Under the Weather

We are all under the weather except for Erik, I think. Nick has been cranky and tired with a runny nose for a week or two. On Monday evening I had a horrible-feeling run which surprised me. The next evening, at knitting group, I had to stop knitting because of an unusual ache in my wrist, and as I leaned back against the couch, I almost fell asleep. In public. Last night as we watched our weekly Family Movie (Discover Planet Ocean), my body started aching and I got restless legs. Instead of jogging, I took a hot bath and went to bed early. Yesterday, Xander complained of an itchy, red eye. Today, he seemed to feel a little bit bad upon waking and sounded like he had a full or sore throat.

We are fine, but not feeling that great.

Today, we all got up at a decent hour. Erik and I experimented with Nick's bedtime last night. I'm tired of him getting up before 6:30 in the morning. Nick was put to bed around 8:00, did not fall asleep until close to 9:00, then got up at about 7:20 this morning. Not too bad. We'll see how things go today. Xander went to bed at 9:00 (he and Erik were doing a special job with Legos so they could display the finished ones on Xander's new handmade shelf). He got up a little past 8.

We read several minutes of The Hobbit. I think it helped the tiniest bit that I had Xander copy out the title and subtitle of the book yesterday. I wrote a model on his handwriting paper: The Hobbit Or There and Back Again. He copied it pretty nicely...and slowly. When I was ready to stop reading The Hobbit, Xander asked me to read more, so I read a tiny bit extra. (Leave 'em wanting more.)

As I read to Xander from our library stack, he decided he would later do journaling and Jedi Math on his Leapster as extra activities. We finished reading together My Brother the Knight, El Gato Con Sombrero Viene de Nuevo, Maps & Globes, Where's That Fish?, and Planets. I also read a few pages of National Geographic Kids 2013 Almanac to Nick.

Both kids were interested in all the books. I smiled to myself at how fascinated they were while listening to me read The Cat in the Hat Comes Back in Spanish.

Xander started journaling, taking breaks every now and then to act out for me what he had drawn. For example: "Yoda Force Attack." Somebody remind me to have him do journaling outside next time so he can jump off the porch instead of our furniture while doing Yoda attacks.

I made PB&J Pizza for lunch because Xander had picked it out of our Family Fun cookbook. I didn't take a picture, but it was pitas spread with peanut butter and then blackberry jam. They were cut into triangle slices, like real pizza. I topped one segment with coconut flakes, one with coconut flakes and Cheerios, one segment with just Cheerios, and left one plain. Nick had seconds.

Whoa. The under-the-weatherness is getting strange. Nick is sleeping still and has been for three hours. Xander suddenly got itchy "from the sun" when we walked to get the mail and wanted Calamine lotion all over his stomach, back, face, arms, and legs. He continues to feel more itchy. I don't see any rashes or marks on him except for places where he's itched himself. Looking in the mirror, Xander got upset that his face was green. (It's not.) In two different bathrooms under two different lighting schemes, he said he saw green on his face. He said he has a headache.

West Nile Virus is big news around here now, but nobody at our house seems to have any symptoms of a severe infection of any kind. I've heard painful eyeballs (if you press on them) is a symptom, and none of us have that.

Last night the boys watched Chimpanzee from DisneyNature. Erik picked it out for them at Blockbuster; he is so good at picking out things that other people will like. It was a bit long to keep their attention, but they really liked it.