Sick Daze

Evan has been sick for the past two days. He came home from school with a fever on Monday and has been running a fever between 101 and 102 ever since. After finding out that a friend whose birthday party Evan attended over the weekend had strep, I took Evan to the pediatrician yesterday just to make sure. After all, his symptoms were fever, headache and sore throat, so the nurse said "come on in." The quick strep test was negative, and since I have yet to hear back about the overnight culture, I guess that must have been negative as well.

It is one of those things where Evan feels bad enough not to go to school (and I don't feel right sending him with a fever), but he does not feel bad enough to just lie around all day. So, we bored. Really bored. We are really tired of being cooped up. He asked me yesterday if we could go for ice cream while Pressley was at school. Not wanting to set any bad precedents or make staying home from school attractive, I said no. But, have I mentioned we're bored? This morning I made the kids turn off the T.V. so we could do some of Evan's homework. We were done with several days' worth of homework in 45 minutes. Normally, I would be grateful that the assignments are brief, but today I actually e-mailed the teacher looking for additional assignments. We are bored!!

I was talking to my mom about my dilemma about this evening. Tonight is the first night of the school-year Wednesday night church activities. And I've signed on to help a friend teach pre-school music. I can't possibly leave her in a lurch on the first Wednesday night, so I need to go. But Evan doesn't need to go. And Corin worked from home yesterday so I could attend orientation for the fall semester continuation of my career counseling gig at GSU. So, I can't really ask him to come home early. Mom was sympathetic (but she can't really help either since she and dad are teaching a Wednesday night class at church too). And she said something about how hard it is when you are working or have other obligations and your kids are sick. It made me take a little trip down memory lane to revisit what her solution often was when we were kids....

Mom was an x-ray tech at a private office facility that I guess serviced several doctors' offices in the area. When we had to stay out of school, I can remember going to work with her to lie on the couch in the break room of her office for the entirety of the day. I don't know if there was a t.v. I don't recall how I entertained myself most of the day. I do recall that the radiologists or other techs would stop in to chat from time to time. (Side note: the radiologists all had names that were strikingly similar to the seven dwarfs, or so it seemed to my elementary school-aged self. I know there was a Dr. Smiley. In my mind, I'm pretty sure there was also a Dr. Sneezy, but that seems unlikely in my adult reality.) Anyhow... the thing that is the most clear in my mind was that there was a tiny dorm fridge in the break room that held an array of Coca-Cola products in the glass bottles. And as a token for our sick and boredom misery, mom would usually let us have a bottle of coke at some point during the day. Needless to say, it was not enough to make one want to stay out of school if one was not good and miserable, but it was the one bright spot in an otherwise really, really boring day.

In closing, I know I had promised to blog in detail about our end of the summer fun activities, but as is becoming my habit, I'll probably break that promise. I have posted photos of our trip with the cousins to INK (the children's museum in Gainesville) and the waterpark in Gainesville under the tab "End of Summer Fun." There are also photos of our fun playdate in Acworth at the Stephenson's new house/ neighborhood pool with our Sunday school friends and our trip to the Yellow River Game Ranch with the Citrons under the August 09 tab. Its called photo journalism, people! Or photo journaling....? Or copping out...? (By the way, despite the fact that I have developed quite a case of germaphobia since I had kids and I'm just not all about touching animals, the YRGR is really quite amazing. It is not often you get to see so many animals so close up. I sucked it up and enjoyed it through the kids' eyes, but there was a healthy dose of hand-washing and Purell all around when it was over.)