Stuck at home ...

We're stuck here at home these days, for good and bad reasons. Last Thursday afternoon Anna started coming down with a cold. Kate started with the same symptoms on Saturday ... of course. Thankfully, it has only be low-grade fevers, runny noses, and stuffiness; there's some pretty nasty stuff going around here in Madison these days. Last week we learned of several kids at our church who were diagnosed with H1N1, along with our music teacher who had to cancel classes due to her case of H1N1. We also learned of some kids at church who had bad ear infections in addition to a few other families who had the stomach flu go through their homes. So ... I was a bit nervous when Anna first had her fever, but, like I said, it doesn't seem to be that serious. Still, with all the stuff going around and with lowered immune systems anyway because of this cold, we've been here at home since Thursday (except for a short trip to the store on Saturday a.m. - more on that later).

It's a good thing that the weather has been surprisingly warm so that we can spend some of our home time outside instead of just being cooped up indoors. It's also been nice that Anna has been learning how to play games so that we have more to occupy our time when we are inside. Last week we taught her to play Uno, albeit without any wild cards in the deck and having us lay out all our cards. Still, she thinks it's great.

The good thing about being home is that we are in the midst of potty training "boot camp", as our friends like to call it. Anna was pretty interested in the potty back in June, but I wasn't willing to go all out at that point. Then we had a long lull in her potty interest. This past week she asked to sit on the potty a few times and when she woke up Saturday morning asking to sit I knew it was time, especially since I knew we'd be quarantined for a few days and the weather was supposed to be nicer so we could spend time outside.

So we headed out to the store, picked up some underware, and got ready for the accidents. Saturday we had three successes and three accidents. Sunday there were NO accidents, but lots of false alarms. Today we've done great so far, even starting out the day with poop in the potty! I love the fact that frozen blueberries are enough of a reward for peeing for Anna ... for the poop we told her that I'd teach her how to play Candyland. As soon as she pooped this morning she asked to play; we've spent a lot of this morning working on the rules of that game ;)

Anyway, we'll probably be stuck here for another few days until the nose gunk isn't quite so gross and I feel more confident in Anna's abilities. Wish us luck!