Tents

A few Sunday's ago, I woke up to boys with fevers. We had just finished having HFMD and thought we were in the clear, but the thermometer said otherwise. I decided to just stay home with all the boys to prevent any further spread of disease. Whatever the disease of the moment was. I must admit I was kind of excited to stay in my jammies and take a nap. Because church doesn't start until 1pm, we had all morning to play and lounge around. So we made tents.

 I made the mistake of telling them we wouldn't be going to church. But after an hour of tent making they were surprisingly alert, happy and wild so I checked their temperatures again. To my surprise I found that their fevers were mysteriously gone. What? I was truly perplexed. After a bit of feet dragging on my own part, I told them we better get ready cause we were going to go to church after all. I mean, how was I supposed to teach them the importance of the Sabbath, if I myself was unwilling to go?

This decision resulted in a lot of moaning and complaining that they were TOO sick to go. They begged... please, please please could they stay home! I told them we only stay home if we have fever and are too sick to move. When we are sick we stay in bed all. day. long. No playing. Nothing. That freaked them out a bit so they decided it might be best to get out of the house while they could. And of course since we spent all morning playing around we had a mad rush to get ready and get out the door in time.

We have an odd fever here and there over the last few months. I keep being told that this is normal. That we are just getting used to the Singapore germs, but I am starting to worry. I will NOT be able to handle my kids getting sick every few weeks. I will lose my mind. So I hope its not a new thing we have to deal with and that our bodies are just getting stronger, not weaker.

We did have fun for the few moments we thought we were going to stay in and enjoy our pillows and blankets. It was also a great opportunity to teach a few things as well. And church ended up being really fabulous, so we are glad we got to go. Or at least I was.

On a separate note, we have now said "bye-bye" to the binkie! Well, Kai's at least. This week as we were out walking he had a few tantrums and threw it out of the stroller. After the second or third time, I just kept walking and quickly snatched it and hid it in my pocket. When he asked where it was, I told him it was gone. I told him he shouldn't have thrown it out but that it was lost and we couldn't find it! Oh boy, was he sad! We discussed it a lot. It was more of a hand-gesture discussion, not a real wordy discussion. He would point to his mouth and say "Ah, Ah. Gone?" We had a lot of tears the first day but I stuck to my guns. Mostly because lately I have really seen what a pushover I am and I was determined not to be one this day! Poor Kai. The one day I actually decide to wake up and be a parent....

I was surprised that he didn't cry as much as I thought he would. There was more talk than tears and he came to terms that his binkie was in fact gone for good. He only had a hard time going to sleep that one night, but the rest of the week went pretty smoothly. Today was the first Sunday he has made it through Nursery without using it to calm himself down. He really doesn't like nursery and really protests each week. But apparently he is growing up because he made it through today just fine. Kai really is a reasonable child. You can talk to him and rationalize things and it makes it so much easier on me because the older boys are not like this at all. It's such a relief to have a child that is amenable! Even when he finds Levi's binkie, he doesn't use it. I tell him that its the baby's and he hands it over without protest. If only they were all like this. What a breeze parenting would be! I am sure that Kai has some tricks up his sleeve to make our job harder. It's only a matter of time before we start to see it. So I'm going to enjoy this for as long as I can and when he does in fact get difficult, I'm going to remind him of how easy going he was as a little tot. Maybe he will find it inside himself to take it easy on me.