Mass for Homeschoolers (part 2) and etc..

In my rush to get off the computer I neglected to include the conclusion of the Mass. (BTW, Tigger has a broken wrist. Poor guy. More on that later.)

Auxiliary Bishop Zarama told the parents to not pretend to be perfect. He said that children will recognize the grace of God all the more when their parents admit their imperfections and still see God working through them in the household. At least, I think that is what he said. :-)

Now with that out of the way I can give a general update of the family. We've been passing around strep throat and the flu from one person to another for the past week or two. Mostly it has been the little ones, but Friday after we got home from the Homeschool Mass I had to pick Sweety up from school because she was sick. She had a fever and sore throat like strep, but she had other vague symptoms too, like the flu, so I took her to the doctor on Saturday to find out which one she had. We discovered that she has BOTH strep and swine flu. The doctor was amazed she was able to sit up.

He ordered me to keep her secluded for three days. O.K.? How am I going to keep a child quarantined in a house with only four available bedrooms (basement still under construction due to flood) and ten people? Lets just say we are managing...

Then today I spent the morning after Mass at the minute-clinic around the corner with Bronky. She already had the flu (I think, not confirmed) but I thought she now might be getting strep. The nurse didn't do the strep test, but based on the symptoms decided she must have strep or some kind of sinus infection due to allergies, so either way she is on an antibiotic.

I had planned to spend the day cooking - which I really like to do usually - but then the seasonal clothes overhaul had to be accomplished. We generally know when this needs to happen when the children can no longer shut their drawers because they have clothes they've grown out of, summer, winter and brothers and sisters clothes all in their drawers. How this happens I don't know, but it does, and there is only one way to fix it. Dive in!! My sweet DH helped by taking the boys' room this time while I took the little girls'. So that job was relatively painless, until I then realized at around 3:00 p.m. (where did the day go?) that I had forgotten to....

take Bronky's medicine back to the pharmacy because she wouldn't take the nasty big horse pills they prescribed. She begged for liquid. Back to Walgreens where the very nice pharmacist explained that the liquid is meant for little children and if she had to drink the amount of liquid required for her size, she just wouldn't like drinking 1/2 cup of medicine several times a day. Wouldn't she much rather like to try cutting the big horse pills into quarters? Back home to....

give Bronky the cut up medicine, which she finally swallowed, not without tears and a great deal of effort considering she had a nasty sore throat. I am very proud of her.

Tired, I came upstairs to nap but decided to write about the Mass when I heard the dog barking the way she only does when there are "others" in the house. (Sorry, DH and I are into Season 3 of "Lost" we've been downloading from Netflix on our "date nights".) DH was downstairs talking to someone so I banged out a few more paragraphs until he called me down.

Poor Tigger had broken his wrist jumping on a neighbor's trampoline that didn't have a net. He isn't used to that and landed on his wrist on the ground. Ouch!! He wasn't where he told us he would be. Does he know better? Obviously not, but he does now. So, I took him to a different doc-in-the-box equipped with x-ray vision. About an hour later we have an arm in a splint and a referal to an orthopedist.

To Brusters for a treat for the poor injured, but very brave fellow and then back home.

I started bread for tomorrow in my break maker. (Really awesome bread lately! Something went right today.) Cleaned the kitchen, folded laundry, distributed meds to kids when my darling Rocky comes up to me to ask me to feel his head to see if he's hot.... He's burning up, again. More medicine. Then I ordered all the toothbrushes into the dishwasher for disinfection because maybe he has reinfected himself with strep??

I hope I don't come across sounding like gloom and doom. I'm really writing tongue in cheek here. It just is what it is. Laughable, actually. Things are pretty good and, compared to how things could be, we are doing very well!

Yesterday, I had a lot of fun visiting several garage sales in the early a.m. and then the little ones helped plant things for the winter garden - in between all of this excitement. I have big plans for several projects, though I don't know if these will ever come to fruition... Another day. And I can't wait to dive into "How to Read a French Fry" with the kids for science...good night....