be quite difficult.  Josiah, who knows how to blow his nose, often just chooses not to do so.  Sniffling every 1-2 seconds was more pleasing to him.  Since this is one of my worst pet peeves, I was going slightly nutty with him at night when he would sniffle/snort with such force and duration of time that I considered buying noise cancelling earmuffs to save our family from my wrath.  One night I walked away while looking at Todd with eyes that said, "I must get away from the snorting."  He understood, as this was not one of his pet peeves.  Henry, too, knows how to blow his nose.  When it was suggested to him to go get a tissue and blow his nose, he often replied, "I don't want to."  Well, son, that was not really a suggestion, more of a directive.  There are lots of things in life we do not want to do, but we must.  Keeping your mother sane is also a good thing, so go blow your nose.

Because of all the coughing, Caroline's schedule has been completely off for most of the week.  She didn't want to nap at the normal time, so I naively thought she could stay awake all day and have an early bedtime.  Except, she didn't get that memo and fell asleep at 4:00 and 4:30 p.m. on a couple of days.  That's always a blessing, those 4 p.m. naps.  Because of the coughing, she also wants to drink more to help her throat.  So, we've had a lot more bed-wetting than normal.  Shockingly, when she wakes up from her late afternoon/early evening naps, she's quite cranky and then does not want to cooperate at night.  With all the accidents at night, I have not been as inviting at 2 a.m. when she comes to sleep in our bed.  I make her use the potty first and she's not too happy to do so.  One night we had a stand off from 2:00 to 4:00 a.m.  She never went, and she was mad as a hornet to have to sleep in her bed.  Nothing like singing Old MacDonald at 4 a.m..  He had lots of cows on his farm because I kept singing "moo."  I think it required less of my mouth to move at that hour.  Even poor Josiah has been affected by Caroline's night time wakings.  In the middle of one night he came in our room to say Caroline was sleeping on his bed.  When I went to remove her, I discovered she had peed all over his comforter (missing the mattress, thank goodness).  For some reason, I've been a bit crankier as well.  This parenting thing is not for the faint of heart.

Caroline demonstrated her crankiness by completely melting down when I would not pour 64 oz of apple juice into her 6 oz cup.  The cup in front of her is full, just not full enough.



Unfortunately, because of all the coughing and fevers we had to cancel our zoo trip on Thursday and our CC friends coming over on Friday.  I felt horrible because it always seems to be me who cancels everything.  And then who showed up on our doorstep with chicken noodle soup and a rotisserie chicken?  Our super kind friend whose zoo trip we did not get to attend.

I did end up taking Caroline to the doctor's office Friday morning since she was just not getting better.  I always wonder if I should be taking her - if it's just going to end up being a virus and they can't do anything for that, etc.  She was dancing around the exam room, chatting it up, acting very non-sick which made me think I had made the wrong choice.  That was until the doctor examined her and she had a bad ear infection, bronchitis, and she was wheezing with low oxygen stats so she had a nebulizer treatment.  She went home with an inhaler, antibiotics, a probiotic, and directions for Tylenol and Vick's Vaporub.  Poor girl.

We did get a few service projects in this week.  We all packed two shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child.  I had intended to have the boys help me fill them up with toiletries, candy, toys, shirts, pencils/crayons and paper.  But, I didn't want them coughing all over the items and sending their germs overseas.  So, they sort of sat near me while I packed them.  Hopefully, next year they can be more hands-on with it.  That's why I don't have a picture of them either - keeping those boxes germ free.  :)

As a family, we also purchased a goat.  Samaritan's Purse has a program whereby they give needy families a goat.  They teach them how to raise it, feed, it, milk it, and breed it.  That gives their family a new source of income as well as food (milk/cheese, not meat).  We made it clear ahead of time that we wanted the kids to contribute a week's pay each and we would pay for the rest.  The boys were all excited about picking out a goat (there were many animals/programs to choose from), but then when it came time to giving the money, they were less than enthused.  Henry paid using his coins instead of his dollar bills and then he got quite upset that his money cup no longer jingled with coins as it had once done.  Josiah whined a bit about having to give up some of his money.  Caroline didn't fuss too much since she didn't know what the heck was going on anyway.  Plus, she picked out baby chicks from the catalog, not a goat.  So, we're working on developing servants hearts around here.

Caroline holding her baby in "sleep" mode.

Caroline waking her baby up with a choke hold.

With company coming soon, we decided that, gee, maybe we should keep unpacking boxes around here.  Once we started school in August, I basically stopped unpacking.  So, one benefit of being housebound with the kids is that things are getting unpacked again.  We even hung a few things up on the walls.

Throw-back to an old Josiah picture since I have no new ones of him this week.

We are glad to start a new week getting healthy and anticipating the arrival of grandparents.