Fluey Bluey

The tummy bug, stomach flu, gastroenteritis has hit our family. The kids and I were affected, to various degrees. Sarah has just been feeling under the weather and without too much appetite. Gabriel has loose stools once to twice a day. On Thursday, Ben and I were down, really down. It was then that I realised how much energy it takes to run the family during the daytime. I had a fever, though I didn't feel warm on the surface, so I did not think of taking a panadol til much later in the afternoon. It started at 4 am, Thursday morning, when Ben came into our room, whining. He had vomited in his bed. He proceeded to climb onto our bed and vomited there too. So we began the big clean up, new bed sheets. Ben, meanwhile had been bathed and changed, and sat in the bathroom near the toilet. I made him a Ribena drink, which he drank all but 2 mouthfulls. Then soon, he vomited onto the toilet floor, on the mat. So that went to the wash too, the floor had to be cleaned up as well. In the meantime, I myself had not been feeling too well. Nauseous from the night before, and very groggy all the while I was cleaning up. I started a load of laundry in the machine (the bedsheets), and went back to our newly made bed.

The sun rose, and I couldn't quite get up. The rest of the day passed in a blur. I had no strength to make breakfast. All I wanted to do was sleep. I gave Ben a dry cracker and some water. Ben had some of the dry cracker, Gabriel had some too with his milk. Sarah wanted soft boiled eggs *horror! I had no energy to do that for her!*. I managed to make an egg for Sarah, sleeping for 7 minutes while it 'cooked'. She did the rest herself (toast, butter etc). Ben vomited his cracker. I cleaned up. Slept again. Soon the kids came and slept on my bed with me. Then the runs hit me. From late morning, I was more or less living in the toilet. Sleeping between toilet visits. Sometimes the visits might be 5 minutes apart. I rehydrated when possible, but mostly I slept.

Soon, I felt I needed to fix lunch for Sarah and Gabriel, if not for Ben and myself. So I dragged myself out of bed and cooked a small amount of rice porridge with 'mui choy' (preserved silverbeet stewed with duck and pork). No, I didn't make that mui choy. It was providential that I had bought some from the market on Wednesday. So I just mixed it into the porridge.

Lunch time came, nobody ate. I forced myself to eat two tablespoons. Too tired to eat, I gave Ben and Gabriel instructions to finish their own meal and went back to bed. Sarah said she didn't want any.

When I next woke, Sarah had come to my bed, Ben had gone to his own bed and was fast asleep, and Gabriel had laid his head on the table and was fast asleep too. All their porridge had not been eaten.

Well, to cut a long story short, it was a day of more vomits.... sofa cushions, floor, clothes and finally at night, another bedsheet and pillowcase and lots of cloth diapers supposed to line said bedsheet and pillow. Some underwear. A new set of PJs. I just didn't have the energy to do anything at all. After I had taken the Panadol, I started sweating and feeling a tad better. Then i realised that I had had a fever all along. *duh*. Dinner was not much different. Gary bought fish porridge, which nobody really ate.

Today, it's Saturday, appetites are improving slightly. Friday's breakfast was good though. Kids demanded pancakes, and ate them. But today, everyone has been really tired. Me included, so off to bed I go now. Good night.

All Aboard!

Getting Ben on board our homeschooling journey has not been easy. He's a very contrary boy. When I'm busy with Sarah, he will keep badgering me to school him. When I've finished with Sarah, and it's finally his turn, he'll turn away and says he doesn't want to do school.

This past week, I've finally given him a 'big' desk of his own during school time. I've made lots of alphabet and number tracing sheets (from Christ Centered Curriculum) copies. When Sarah is schooling, Ben does tracing (or Chinese writing). That has helped keep him occupied and focused. Once Sarah's is done and perhaps busy with written work, Ben is more cooperative and will continue to sit for his lesson.

Only drawback is that with this new table open, Gabriel has bumped his eye and head into the corner a few times already. He's not used to it being there. I'm thinking of hanging some tassels from the table.

An affirmation of our homeschool programme has been Sarah's good results in her Chinese language tests conducted by her Chinese enrichment class. She even did very well in Oral!!

We're boosting the kids' oral now by giving them Bible verses in Chinese to memorize.