Five on Friday

London, Spring 2010

It's been a crazy week. Here's your five on Friday:

Make a super cute kissing clothespin magnet.

How adorable is this little cottage?

I adore these {free printable} party invitations!

Going down a slide with a toddler in your lap could be dangerous? How did I not know about this? (via Cup of Jo)

I hope we have family sing alongs like this.

Have a great weekend!

Sick. Again.

Yes. Again. Building up this little guy's immunity to grossness is not fun stuff for anyone. 

You might have heard from many many many places that here in Scandinavia, children play outside everyday come rain or sleet or snow or shine. It's all absolutely true. I think that this is a brilliant and beautiful thing but there is a flip side to every coin and here it is: last Friday his preschool class took a trip to the school's "summer cottage" to spend the morning playing. It rained while they were there and The Babe caught a chill. A real chill. The kind of chill that I thought only existed in Jane Austin novels. It started out as a little sniffle on Saturday but by Monday morning he was running a high fever and shaking so badly that he could barely walk. I wrapped him up in a blanket and held him as he shivered and moaned and fell back asleep. The Boy and I took turns getting ready/cuddling him and waiting for our doctor's office to open. He's better now. He still has a really nasty runny nose and a cough, but the fever only lasted for one day. The shaking, though, that was some scary stuff. 

On Tuesday The Boy and I had an important appointment with the obstetrician, one that needed our undivided attention, so I reluctantly sent him to school. Wednesday his class was going to take a field trip and go on a nature walk. It was supposed to rain (of course it didn't) and so, not wanting a repeat of Monday, I kept him home. Which brings us to yesterday. Yesterday was one of those days where as a parent I honestly didn't know what to do. Logically I knew my child was clinically well. He was not running a fever. He was eating. He was sleeping. He was running around like a crazy person. He was fine. He IS fine. Besides, if I kept him home every time he had a sniffle, he'd never go to school. And, let's be honest, just thinking about being the constant companion and entertainment for a very demanding toddler for 48 hours was kind of exhausting at that point. My intuition said something else. There was still his really disgusting runny nose and a pretty nasty cough. I knew he wasn't exactly 100%. He might feel better but there was the risk of him spreading his grossness to another kid or catching something else in his immunocompromised state. Then we'd be back at square one. Rather than putting him and his classmates at risk, I went with my intuition. I kept him home. I realise that a lot of parents can't afford to take time off from their jobs to care for a sorta kinda maybe sick child, but my main job right now is being a stay at home mom, so I can. I should. And maybe by keeping him home yesterday I prevented another little from getting sick. The the whole question of should I send him or not got me thinking about what my criteria for keeping him home should be in the future, though. Fever? Yes. Throwing up? Of course. Diarrhea? Absolutely. Are there others?

What about you guys? When would you keep your child home from sick from school? And at point do you send them back? 

Five on Friday

  

Tulips in Blackheath, London April 2010

There are two obsessions in our house these days: togs (pronounced "toe" is Danish for train) and bugs. The Babe is excited about the first one and terrified of the second but he is equally vocal about both. We've been letting him watch footage of real trains on YouTube rather than something like Thomas the Train, which I consider to be nothing more than kid crack designed specifically to push their product. The upside of this strategy  that we haven't spent a gabillion dollars on Thomas toys. The downside is that he asks to watch trains every waking moment. And he's very specific about the trains he wants to watch. Get it wrong and he lets you know. Loudly. 

Then there's the bug thing. Right now he thinks that everything is a bug. "Is it a bug?" he will ask, even if it's just a dark part of the woodgrain on the floor. 

"No, honey, it's not a bug," we'll sometimes say. More often than not, though, there is in fact a bug and so we say, "Yes, honey, that is a bug."

"It's a bug!" he cries in real horror and backs away until we smoosh it. 

Then he says, "Bye, bug."

Between togs and bugs, Mommie is going a little bonkers. 

Here's your five on Friday:

This is an amazing NYC real estate story. Be sure to check out the slideshow.

It is truly creepy what some apps for our smartphones can do.

This one seems kinda innocent and sweet, though. 

We tried this recipe for dinner a this week and it was YUM! I can't wait for the book to come out.

If you're looking for a new photo editing site to replace Picnik, I'd like to recommend PicMonkey. 

Thanks for reading this week!

