Our Sickness and Starting Back to School

I thought I'd try to write while my fever is a little lower and James is content.  I am quite afraid, my friends, that he and I have the flu.  This is my first time since I was a kid, and it is miserable.  It feels like it will go on forever.  I've discovered that I don't sleep well with a high fever, so I'm going on about 4 hours of sleep right now.  (I actually got a nap this afternoon!  Hallelujah!)

To back up a little bit, last Friday KJ told me the most wonderful plans he made for me for my birthday on the coming Tuesday.  He told me he knew all the things I would want for my birthday:  freedom, family, and shopping.  He planned for us to meet my parents Sunday night for dessert and let them take the kids, and I was going to have Monday all to myself.  A whole entire day ALL BY MYSELF.  You know this is unheard of.  Tuesday morning we were going to drive to the Galleria, do some shopping, and meet my parents and the kids and maybe my brother for lunch.  They were the most wonderful plans.  And they were shattered when James woke up from his afternoon nap Sunday with a fever of 103. I was very disappointed, but I think I bore it rather well.

We didn't take him to the doctor right away because a friend who we were with on Friday had her daughter come down with a virus with the exact same symptoms.  She took a flu test on Saturday, and it came back negative, so I felt reassured.  But this thing has just not gone away, and I came down with it, too....on my birthday.  Yes.  

So that is what we've been dealing with this week.  But if this sickness hadn't come upon us, I would have written about how wonderful our first week back to school was last week.  The first two days, especially, were so encouraging to me.  

I put together these pictures Tuesday night when I woke up feverish and couldn't sleep.  :)  

Before Christmas break, I was having the hardest time with James asking to play Mario constantly.  And even when I wouldn't let him play, he stopped playing with his other toys and using his imagination and just lay on the couch staring at the case to the Mario game.  I was really concerned.  It was hard to get him involved in anything else.  

The first week of the new year we started introducing some new guidelines for Wii-playing, though, and the Lord was so gracious to let us see some pretty quick results.  We started explaining that he could not play the Wii until after he ate lunch and then again after supper when KJ came home from work.  That was it.  And I was so thankful when he slowly stopped asking, and when we started school back, he participated in so many things and even told someone at church that he went to school.  Precious boy.  I think he finally started preschool.

Up until last week James hadn't shown much interest in copying letters.  Ella loved doing that at his age.  She would sit and trace them for hours.  But not only was he eager to do it, he did awesome!  Look at how neat of a tracing job that is!  I was so proud.  He made patterns while Ella did math and put together puzzles.  It was such an encouraging day starting back.

Ella did really well, too, and I felt less stressed about teaching.  Before the break my head would be spinning because I felt like I wanted to do everything in the morning:  teach school, household chores, exercise, shower, etc.  I guess I finally came to a good place of doing one thing at a time and using the whole day.  It definitely helps when we don't have anywhere we need to go.  That throws a whole other element into the equation.

So that's the post I would have written earlier in the week if James and I hadn't got sick.  But guess what.  James has been allowed free reign of playing Mario and watching other people play Mario on YouTube because he's had high fevers, and what else can we do?  Plus, when I'd try to tell him "no" and let him do something else, he'd start crying, and the snot would flow, and I caved.  Hopefully, when this passes, we'll get into a good schedule again.