Thanksgiving Week

Our week last week did not turn out as planned.  How many times in the last 5 years have I had that thought?  At least we are well versed in flexibility, and we have learned a bit about perspective when it comes to our kids' illnesses.

The week was scheduled to be a short one for school, but also a busy one, with evening activities on both Monday and Tuesday night in addition to a couple of test/quizzes for Anna.  Monday went well, with a half day sub position for me that required a little more childcare finagling for Kate and Ethan than we're used to.

By the time I picked Ethan up, however, he was starting on an illness.  We had hoped to meet Matt at our community Bowls for Hunger event for dinner, but Ethan's symptoms plus Anna's extra homework caused us to make some adjustments.  Matt came home; Anna powered through her assignments; Ethan kept going downhill.  In the end, the girls and I trekked back in to town for the event while Ethan and Matt ate at home.  Ethan was willingly in bed and asleep by 6:30 ... yikes!  But the girls and I had a good time seeing former teachers and other community members.

Tuesday morning Ethan woke up with the remnants of the fever so he stayed home.  Kate was grumpy about having one more swim day at school, but otherwise everyone was in good spirits.

Ethan had a low key day on Tuesday with lots of snuggle time and quiet activities.  He opted to make a book for Kate and worked on it for a fair portion of the day.

By the afternoon, he seemed to be perking up.  But then we picked Kate up from school and the first thing out of her mouth was, "I'm really sick, Mom."  So, instead of killing time before picking Anna up and then going all together for our haircut appointment, we took Kate home and put her to bed first.  Her temperature was already flirting with 101 degrees.

Anna, Ethan, and I got our haircuts as scheduled.  Actually, Anna and I did.  Ethan got his haircut at home on Sunday evening ... a mohawk this time.

For a few years, someone in the family talks about giving Ethan a mohawk whenever we cut his hair, but he's never had the ability to sit still long enough during a haircut for it to work.  This time it did; it was pretty awesome when it was spiked, too :)

Unfortunately, Kate didn't want to join us much for dinner that day.  Also unfortunately, Kate, Ethan, and I had to stay home while Matt took Anna to her first choir concert.

Matt said all went well, except that the black dress shoes Anna was wearing didn't stay on too well by themselves.  Duly noted.

Here's a video of (part of) the intro Anna wrote for one song as well as her choir singing it.

Tuesday night began the first of the troubling nights in our home.  Ethan woke up with an earache and Kate woke up out of discomfort several times.  (But we still caught her with her headlamp on and reading at 2 a.m.!)

Wednesday, Kate and Ethan stayed home while Anna was incredibly disappointed about having to go to school.  I took the younger two in to the doctor in the afternoon and, sure enough, Ethan was diagnosed with an ear infection.  I figured that if we were going into the doctor's office anyway, I wanted Kate to get checked out, too, so that if something did come up later in the weekend, we wouldn't have to head back in.

It turns out that we weren't the only ones with these kinds of troubles last week.  The 1:45 p.m. appointment that we scheduled at 8 a.m. on Wednesday was one of the last ones available that day AND our local pharmacy didn't have enough children's antibiotic to fully complete Ethan's prescription that afternoon!

Needless to say, our Thanksgiving weekend was low-key.  We were immeasurably thankful that we didn't have any plans to travel anywhere or have anyone over this year.  We worshiped at our church on Thursday morning, ate a delicious meal on Thursday evening, watched a movie together on Friday afternoon, managed a fun trip to St. Vinny's on Saturday afternoon, and basically just hung out and recovered during the rest of the time.

Ethan was feeling much better by Thursday, but still had trouble sleeping most of the weekend.  Kate felt pretty crummy on Thursday and Friday, but by Sunday was starting to have her normal energy level again.

We are hopeful that this isn't a sign of whatever other viruses are looming on the horizon this winter!