Sickness

It's hard to believe December is nearly half over!  Our family has been staying consistently busy.  One reason is that I have been working more.  After a co-worker was diagnosed with a brain lesion and needed immediate surgery, our department was scrambling for people to pick up his full-time hours!  I'm not working full-time, but have increased to 2-3 days a week at least for now.  The kids have done well although they do say they miss me.

The twins and I have been doing "un-official" home schooling each morning.  We are working our way through "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons".  They were practically begging me to learn to read, so I started this book I checked out from the library.  They enjoy it immensely and we usually get through 2-3 lessons each day.  We also do simple addition and subtraction problems and whatever else we feel like.  Since this is not the start of real home schooling :), it is very low key and low time commitment.  They are getting used to the new routine.  We only spend 30-45 min each morning and then they play!

This past week, all 5 of my boys were sick!  In a large family especially with small children, it is practically impossible to avoid getting sick.  Tommy was the first to get hit with the stomach bug :(  He was sick/tired/run down for 2 days.  Then Sam was next with Nate following shortly after.  They were down for 2 days or so and then my sweet bouncy baby boy got hit hard!  His was the worst, but lasted the shortest.  Josh and I had a long night with him feeling miserable, but thankfully, slept well every night after!  Everyone seemed ok for a couple days until Josh came home from work early on Friday.  Though he never "got sick", all energy was drained from him. He laid on the couch for 24 hrs barely moving and definitely not eating.  But, he was back on his feet (literally) after the 24 hrs.  I'm so, so thankful that I never got sick.  I was diligent about washing my hands, keeping surfaces clean, eating fermented foods, and drinking lots and lots of water and Kombucha. This is what I'm talking about if you have no idea what Kombucha is! :)  All that to say, I stayed healthy and have been able to keep up with all the laundry, hugs, snuggling my babes, and cooking.  Hopefully, this is it for the year!