Weekend

Well, M and I ended up getting the stomach virus that C had last weekend.  I had a bad night last Wednesday night and M came home from work with it on Thursday.  It just seems to be our lot in life this winter.  I laid low and rested for a few days, eating toast and staying home while the girls watched TV.  Although I was still feeling slightly queasy Saturday morning, I didn't want it to stop us from our plans to visit the art museum that day.  

{L also helped, when she found me laying on the bed after my breakfast didn't agree with me Saturday, by leaving me with her stuffed bunny Molly, covering me up, and running to the bathroom to get me "the pink medicine".  (Apparently she had seen me spooning myself Pepto during one of my episodes lying on the bathroom floor.)  She got me a tablespoon, too, and after I had taken the medicine she took both the spoon and the pink bottle from me and said she would put them away.  Later that day I found the dirty spoon, very carefully placed back in the drawer with the other clean ones.  Love that girl!}

But I got over it and we made it to the art museum okay-- it was the first Saturday of the month so admission was free, and they were doing a family craft day:

The project was accordion fold-up storybooks and the older girls LOVED that idea.  Above is L's rendition of Leonardo the Terrible Monster.

N wrote a story about a safari man who met a girl, fell in love and got married.  She entitled her book, "The Zafari Zoo".

N was looking like this most of the morning:

I suspected that she might be ill but her excitement and love of all things artistic carried her through the morning with no complaining whatsoever.

After touring the museum a bit

we departed for lunch at a local bakery.

The girls were each given a complimentary slice of red velvet cake with their sandwiches.

N scarfed her cake down, and I thought, "Oh, she must be feeling better!"

Not so much.

As soon as we got in the car to go home, she started whimpering.  There was nothing to do but make the 30-minute drive home as quickly as possible and try to keep her comfortable.  I gave her my empty wide-mouth water bottle.  About half a mile from our house, it happened.

"It's PINK!" L exclaimed.  "The spits are PINK!!"

I realized at that point that we are definitely going to be laughing about this in years to come.  It's no fun for anybody right now, and it killed me to see her suffering like that.  But it made me think of the inside jokes of our family-- we always laugh about the time my brother threw up in FAO Schwartz as a kid, or the time my cousin had an "ocean spray" at the cranberry factory.

So... although we have been so, so, so, so very sick this winter, and I've been doing my share of complaining about it... I hope to be laughing about it soon.

N was a total trooper.  If she was feeling even half of the pain that I felt when I was in the worst of that virus, then I wholeheartedly applaud her for sitting upright in a car throughout it with hardly a complaint.  And she dutifully put all of her (pink) vomit right into that water bottle without spilling a single drop.  I told her several times afterwards how proud I was of her for being so brave.  What a girl!

Sorry to those of you who were trying to read this while eating.  I promise that, even if we get the stomach virus a fourth time this winter, I will not blog about it.  I will just laugh in its face.

The rest of the weekend was all about "listening to our bodies".  I did my usual 2-hour grading session for my class early Sunday morning.  The girls rested and played.  We figured we'd stay away from the church nursery and keep our germs to ourselves.  There was a quick trip to the mall to check some prices on window shades:

...and then it was home.  3 hour naps for L, C, and Mama, and a few hours on the couch for N, who in that time wrote "The Zafari Zoo 2".  And 3, 4 and 5.

Everyone was in good spirits and I'm so thankful that we had the day to rest for the week ahead.

Some rough moments in our weekend, but some great memories too.  My girls are remarkably resilient.  They're teaching their Mama a lot and keeping me smiling.

(P.S. For my post-a-day February, I managed 21 posts in 28 days!  Go me!  That beats last year's record of 17.  I've got so many ideas for posts, I'd like to keep things up as much as I can, but we'll see what time allows.  Thanks for reading :)