A Monday Report

The Morning 

First of all, let me just say that Nature Day may be my favorite day of the week.  We have a family schedule nowadays and Monday is Nature Day when we either go to a zoo or on a walk outside somewhere lovely, anything to do with nature.  I LOVE going on a nature walk with the kids!  Art is just on fire when we're out there!  Discovering, pretending and asking questions.  Today we went to Woodlake Nature center and started our time in the Interpretive Building where all the taxidermy is.  We touched a fox, otter, beaver and swan and saw an owl hanging from the ceiling!  That was especially fun because Lewis's joke lately is to point somewhere and say, "Ow-wool!" and laugh when we say, "There's no owl up there!"  Well, today he got to point and there was an owl!

Later Developments

So, now BOTH kids are sick.  Both kids have ear infections and at one point today Art had a sore throat.  Eventually he was so pumped with medicine he it was imperceptable.  Yes, we have been to Walgreens no less than four times in the past two days.  Yesterday we went to pick up Lewis's prescription (and some brow-liner for me).  Today we went to get Art some cough medicine after he woke up from his nap saying that it hurt to cough and he couldn't breathe.  Got home and he tasted it and pretty much ran away.  Yep, into the next room.  So I asked Ben to pick up some cough medicine 'strips' that dissolve on your tongue.  He got day and nighttime versions.  Meanwhile I had given Art a Hall's cough drop, a strawberry popsicle and two children's acetaminophen tablets.  No improvement (except during the consumption of said cough drops and pospsicles, of course).  Ben got home with the strips much later and still Art was feeling no relief.  Moaning and crying and starting to complain about ear pain.  I reread the dose and saw that for his weight he could have another acetaminophen tablet.  So now he had a lot of cough and pain relievers.  But the ear was getting worse so we went to urgent care.  He screamed and cried and it actually earned me a jump in line!  (A rare moment when Art's intense temperament has resulted in looks of sympathy rather than judgement). Then the doctor said we should add ibuprofen, so Art took some of that.  After we got home I was back at Walgreens for children's ibuprofen just in case he wakes up in the night in excruciating pain again.  Oh, and he took his amoxacillan (sp?) for the infection.  Crazy.

What was Lewis doing?  Dragging his feet all over the house.  Still a little under the weather.  Pretty floppy.  But after all the antibiotics and everything I think he'll be back to normal tomorrow.  That'll be nice, but Ben and I both felt a little tickled today to have the vibe around here altered by all this illness.  The kids' needs are different, their personalities are a little shifted and we as parents have had to rise to different challenges.  So I guess I'm saying that I love routines, like Nature Day (!), but there's merit in shaking things up.  And that's my report.