Sick Bay

We were hoping that Craig could take Kendra and Bentley to the Museum of Science the next Monday, since it was Martin Luther King Day.  And since I like getting to hang out with Craig, we were even thinking that maybe we could all go.  Unfortunately, that morning Bentley had the same fever that Kendra had had.  So he had to stay home.  Which meant I was was staying home, too.

Craig took all the other kids, plus a couple neighborhood kids, Abby and Scarlett (who are sisters).  Bentley dozed on the couch, sunk deep in his fever.  And I put in my headphones and got to work switching bedrooms around.

This seems to be a January thing for me, a weird need to rearrange furniture, almost always in the form of who sleeps where.  This time, I was switching rooms for Ryder and Camille.  Ryder and Colton have been sharing a room for a year now, which means that Ryder has had to carry the weight of Colton's inability to sleep through the night (Yup!  That's still going on!).  We figured it was time Ryder got a break.  And Colton and Camille have been begging to get to share a room, so that just made sense.  Plus, Colton refuses to sleep by himself (or ever be in a room by himself, really), which meant that on nights when Ryder goes to scouts and is out late, Colton was impossible to deal with.  This new arrangement should help with that, too.

The good news about this switch is that I didn't need to move any furniture, so it wasn't physically demanding.  But having said that, I was still amazed by just how much STUFF my kids managed to accumulate!  And of course, being just after Christmas made it all even worse!  So it was a lot of work.  BUT-- it was a lot of work with NO KIDS underfoot!  So I was probably a thousand times more efficient?  AND I could throw stuff away!  That made me pretty happy.  And added bonus-- as I sang along with my headphones, Bentley's bird chirped right along with me, so that was pretty cute!  It's almost like being in a Disney movie!

Ryder's new (to him) room!  Actually, this was his room when we first moved here, too!

Colton and Camille's room!

The BEST thing about trading rooms is the chance it gives you to throw out a lot of the junk that accumulates-- random crap from birthday parties, clothes that have never been worn, toys that never get played with, art projects that have been saved for longer than necessary, garbage that has gotten shoved under beds and forgotten about...  It's a good feeling to de-clutter some! 

While I was hard at work, poor Craig was not having a very successful day at the museum: Scarlett started crying halfway there (she only just turned 5, so I guess it was all too much for her, although her sister was able to help a lot!).  And then they were only at the museum for a little while when Kendra suddenly didn't feel all that great after all.  I'd worried about that happening-- I knew she wasn't at a full 100%, but I had no way of telling just how much better she actually was.  I'd tried to ask her and she'd assured me that she was fine, but clearly we'd all over-estimated her recovery.  Anyway, it made for a difficult day and they left fairly early.

I did my best to scrounge up some dinner for everyone and then headed out to choir practice!

The next day was a teacher workday, so the kids were still home from school.  Craig got to work from home, too, which was handy since I had made an appointment for Ryder to see an allergist!  He keeps getting these little red, itchy bumps, but I could never pinpoint what was causing them.  After the school nurse called, I figured it was time to actually have him tested and see if we could figure out what he was allergic to.

So we started with the basic skin test and discovered that he is allergic to EVERYTHING:

The nurse actually yelped when she saw how his arms had reacted.  Now, the good news here is that he reacted to both the positive AND the negative testing parts (see? on his right arm, near his elbow?), so any reaction smaller than the negative one, the doctor said we could discount.  He just has insanely sensitive skin, apparently.  The bad news, though, is that even ruling out the small reactions, the ones left are dust mites (same as Kendra), and...  corn and soy!  If you live in America today, it is nearly impossible to eat ANYTHING that does not contain corn or soy!  (Really!  Check out this article!  Bottled water and apples both contain corn!!!)  But the silver lining is that he isn't all that allergic to them.  So the solution is that he gets claritin (or zyrtec) every day.  Which is a little lame.  But not tragic and not scary and life-threatening like some people's allergies.

So we'll survive.

After that, Ryder got to work on his pinewood derby car with daddy.  That was a LOT more fun!  Ryder really likes building stuff with Craig in his workshop.

We got the TV hung on the wall!  YAY!!!  Now we just need to replace ALL OUR FURNITURE...

This is a super cool toy that Colton got for Christmas from my sister Leah-- it's a 3D printed moon that you plug in and it lights up!  Isn't it beautiful???  And it's a perfect nightlight, too!!!

Camille fell asleep on my lap.  I think Colton is already keeping her awake all night long, poor thing...

This last Monday, Colton had the same fever that Kendra and Bentley have had.  He slept on the couch like this for two hours, despite all the noise going on around him:

Poor guy!

Camille came running home from Scarlett's house to ask me if Scarlett could put makeup on her.  This was the result:

Scarlett has a real future in the makeup business! 😂

Trying to do FHE while Camille hugs/chokes Craig.  And coughs on him.

This is why I hate January.