boring update for those who are wondering

Living in Alabama around any fireworks-worthy holiday is always fun. There are no legal restrictions on most pyrotechnics so we get quite a show around here. The kids were all out in the driveway last night with Landon, shooting off a few crackers of their own and then hopping over to the neighbor's driveway to watch the activity there.

We are still sick around here. The fever has now graduated to vomiting, headache, a nasty cough and diarreah. I currently have three sick children, who I am trying to keep down. If I medicate them, they feel good and want to get up and play. If I don't medicate them, they feel miserable. I have given each of the sickies a colored wash cloth to cough in to in an effort to keep from spewing germs all over the house but I doubt it will do any good. We have all been exposed and it just remains to be seen who will get sick. So far, I think Micah has already had it, Noah, Silas and Solomon are currently sick and Landon and I have had a touch of it, but seem to have recovered. I hope that I am passing immunities to Karys. Lyra is still unscathed at this point:).

A few pictures

This is how we are spending our days lately. They are slow and lazy, but everyone is adjusting very well. Solomon is our resident sickie right now so he is in sick bay in this pic.

Whew

So last night was rough (I got all of 2 hours of sleep) and Karys and I slept in until 9:00 this morning. Landon went to work at 4:30, so the kids were fending for themselves this morning.

Solomon now has the horrible fever bug but, bad mom that I am, I didn't even think to check on him this morning when I woke up at 7:00 to feed the babe (he was playing upstairs with Silas). When I got up at 9:00, he had fever chills and was lying on the sofa under a blanket trying to get warm. Fortunately for him, Lyra took over as "Mommy" and had him all set up with things to make him feel better. She had moved a little table over next to the sofa where he was lying and supplied him with a cool washcloth, neatly folded, a bowl of green grapes and a cup of orange soda with a straw in it. He even spilled something and she cleaned it up for him! What a good little sister!:)

I have no idea what this fever virus is. It doesn't seem to manifest in any way other than a high fever. Solomon was running 103.2 this morning and Silas got up to 102.5 when he had it. 102 makes Silas delirious. I found him walking around upstairs at midnight a few nights ago, looking for the bathroom and laughing while talking to "two guys who were looking for the bathroom too". That was sort of freaky. It took me over an hour to bring his fever down to under 100 but fortunately, the baby slept through the entire thing.

She is still nursing around the clock, every 2-3 hours so I am a bit tired, what with sickies and nursing, but we are hanging in there. I really do want to post some pictures, but that is now so involved and time consuming since my easy picture posting program never acknowledges that I am on-line anymore.

In an effort to keep chores from getting away from me in my scatterbrained, sleep deprived state, I am keeping a running list on the kitchen counter. It lists things that need to be done and I add to it every time I notice something. Most of the jobs are little 5 minute deals, so I can tackle them a little here and a little there - things like "bleach kitchen sink" or "clean front door windows". If I get two extra things done each day, I'm happy right now. "Go to library" has been on the list for days and it's not getting done. I honestly needed to write "get a shower" and "eat breakfast" on my to-do list today- it's been one of those... I ate breakfast at 10 minutes 'till 12:00 this morning. In fact, I had better get a shower now, because I hear the sweet little one stirring and I have to get a few more things done before rest time is over.

Still here!:)

We're still here and doing fairly well, all things considered.

My kids , who rarely get sick but when they do pick the WORST times to do it (remember the camping trip), are coming down with bugs this week. We had to take Micah in last Wednesday for an ear infection which probably started with swimmers ear. He couldn't hear much of anything and we were having to raise our voices all the time when we were talking to him. I am happy to report that he told me "thing sound a lot louder" yesterday, so I guess the antibiotic is doing it's job.

Yesterday, I noticed that Silas was looking a little puny and thought he might be coming down with something but he said he felt fine so I just let it go. Today, he fell asleep on the couch at lunch time so when I finished nursing the baby, I went over to check on him and he was burning up with a fever of 102.6. I woke him up when I changed his pillow and he started talking in complete jibberish, which sort of freaked me out for a second until I figured out that he was probably in the middle of a dream which, combined with the high fever, was manifesting in a rather bizarre fashion. I asked him what his name was and he knew so I just gave him a drink, an ibuprofen and a cool cloth for his forehead.

So now I just have to keep the older kids away from the littlest kid in hopes that she won't catch anything. This is one of the many times I'm glad that I breastfeed.

Speaking of the baby, she is doing GREAT! I have never had such an easy newborn. She nurses perfectly, is on a nice little schedule, sleeps beautifully, and of course, is a cute as she can be. I know it's too early for her to truly smile, but it really looks like she does it on purpose. She looks straight at my eyes, wide awake, and smiles. It's adorable.

She is still sleeping on me for part of the night, but I try to get at least one stretch of crib sleeping out of her every night. She sleeps in her crib during the day and does great and I could probably move her to her crib all night, but she is a tummy sleeper like every single one of her brothers were so I feel better keeping her on my chest for most of the night until she is a week or two older although she is really good about turning her head already.

While I'm on the subject of cribs and sleeping, here is a little article on wrapping your baby's crib mattress with polyethylene sheeting for anyone who has ever worried about crib death. You can either buy a babe-safe mattress cover or just make your own by buying sheeting in a hardware store and wrapping your baby's mattress using these instructions. I am going to go ahead and wrap all my kids mattresses, just for health purposes and see if it cuts down on allergies for Silas. Polyethylene is a vapor barrier so it should keep all the nasty things that come out of mattresses away from them.

As for the sibs, they are loving having a baby in the house. They are so helpful with her and Solomon and Lyra sit around and argue about who gets to rock her car seat back and forth and who she likes better. However, I have had to get on to them LOTS lately for squabbling about everything, so maybe arguing about the baby is just overflow. I cracked down on all this today so I hope to have things back in hand in a few days. It amazes me how lack of diligence in training for as short a period as I've been out of commission affects children - especially mouthy, cute, precocious children such as my #4 and #5.

Ah well. Life is a joy and a blessing so I won't complain. I'll just continue to teach and train, teach and train and hope that one day, I won't be needed in that capacity any longer:):):).

On the cloth diapering front, I started using cloth diapers during the day about 3 or 4 days ago and I must say that I love it. I wish I had known how easy it was when my others were babies. I could have saved us about seven or eight thousand dollars in diapers. sigh. I'll start using them at night as soon as I run out of disposables but for right now, disposables are easier to deal with in the dark (I could change one of those things with my eyes shut) so I am saving the disposables for quick changes between night feedings.

Gotta run. Silas is now feeling TOO good and needs to be settled back down on the couch with something to keep him occupied.

For fun

If you like music, check this choir out. They sing "Africa", by Toto, entirely without instruments. They even simulate a storm at the beginning and end, only using their hands and feet. It is really cool:). My kids loved it!