Plague

Cooper is sick again.

AGAIN.

He has been sick almost constantly since Dorothy has been born.  A virus.  Strep.  An ear infection.  A virus, and now a fever and general misery-- probably the dread Justavirus, but who knows because there was too much snot, milk, blood, and granola bar on his throat culture for the doctor to be totally confident in its negative result.

Blood.  Because Cooper went apeshit crazy as soon as our nurse called us back to the exam room.  He had been happily babbling about fish (shish) and eating a granola bar at the tiny waiting room table next to the aquarium.  Then he heard his name and lost his mind.  He bit his tongue (or maybe the inside of his lip) during his strep test and screamed and kicked like crazy while first the nurse and then the doctor checked him out.  On my lap where I was also nursing Dorothy under my nursing cover because my outfit was not muffin-top friendly.  I sweated through my clothes and felt the benefits of the heavenly massage I enjoyed right before the appointment leaking away.  And that was before both babies crapped themselves AT THE SAME TIME.  It was the worst time I have ever had at the doctor including the time that ended in a PICU stay and the time I had to wait for 45 minutes in an 8x8 box with all 4 kids.  Although I was impressed by the doctor's ability to put Dorothy's sock back  on the foot that was sticking out of the nursing cover with one hand while he used the other hand to hold his stethoscope on Cooper's writhing back.  I'm not good at one-handed sock application.

The bad news is that if he doesn't feel better tomorrow (and since he has a 102-degree fever the second his Tylenol wears off and keeps falling asleep on the floor, I am not holding my breath) I have to take him back to the doctor. Neat-o.

I think the blood test that accompanied his last bout with Justavirus really freaked him out and now he hates all things doctor-related.

Cooper asleep at 8:00 yesterday morning, a mere hour after he woke up

The other week, all the big kids wanted Panera, but I didn't want to take them all to Panera, so I made chicken noodle soup with french bread to dip, apples, and brownies, and we had Panera at home.

The other day, they wanted it again, so we went out-- a more stressful dining experience, but cleanup was a breeze!

Yesterday, Harry's class ended their unit on pioneers with a pretty intense pioneer museum in the cafeteria.  They had maps, wagon trains, journals, and hilarious stations where they explained things like how to do wash, how to make butter, what pioneer schools were like, a typical journey on the Oregon trail, and popular pioneer cliches.

Harry picked out his own outfit and was really bothered by his anachronistic Crocs.  He also fashioned suspenders out of the strap from his lunchbox.

To keep his love of pioneer culture alive, I told him we could implement the "Children should be seen and not heard" cliche.  It's not going well.