Is your child bored? Put them in a pot and push them around.
Hours of fun. (For them.) Sorta fun for you.
So we’re all sick this week. Terry and Ronan picked up something on the playground and then brought it home. I took care of them for a few days but then, of course just as I was headed to an interview, I came down with fever, sore throat, congestion, chills and nausea. Most of the symptoms subsided after 48 hours but I still get queasy after eating.
This was the first occasion where we were all sick together. Like grief, there are various stages of being sick together as a family that we passed through. If you have children, they may be familiar to you.
1.) One family member is sick. In this case, Ronan developed congestion that was serious enough to inhibit his sleep. Discontenting, but not serious.
2.) Two family members are sick. The remaining family member is working hard, but things are taken care of.
3.) Three family members (everybody) is sick. Things are still not so bad, because everyone is sick, so everybody just lies around feeling sorry for themselves. Parents drag their sorry asses out of bed and feed the kid. (Note: we kinda skipped this step and went to step 4.)
4.) Two family members are sick, and the kid is better. This is the situation we found ourselves in. Ronan was ready to take on the world and we were ready for another round of Dayquil.
We spent the better part of an afternoon with an incredibly hyped-up kid using us as Mount Everest and repeatedly climbing all over while we both lay there quietly praying for an end to our misery. Not that we were hoping we would get better; we were hoping Ronan would run out of energy.
He’s not actually better; he still has a stuffy head that has made his sleep quite fitful but he’s the most cheerful sick kid I have ever seen, and I’m a teacher, so I’ve seen a lot of kids. His response to being sick was to learn to climb vertically. He’s already summated the high chair, which he (and us) were very proud of. Of course this means that we now have to watch him even more closely, if that were possible. The high chair, which used to fit under the dining table, now stands fully erect to prevent such summits without our attention. He’s devoting his engineering skills to figuring out which combination of dresser drawers will build a staircase to the diaper-changing table.
I can’t express how much fun it is to see him crawl around and get excited and happy about interacting with his environment. I also can’t express how miserable a task that is when you’re thinking about vomiting and stumbling around like you’re auditioning to be the next Lon Chaney in Frankenstein.
This combination of hyper kid, Dayquil, and lethargy resulted in a scary accident. Terry and I were attempting to soothe our exhaustion while Ronan was learning that he could also summit the living room chair, and then climb Mount Futon. Unfortunately our intrepid explorer suffered a mishap, which on Everest would have been fatal, but in our living room only resulted in a bump on the head. That’s right, he fell off Mount Futon in his joy, plummeting across the valley and landing his noggin on Mount Coffee Table. That ended the day’s exploration, and Ronan immediately returned to base camp for some snuggling and hugs to get over his tears.
Thankfully, Terry is almost fully recovered, and I’m feeling better. I have a feeling this is not the last time he will decide to climb. I’d like to thank my father-in-law again for so securely affixing our bookshelves to the wall. We’re gonna test those bookshelves, I can feel it.