Today, I had my day planned - appointments sometimes as often as every 20 minutes. It was going to be a busy work day without a lot of free space. But life has a way of making free space sometimes - whether you want it or not. It was about 2 am when I realized that life was sending me a curve ball. Poor little Brandon was quietly rocking in the recliner in our room saying with each rock, "mom, wake up, I threw up." I am not sure how many times he rocked before I finally registered his words. We got all cleaned up and got him tucked back in bed. It was clear he had a fever and I knew that he wasn't going anywhere the next morning. He spent the day in a chair, rocking, sleeping, watching movies. He is so quiet and never complains when he is sick. He ran a fever all day and felt miserable. With Rich out of town, my mom preparing for company, and Marilyn having some commitments as well, I was a one man show. It took some shuffling by my gracious coworkers and students - but the day was rearranged.
This is how he felt about being sick. Or he wasn't amused by my photojournalism. Come to think of it - it might be the latter.
But nothing a little frozen can't fix!
I kept Katherine at home - for a couple reasons. One - Brandon didn't roll out of bed this morning until almost noon. The other is - I felt like we should keep her exposed to the germs she has already been living with rather than introducing new germs. One thing I have noted with having four kiddos - is that sometimes it feels like someone is always down for the count. So much so, when one kiddo turns up sick - Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust" starts rolling through my head. There are shoes all over the place here lining up and waiting to drop. :) Since she was home, she also enjoyed Frozen. I am particularly fond of how she chooses to "lounge."
Once the "bigs" got home, I attempted to avoid issues with responsibilities by promising they could help me decorate the last of the sugar cookies if they had all their things done. Piano got practiced, spelling rehearsed, social studies test review done, worksheets completed, and math facts done by quizzing each other. Ben always gets done before Elizabeth - so he busied himself with Legos. . .he loves Legos.
Elizabeth got busy with her favorite evening pass time, spending time with Katherine. I think Lucky got jealous. While there is a lot of movement in this photo - I love it. The sister snuggles with the dog wanting so badly to be in the mix. You will notice that Katherine does not react to Lucky. This would be because Lucky tries to get as close as possible anytime any of us get down onto the floor - so she is used to it. It is really bad when Rich and I get down to play with the kids. Nice to have a little photographic evidence of this adorable yet very annoying habit of our dog. Man - you can see the crazy in her eyes.
Finally, Daddy returned home with dinner (yay for no cooking!). He got home 4 hours earlier than expected which is about the happiest news this mama could have received today. :) He got the littles put to bed while we decorated cookies. Their classroom teachers are going to have some very special cookies that have no shortage of sprinkles on them. While the abundance of sprinkles may make the otherwise soft and delectable sugar cookies a bit crunchy, it was sweet to see them work so hard on the ones that they had picked out for their school teachers. It is clear to me they have a lot of respect and affection for those women. I am grateful every day for the teachers in my kiddos life - both the formal and the informal.
A day that started with stress and frustration turned out to be a lovely day filled with free space. Lots of life and love fits into free space. Don't we all need a little more of it?
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