Ben did his best to give me a happy Mother's Day Weekend. If the kids had been healthy it would have been so good.
Saturday:

• Sleep in until 8!
• Head to gym at 8:30
• Massage at 10:15
• Lunch at Smashburger with everyone
• Target shopping - I picked out my own gifts for the holiday
• Blessed Quiet Time
• Dinner and playing with my sister and parents, who came over for a quick trip to hear her talk in church.

Sunday was kind of a usual day, but with extra assistance from Ben in child care.  Sam was too sick to attend church so I went with Jack to Sacrament meeting.  The Primary kids sang to us.  Jack knew the first two lines of the first song, then smile prettily for the rest of the medley.  Simple acts make my heart swell!

Then it was all runny noses and coughs and goldfish and entertaining for the rest of the day, like most days.  That's the problem with Mother's Day - unless we physically remove ourselves from the home, we can't really take a break.  But Ben did all the heavy lifting and cleaning so it was a little special.

I tried to get my annual picture with my kids. 

First in their natural state of undress and toy hogging and TV dead-eyes. 


Ironically that was the best it would be.  Once I tried enforcing smiles and clothes on them, Sam was DONE.



I have many variations on this same theme that I didn't bother to upload.  The longer we tried, the worse it got.  Finally he body-dropped (toddler version of the mic drop) and was outta there. 





Here's a picture of Sam baking with me later and in a better mood.

 

Sugar and messes and step stools?  This is his favorite play area.

Sam woke from nap with a low fever.  So weird, happening two days into a cold.  But we solved the mystery of why he keeps getting sick!

Yes, both boys are sick again.  This time it's just a case of the sniffles.  They are fully active with play and school and such, just cranky around the edges of the day.  Sleeping is rough too so I have both humidifiers rockin' in their rooms.  I guess I'm grateful it's not another GI flu?

Yes, we went on our date.  The movie and the food and the friends were all fabulous.  Yes, I left the sitter with Jack who was complaining of feeling sick again and wanted to lie down.  Apparently he just laid around watching TV then went to bed early.  Whatever.  I got to see some superheros save the world and not worry about anything else for a couple hours.  Relaxing.

Of course the illness is not over.  No ho ho.  Sam has a runny nose today and Jack has had more episodes of suddenly feeling "sick in my tummy."  He lies down for a while, then recovers.  So weird, and so bad for my nerves.

I have been sewing more tops this week.  For some reason, knitting is not doing it for me lately.  I'm waiting for Fancy Tiger to get their new shipment of Madelinetosh yarn, so the things I'm working on are not new or exciting.  I sewed a Sailor Top out of Liberty of London fabric and it's just gorgeous.  At $34 a yard, I'll have to wait for another sale to buy more.

Today was busy for a Monday.  I (finally) had an appointment to get my car repaired, so first thing in the morning we dropped it off and got a rental.  The staff were so nice and let Jack pick between white and red cars.  Guess which he picked?  I feel like a teenage boy driving that red thing.  Then we all went to the preschool for parent teacher conferences.  Jack is doing great, as expected.  She gave me some tips to help him smooth out his handwriting by developing fine motor muscles.  Sam loved that he finally got to play in the preschool classroom.  Usually he tries to sneak in during pick up/drop off.  Next we picked up some playdough at Target (part of his fine motor skills development) and then went to the library for our usual story time.  Sam is a MONSTER there.  Constantly running all over the place, tearing books off shelves, putting toys in his mouth.  I swear, he's going to be the WORST in his terrible twos.  Good thing he's so cute.

Some videos from today and recently, for your enjoyment. 

I finally succumbed to it.  I've been healthy all month despite my germ home invasion. Then I spent most of last night in the bathroom.  Gah.  It seems be all done though - I'm just tired and cautious to eat.  Jack got the bug a couple hours before I did.  By my count we have all four had the latest gastroenteritis in the last week.  I declare us DONE with that and no one can get sick now.  You hear me?!

I've had tickets for the Avengers Friday night for over a month.  If something keeps me from the Alamo tomorrow night there will be hell to pay.  

After that continuous string of illnesses in mid April, there have been aftershocks.  Ben had a day of gastroenteritis last Tuesday.  Then Sam was sick Thursday with the same - coming out both ends.  He recovered quickly by the weekend and I thought we were all clear.  But randomly Ben was knocked out again today with a similar thing.  Grrr.  Germs, germs, go away.  Don't come back another day.

He did really well. Keeping Sam occupied for one and a half hours, during nap time, was the hard part for me. He's happily watching Spider-Man now, lips still a little numb two hours after the procedure. They did a frenectomy too. My idea, actually. He needed one eventually, and I figured as long as he's numbed up we should get it done. The doc agreed and said actually new research is supporting doing them earlier (usually done in preteens). He has a couple stitches from it that will probably hurt more later.

Glad it's over with. Tooth is under pillow, ready for a fairy visit tonight.