On the Mend

Well hello.  As of this morning we are all MAYBE healthy.  We're all on track to head to church today, so that's promising.  As I mentioned, last week Winry was pretty much better, and while Brooke was sick in the latter half of the week she's been better all this week and was able to go to school and everything.  Grayson, however, took a turn for the worse and threw up a bunch Sunday night.  When I was going to bed, Grayson had been crying so  I went to check on him and opened his door and his room smelled TERRIBLE!  I asked Monica if she thought I should let him sleep, or go change his diaper since we knew he wasn't feeling good.  Well, I decided to change his diaper (it was poopy), and Monica had taken Nyquil, so I was pretty much on my own.  Turns out he had some super diarrhea and had a HUGE blowout.  It was a bit of work, but fortunately he was super tired and just sorta laid there while I change him and got him back into bed.  It was quite the mess to clean up.  Once he was back in bed he threw up sometime in the middle of the night then went back to sleep, so when I got him up in the morning it was all over him, his clothes and in his hair.  We took a bath right away and he was NOT happy about that (he usually likes baths), but we got him cleaned up and continued onward.  Poor little baby.

The girls found our Crazy Forts kit and have had a lot of fun with it this past week.  Those blankets on there were a bit too thick and heavy and we were pushing the fort to the limit.  Everyone climbed in and they had fun inside.  I believe the girls were playing school, and that was their school house... or maybe that was recess.  Anyway, the fort lasted until Grayson looked at it from the outside and thought that HUGE pile of soft blankets was just too good not to lay on, laid on the side of the fort and collapsed it!

Winry asked for the dinosaur to be inflated again sometime recently, and Grayson has enjoyed playing with it this past week.  I helped him sit on it and he was really happy about that!

So... I guess Grayson has been watching us wash our hands a whole lot while everyone has been sick, and figured his hands might be dirty too (they probably are/were).  He figured out his own plan to eat his snack, and just went for it straight off the table with his mouth!

The forts have been pretty popular all week, and the girls have made them several times.  We got a sheet for them to use so it was a bit lighter and less encouraging for Grayson to try to lay on it.  Apparently it's super fun to poke out the side instead of using the entrance, as you can see Winry doing here!

Thursday I went to get Grayson up from his nap and he had a super diarrhea blow out again.  I had to clean him up as far as his neck...  Fortunately, his sleep sack contained everything, so it wasn't all over his bed/crib or room, but it was still a bit of work to get him cleaned up.  Poor guy.  He was sick in total for around a week and a half, but fortunately he wasn't constantly throwing up, etc. and was able to eat and drink and stay healthy enough.

On Thursday while I was out for my run I got a text from Monica saying Grayson had thrown up.  I was already on my way back, so I didn't really get home any faster to help.  He threw up on the towel that's under his chair to catch crumbs, and Monica used the towel to wrap up all the clothes, etc. that needed to be washed.  When I got home everything was cleaned up, and all the clothes were in the bathroom sink (she couldn't just put them straight in the washer because it was already running with his previous gross clothes).  Brooke made a sign for the door to help out, it reads "closd throwup."  Now that I think about it, I did wash all that laundry and clean out the sink, so I guess I did help with the clean up in the end.

Brooke helped Monica do the meal planning for this next week.  Monica would tell her and Winry options, and then Brooke wrote everything down.  Here's our full meal plan, kindergarten spelling and all!  I LOVE it.  I love when Brooke writes things out, though sometimes things, like Sunday's lunch, can be hard to figure out (it's crepes by the way).

On Friday the weather was decently warm, like... mid to upper 60's.  The kids enjoyed playing in the backyard with Monica during the day, and even changed into swimsuits and asked Monica to spray them with the hose!  They said I'd done this before, but what they didn't pass on is that I sprayed the hose up into the air so it was like it was raining.  Honestly, I'm impressed though. I feel like for most of their lives if you sprayed them with a hose they would have started crying, mainly due to water in the face, so good for them.

Saturday while we were doing laundry Grayson found a shirt he really wanted to wear, so Monica put it on him... It was still a little big.... it's Monica's.  He roamed around in his blue BYU toga for a while before we finally got him dressed for real.

Grayson thinks our sour cream container is cottage cheese (or, honestly, at this point he might just love sour cream enough that he wants a bowl of that for a snack).  Whenever he sees it in the fridge, that is always his snack of choice.  Usually we'll get it out, and the yogurt, and pretend to give him sour cream while giving him yogurt.  Anyway, yesterday he got to lick off the sour cream spoon, and was delighted (and messy)!

The girls had a birthday party Saturday afternoon, so Monica took them to Target to pick a present in the morning.  We were all going to go because Grayson loves riding in his car, but we stopped at a garden store (Grayson is plant crazy, so I figured he'd love it) on the way to Target and he was losing his mind.  He did enjoy touching many plants as we walked by, but he just did NOT want to be there, so Grayson and I got dropped off at home for a nap.  Anyway, the giant red balls at Target were decorated as Kirby and the girls just had to get a picture!

In the afternoon while we were waiting for it to be time to head to the party, the girls all worked on planting the seeds they bought that morning, plus others we already had.  We got a lot of stuff planted, so hopefully it all goes well.  Monica learned a lot this year and says she's surprised our plants grew at all last year after all she's learned this year. (We kind of attempted to start seeds indoors last year to transplant outside, but nothing made it- but this year it will hopefully go much better!) We'll just have to be double careful once they're sprouting that Jelly doesn't come eat them all again!

The party was super fun!  It was at a park next to their house so they just invited full families.  We dug up some dinosaurs in the volleyball court, had some snacks, sang happy birthday, colored with chalk and played on the playground.  Everyone had a great time, and I even got to meet a new guy in the ward.  I followed Grayson around for much of the party.  He rode over in his blue push car, and he spent a bunch of time putting his dinosaurs (from the sand) in and out of the trunk.  A little later he decided he needed to steal all the chalk and started loading up with that instead!  I love that he left hand prints on the trunk, it makes it extra "stealthy."  Winry had a great time with the chalk making a dinosaur zoo, and drawing habitats for all her dinosaurs to live in.  This got quite popular and she had a crowd of kids who had joined in with her by the end.  She was a bit of a mess by the end.  I do like that the chalk on her cheeks matches her shirt though!

I think that's all for this week.  It seems like the kids have all been healthy for a few days at this point, so hopefully we're getting back to healthy in our house.  I have a little congestion at this point, and I think Monica's mostly feeling better as well.  We finally made it!  Now if only spring break were three weeks long we could still head down to Texas!