We woke up the other night at around 10:30ish with the dreaded fever and shakes and my tummy hurts of a 7 yr old.  Holding him, praying for him, questioning what to do.  He is teething, all four of his front top and bottom teeth are loose and new ones dropping.  Four molars are coming down in the back.  His head always hurts, he always seems to be running a slight fever lately.  But he fell on the ice today, jumping down off a trampoline, he says he whacked his head.  No bumps, bruises or sore/soft spots.  Tonight screaming and crying of the pain in his head and stomach.  We prayed. Cried out to the Lord for direction. Prayed for ministering angels to comfort this poor little rag doll of a little boy in our arms.  And then it happened.  The answer.  It happened all over.  On the bed. On the comforter. On the carpet. On the Dog Kennel. In the bathroom. In a bucket. And finally – In the potty.  I can update and say that the 10 yr old, the husband and my self have all had tummy issues the past month, so I was OVER JOYED to find out that the 7 yr old was now taking his turn, and that he didn’t need a trip to the ER to have his head scanned.

     Except – He has a gag reflex. Always has.  If he urks one time, even slightly, his stomach will heave every 45 minutes for sometimes 24 hours.  Yesterday, he went from 11pm to 6:30am.  Poor little rag doll.  Brother wakes up at 7ish to start his day, and I am now exhausted.  I go and lay down for a bit while the 10 yr old starts his day.

     9:30 rolls around, I’m in the 10 yr olds bed because we haven’t completely scoured our room yet of odor and germ, and he wakes me up to ask for an email address.  Mom- I really need an email address.  Did you know that it will be sunny today and tomorrow and maybe rain or snow on Thursday or Friday? Can you show me how to get to my email? Flip back the covers, groan, see a bright sunny day and I smile.  I inform the kids that we aren’t going to do "school" today.  After all it is President’s Day, and we should have a break! We go into the computer room, and I work on setting up the 10 yr old on a gmail account.  He asks to use some of my scrap supplies and starts to get busy.  He cuts out little squares and then gets the curling ribbon out.  Do you have a hole punch mom?  Um. son.  I’ll need a bit more information to direct you to which punch you need, and then I’ll tell you if I have it or not.  (chances are prit-tee good that I will)  For the ribbon, he answers.  I need to punch a hole through and thread these papers on the ribbon. My mind races to what in the world, but he’s not bothering me while I read mail, so go for it.   I get him an assortment of "hole punches" and he is in joyful creation.  After getting his email account active, we send a couple of emails to friends who have emailed him this week.  I make a file in word to have his web address, email, webkinz and phone number on.  I print these lovely "cards" and he is sad.  Hey, he says, that’s what I was trying to do.  I was going to carry these cards on this string on my belt, then rip one off whenever someone wants my address.  Foiled by mom.

     Jon wakes up, and is still pale and ragdollish, but he is bouncing back quickly.  He is still couch worthy.  I declare that TODAY is the day we will put together the BBQ pit that has been in a box since before Christmas.  This means we might have to look for a new coffee table, but it will be worth it. 🙂

     Jon decides he will help me put together the pit, it will be like a huge Lego project.  Nate decides against and goes out to the garage.  He keeps coming back and and forth asking for strange misc. pieces of whatnot, and I give strange pieces of information on where to locate the item.  Hmmm. What is he doing in the garage?  There’s nothing like a clean garage to make a boy go creative crazy and mess it up again.

     Three hours later our BBQ is magnificent as is the tunnel fort with lights, sitting areas and DS playing areas in the garage.  Jon has perked all the way back up and is asking for food and drink.  However, the 10 yr old wants nothing to do with him for fear of germs.  We marinate some steaks hubby brought home on sale from Safeway – the catylist to putting together the BBQ –  Nathan and I concoct a low fat non dairy potato salad, he’s getting quite good at cutting potatoes.  I go back to check emails and find that he played with my Stampin Up cutters on a card.  He cut out a small hole, then made a face in the hole.  Then opened the card and drew a whole scene around the face.  Now, for Nathan, this is really out of character!  His drawing was great, and the idea was great. He even put tape on the hole to make it a window.  I may have to do something like this on some of my cards.  Putting the picture on the inside with a peek from the outside.  Very cute.  I grin that it is only about 2:30 and think of all the things he has done today on his own. 

    Now, Its after 3:00 and I’m tired.  Hubby and Jon are napping on the couch.  Nate comes in with a paper and asks me to spell obsidian and opal for him.  He goes out to the garage to categorize his rocks, then brings quite a few out to the back porch.  With the introduction of the BBQ we had spent time sweeping the porch and placing the outdoor furniture around with some plants and decorations.  Looks great.  Too bad it’s supposed to snow by the end of the week.  Anyways, he gets a few of the rocks lined up, and asks me to come see.  He has measured them all, height width depth and made papers to tag to them on their type and size.  Then he has used the paper I wrote on to make a chart.  He is very excited.  He wants to know where to trade or sell the ones we have multiples of so we spend some time on the Internet with a fruitless search. We’ll look into it.

    Since its now 4:30ish, we go about to putting the meat on the grill, finishing up the salads.  Nathan wants to eat outside, and starts to decorate with candles and placemats.  He places tea candles on the large rocks like we have seen at the fairs around here. It looks really beautiful.  We call the sicko’s out from the couch to come "out to eat with us". 

     We spend the evening sanitizing, washing, cleaning, spraying, etc the bathrooms and whole house.  Lots of laundry to go through.  The bathrooms are sparkling and have  a fresh spay of organic disinfectant  everywhere. I go around all the door knobs and light switches, tables and chairs, surfaces and walls and some of the floors.

     It is now about 9:30 and I think back to all of the loads of wood carried in today for our fireplace, all the Lego creations, all the domino trains made using the Styrofoam pieces from the packaging, the continued lessons on compost and recycling after dinner and picking up the packaging of the boxes, and all the other chores done throughout the day and really had a feeling of joy.

     I have had a mixed bag of emotions watching the 10 yr old change and mature and grow the past few months.  Sometimes he is so awkward that he is afraid to try new things, physically or academically.  Sometimes he is so shy and inward focused that he is sure that all the other kids do not want to play with him, and that they don’t like him.  Hard to tell though when you  haven’t said hi or such . . . . I see him with the boys he knows and wonder when he will be the leader, when he will be his own person.  I see him follow little brother and grow tired of his constant family circus type activities.  I wait, pray, and watch.  It seems the more activities I put him in, the more inward, sad, and withdrawn he becomes.   

    However, in the past two months he has grown, changed, found interest again.  He is finding joy again in little things. He is finding joy in reading.  Joy in church. Joy in simple activities. He is loving to ride bikes, take walks and play with his dog. He is enjoying walking around the back yard again, just to see what has changed from yesterday and which animal came to visit. He is enjoying cooking again and setting the table to be attractive and inviting. He is doing his math with eagerness and his geography with fascination.  He is spending much less time with anything electronic or monitor related.  I am seeing the fruit again of what we want with his creativity, exploration, discovery and exercise.

  Yesterday, was an entire day of all the things I’d like to see him do.  All the activities that make him grow and mature and find personality and character. However, it was a day that we declared no school.  No friends. No outings.  It was a day w/o socialization with groups.   It was a great unschool day.