News from the sick house...

It seems as though everyone in our family, excluding Sarah, has come down with symptoms from a nasty stomach bug. I was the first to go down on Saturday, which as most of you parents know, it is never a good thing for momma to get sick. As we say down here, when momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy! Plus, John was gone all day working on his sermon, so I was left to hold down the fort while feeling miserably nauseated. Thankfully, the kids played extremely well together all day so I was able to parent them from the couch. After all of the kids woke up from their afternoon naps, however, I was really feeling wretched. Shortly after that, John came home and then his mom came over and offered to keep all 3 kids overnight so I could finish being sick, get some sleep, and so John could finish up his sermon. WHAT A BLESSING it is to have family so close by and so willing to help!
Later on that evening, we got a call from John's mom saying that Christopher had thrown up all over his bed! Gross! I had just had my last sick episode and collapsed into bed. The next morning, I felt better but incredibly dehydrated and spent. I called over to John's parents house to see how the kids were doing and to offer to take over, but they insisted on keeping the kids who were all contentedly playing after breakfast. Christopher didn't eat or drink anything besides water, but was already at work on his giant dinosaur puzzle. So I got to work disinfecting my kitchen and bathrooms before collapsing again. The kids all came home around lunchtime and Christopher fell asleep while reading his dinosaur books in bed. Then John came home from church feeling sick to his stomach! Either we all caught this virus at the same time and place or it is highly contagious with a fast and furious latent period.
When Christopher woke up from his nap, I asked him if he was hungry or thirsty, to which he said, no. He said he was still tired and then said to me, "But you could stay in here and read to me about dinosaurs..." So we read LOTS of books yesterday and put together numerous puzzles. As the day went on, Christopher still wasn't eating or drinking very much, but he was playing like his old self. I figured he was over the worst of it until he woke up this morning and threw up again on the way to our room. Poor guy! After I got him and the floor all cleaned up, I said to him, "Christopher, I'm sorry you're still sick. I thought you were getting better." He then told me, "Well, I feel better as long as we're talking about dinosaurs. When we stop talking about dinosaurs is when I start to feel sick again." Ha! How's that for a prescription?!
So I sent John into Christopher's room to talk to him about dinosaurs while I got the girls some breakfast. You would think that he went through a miraculous healing or something by hearing the volume and excitement in his voice from the other room! Next thing we knew, he was running out of the room to grab his big dinosaur books to show Daddy what he was talking about...since Daddy doesn't know as much as he does about dinosaurs.

Pictured above are Christopher's big dinosaur books that he reads over and over and over again. No exaggeration, he can identify every dinosaur on every single page of these three books. I know this because he has shown us several times. Today he took us through the fat book in the middle and even gave us some facts about most of the dinosaurs in there. The middle book is one we got from the library and have already renewed once. It is due back this Saturday and I'm wondering if we might owe some money on this one since it has been so 'well loved'. Honestly, I'd be happy to buy it since I know he'll be sad to see it go. Ah, but I remember there were about 4 shelves of dinosaur books upstairs, so that should help to assuage his loss.
We concluded that talking and reading about dinosaurs really did help Christopher to feel better. The video below will show Christopher feeling just fine as he reads the book, Go Dog Go, by P.D. Eastman to Sarah. What cracks me up is that regardless of how slowly he reads, he does it with inflection in his voice and everything!