Lily's better, yay!

Lily went for about 2 days and nights of not ever being happy. She could be distracted from the screaming, but she would go for an hour screaming without being consoled. It was really hard on me b/c she would refuse to nurse, and I hardly know how to comfort a screaming toddler if I can't nurse her! But finally, Sunday night, I told Tim I was ready to take her to the ER b/c I couldn't handle any more. We said a prayer for Lily, then Tim got the idea to take her into the bathroom and turn on the shower full-blast, hot water only. That made the room really steamy, and Lily's cough stopped, and she asked to take a bath; Tim turned on some cold water so it would be a comfy temp and let her bathe in it until she was ready to get out an HOUR later. She slept like a rock that night (except for when she woke up to nurse back to sleep, yay!) and has been all better ever since.

I got Lily's cold and Jack did, too, so even once Lily got better we still couldn't go anywhere. I pouted all day Tuesday and let the kids play computer and iPad games and I cross-stitched and ate chicken nuggets, and was happy again Wednesday. (I think it also helped that I discovered I was holding the ear thermometer wrong and didn't really have a fever!) In our weekly schedule, Monday is library day, and we didn't get to do that. Tuesday is when we meet with some other homeschoolers to read to our kids together, and we didn't get to do that. Wednesday is when our church playgroup gets together, and we didn't get to do that, but I was at peace anyway. Today is Deep Clean Day, when we vacuum and sweep all the floors and wipe down the bathrooms and then bake cookies together to treat ourselves. So far today we're right on schedule. And I'm excited that we'll get to actually LEAVE THE HOUSE tomorrow and go to a museum for our Friday Museum Day, b/c we seem to be not contagious anymore, though we all still have snot and coughs we're all not feverish.

Jack learned some letters while playing computer games Sunday. The best part was that it was entirely his own desire to learn! He was playing a game on PBSkids.org, and part of the game you could either click with the mouse or press a key on the keyboard. He studied the letter, hunted until he found it on the keyboard, and pressed the key. He's played the game before, so he knew he could click the mouse much more easily, but time after time he pressed the keyboard key instead. It went in a row down the top row of keys (QWERTYUIOP), and I kept expecting him to realize that the next one was right next to the one he just found, but he didn't. Oh well. And I restrained myself from congratulating and praising him to oblivion, too.

Jack exploded at dinner Monday. Eating is an ongoing battle around these here parts; Jack doesn't like to feed himself unless it's something supremely unhealthy like chips or candy or cereal. My tactic is to put the food in front of him and tell him he's welcome to leave the table when he's done with his food, then ignore him as much as possible while he sits there and sings to himself and contorts in his chair for the next hour. But it was time for Family Home Evening, and that put more pressure on him than his poor little 4-year-old body could handle, and he broke down and cried and would not be consoled until Tim finally got it through his head that we want EFFORT more than we want the food eaten, so if he would just pick up the spoon and feed himself, he would have plenty of time. Well, he stuffed himself so quickly that he puked it up. I was so glad I was busy with Lily and wasn't actually there for the puking! So we made him drink some chamomile tea before he could have the cookies we'd made for FHE.

I have finally instituted a set bedtime for the kids. I never got around to it before b/c it seemed like more trouble than it was worth, but I need some kid-free time in the evenings more than I used to. 7 o'clock sharp we brush teeth, floss, change into jammies, go potty, and then gather on Jack's bed to say nightly prayer and watch a scripture video. We discuss the video together, then I tuck in Jack while Tim holds Lily; after I get Jack tucked in I nurse Lily to sleep in my bed. It's all done by 8, and I have kid-free time for 2 hours! And I am such a happier and more loving Mommy!

I just looked at a map of the museums around us. We have within a 10-minute drive a lock museum, a mechanical museum, the Intel museum, a computer museum, the Sunnyvale history museum, a lace museum, an art museum, a navy museum, an Egyptian museum, a farmstead museum, and a Mountain View history museum. Most of them are free admission, and the couple that aren't free are at least free for the kids, so it won't cost much for us to go. The biggest limiting factor is that many of them are not open on Fridays, so it will take more than night-before-Museum-Day planning to visit them. (I'll have to actually plan a few days in advance! Will it ever happen?) I'm excited to show Jack the pictures on the internet of the museums he can pick for tomorrow!

We watched the new movie for The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (one of the Chronicles of Narnia) tonight, all four of us. What an adventure! Lily was a happy audience for about as long as it took the previews to be done, then she wanted to explore. I volunteered to take her to the bathroom when I discovered her diaper was wet (and then realized it was wet from pouring water on herself, not from actually peeing in it), so I missed a little bit of the movie, but after we got back she trekked up and down the steps and I got to watch the movie again, perched at the bottom of the steps. The theater was almost completely empty, yay for going on a weeknight! Jack loved it and got more out of it than he's gotten out of a movie at the theater yet. I'm sure that's just that he's grown and not that the movie was particularly better, but it might perhaps be that we read the book over the last week (although, they changed it significantly, so he probably didn't recognize much). It was even in 3-D and we all got to wear 3-D glasses. Lily loved playing with hers but refused to actually wear them; Jack's slid down to the end of his nose and I didn't notice until near the end of the movie, but then I slid them up and showed him how much better it looked with them on and he kept them on after that. The movie was lovely; it was of course changed from the book, and there were parts I was not happy with, but in the end they left in some of the good Christian symbolism and I was appeased :D

I love my family! I love the predictability that weekly schedules and daily routines give us!