Have a great weekend!                                                                                                                                                          

                                                           

Navy + Bright

1. Jose Villa  2. NY Mag 3. Utterly Engaged 4. Ann Taylor Loft

Two things:

1. I think... no... I KNOW that I need more colour in my life. I stared at my closet this morning and thought "Man, I have a lot of black and grey." Sure, it's slimming (and who doesn't want to look a little svelte when you feel like a beached whale?) but all the lack of colour is doing nothing for my sunny disposition. I hear that in some parts of the world it's spring and spring to me means colour and dresses and pretty toes in sandals. (It's spring here, too, of course. It's just that it's the kind of spring that requires me to wear my winter wool coat. And a hat. And scarf. And sometimes gloves. )

2. I feel like I've been living in jeans and Chuck Taylors for the last two and a half years. It's my mama to  a little boy uniform and I don't mind. Now that I'm going to be a mama to a little girl, too, I want to temper the tomboy with something a little more, well, girly. I really love my jeans and Chucks, but I enjoy being a girl sometimes, too. 

Five on Friday

Beijing, July 2006

Man, it's been a long two weeks. We're hoping to have another exciting Ikea adventure  this weekend. It will be the first time heading up there sans car, which means we'll be taking the train and then the bus. High adventure, indeed. At least The Babe will be happy. 

Here's your five on Friday:

Wanna see a very cool video by one of my favorite groups? OK Go!

Creating your own poem is very cathartic. 

Speaking of Ikea, this store is genius!

In honor of cherry blossom season.

Yesterday The Boy and I celebrated 5 years of legally wedded bliss! 

Thanks for reading this week!

Have a happy weekend!

On the mend, but completely derailed.

The last few weeks I've gotten off track. Waaaaay off track. Whenever The Babe is sick (and this happens more far more often than I'd like these days) my world stops. All the projects, all the plans are put on hold. Even cleaning and cooking take a backseat to a sick babe. Some illnesses - the ones where all he really wants to do is sleep -  are easy. I make sure he has Monkey. I make sure he takes his medicine, that he has plenty to drink and even eat, if he wants. I hold his hand and let him pet my arm. Others illnesses, like this last one, are messy and require pretty much constant attention. Inevitably he needs lots of cuddles (they really are the best medicine) and so, inevitably, I get sick, too. Then things get even more off track since I don't have the ability or energy to pretend that I can keep up. I almost think that Mommie being sick is harder on him than him being sick. He feels better, after all. He's been cooped up for days. He wants to play. He wants to go on long walks to see all the things he's missed for the last week, only now it's Mommy's turn to feel terrible. So there are tears and screaming and frustration. From both of us. We loose momentum. It feels like I fall behind on every thing. My brain gets consumed with all the things that I should be doing but lack either the energy or focus to do and then I feel terribly guilty for not being able to pull myself together faster.

This last week has been especially hard and weird. In some ways, it's been amazing. His language skills have kind of been slow since he started day school. For a long time he seemed stuck with the same few words. Then he started coming up with crazy consonant/consonant vowel combinations that he worked on for months like he was trying work out the mechanics of this whole language thing. He's used a lot of baby talk along with many variations of screaming to communicate things like excitement, anger, happiness. We haven't been stressing about it, though we have been covering our ears. I mean, it must be very difficult to be so suddenly immersed in a strange new language. Plus his cognitive skills are excellent. He understands what we ask him to do. Then this last month he discovered the letter "P" and things have just sort of started clicking. He's probably picked up 10 new words this week. (I've noticed that some of them have even been Danish!) In addition to trying new words, he's trying new foods. (To which I say Hallelujah! The whole "I will only eat foods that are beige and brown" thing was getting old and worrisome. ) Last, but certainly not least, after months of getting up at 2, 3, 4 in the morning, he's finally sleeping through the night again. (Seriously, the last time he slept through the night was before Christmas. I was getting dangerously close to CIA torture levels of sleep depravation. ) But...

Turns out there is a flip side to this awesome coin. Mommie, meet my new bestest friends, Willfulness and Obstinance. Everything is now a negotiation: what shoes to wear, what coat to put on (this morning I put him in his snow suit because it was raining and he wanted to wear his puffy coat so I just put the puffy coat on over his snow suit), walk to school or ride in the cart. From this point I imagine his inner monologue to be something like this:

Wait, I don't want to go to school! (Let the screaming and crying and kicking commence.) Oh wait, we're at school? I want to go play in the little kids' area. I have to go upstairs? I'm gonna throw myself on the floor! And you're gonna have to bend down and pick me up, all 35 lbs of kicking and screaming me! Take that, you 8 months pregnant lady! Ha! Oh, wait! I get to climb stairs! And my classroom overlooks the TRAIN TRACKS and I can watch TRAINS all day long! AWESOME! You can go now, Mom!

"BYYYIEEE!"

He actually says that last part.

These are our mornings lately. Because I'm a) extremely pregnant and b) still marginally sick with the flu, they are exhausting. I keep telling myself...

SERENITY NOW!


Deep breath. Count to 10. 


Om mani padme hum...


This is just a phase. He'll grow out of it. 

Right? 

Scenes from Our Easter

pretty flowers

yummy treats

colorful decorations

and little chocolate bunnies hiding in Easter grass

Despite being under the weather, we still had a lovely Easter. 

Of course, the chocolate bunnies helped. 

Five on Friday

Greenwich, Spring 2010
This is the same cherry tree from last week in full bloom.
The dome belongs to The Old Royal Naval College.

I'm not gonna lie. This has been a tough week. Keeping our Easter tradition of becoming deathly ill on Palm Sunday (est. 2011), The Babe is very slowly recovering from his tummy flu and I am coming down with...something.  The silver lining on this cloud is that The Boy gets a long weekend. Like really long. Five days, to be exact, which would be awesome if 1) we weren't sick and 2) almost everything in Denmark weren't closed. It's like that around here at Christmas / New Years / Easter time. Lots of time off to visit relatives (if you're Danish) but not much to do if you're into doing things on your days off.  I think next year we'll take a trip. Hopefully we'll be healthy. 

Here's your five on Friday:

It's hard being two. It really, really is.

Some awesome things to do with all those Instagram pics you've been taking.

The Superhero Manifesto

This is a funny take on mommas and their boys.

This looks like a fun Easter egg to make with your little one.

Have a Happy Easter!

Today

This is how we spent our morning.

I tried to let the tummy flu run its course, but after three episodes of projectile vomiting all before 9 am I had to admit he wasn't getting any better so The Boy took the morning off and we all went to the doctor together. We held him tightly and they pricked his finger and he cried big fat tears of pain and betrayal and then he took a nap while we waited to see the doctor. His blood work was fine. "Perfect", the doctor said. He has a tummy virus. I was hoping that maybe there was something they could give him to make him feel better but there wasn't. We were already doing everything we could, like trying to keep him hydrated. The bug just has to run its course. 

 

This is how we spent our afternoon.

I did a some shopping for our little ones while The Babe lay on the floor with his head in my lap. He seems to be the most comfortable on the floor. I have no idea why. He was sick a few more times this afternoon, but perked up a little this evening. He even had a few bites of dinner. 

Maybe...hopefully... he's on the mend. 

Sick Days

A few weeks ago a first time soon to be momma friend of mine sent out this Facebook SOS:

'"Save for one ill-advised trip outdoors, I've been bedridden with the flu for the last 4 days, feverish, chills, achy - and all I can think is, how is this going to fly when I've got an infant to care for? Seriously, moms out there: how do you manage it when you're sick as a dog? I'm freaking out a little..."

Oh, how I remember feeling exactly the same when I was pregnant with The Babe! The first trimester with him was tough. I didn't have morning sickness. I had migraines almost every week for 12 weeks. They were nasty, three day affairs that sent me to a dark and quiet room where I desperately wanted to cry from both the pain of the migraine and the fear of what life was going to be like when I had a baby and a migraine. I couldn't imagine being able to take care of an infant when I was a big ole heap of light sensitive, sound sensitive, smell sensitive, head throbbing so badly that I forget how to speak mess. I went to doctors. I went to dentists. I tried lots of things until I found what worked for me (eating regularly, staying hydrated, avoiding bananas, and, on the advice of one of the doctors, taking a baby aspirin daily as a preventative). Once I was past my first trimester, I was also past the migraines, but it was enough to put the fear of God into me about caring for a little person AND being sick. 

Thankfully that first year we were all healthy. We didn't get sick. Not once. Of course, that expired the second we arrived in Denmark. It seems like since our arrival here we've been more or less ill with one thing or another for the last year and a half. Last April specifically comes to mind as being particularly horrid in a worst case scenario kind of way. (You can read about that here, here, and here.) I came down with a nasty flu first, then The Boy, then The Babe and it lasted for almost two weeks. It's a long time to be miserable.

So, my friend, here is my advice: You will get sick. Your little one will get sick. You will get sick together. You can't avoid it, so you might as well not worry about it. No matter what we do it will always suck because, as moms, we don't get sick days. 

But know this: We possess the amazing ability to just power through when we have to. I am always amazed at the things I can do when I just don't have a choice. And once I chose to become a mom, there's a lot about being a mom that I find myself doing because it needs to be done. It's actually quite beautiful in its simplicity. 

Other than that, my only advice is to take lots of vitamin C.

I'm glad you're feeling better. 

What about you?

How do you manage being a mom when you're sick?

As I write this The Babe is napping in the other room, down for the count with yet another bout of stomach flu.