Germs galore

Oliver has been sick for a little over three weeks. He's had a really runny nose that whole time, and at times he's also had a cough. A few days ago he also had the runs, and this morning he woke up with pink eye. Nadia came down with a cough about the same time Oliver first started having this runny nose and that has come and gone and returned a few times over the past few weeks. When it gets bad, it always leads to her throwing up. On Thursday all three kids threw up at one point in the day, which made for a lot of extra laundry for me, especially as Nadia threw up in bed during her nap. She took a long nap two days in a row last week, which was proof she wasn't feeling well as she hasn't taken many naps over the past year. Ian and I lasted quite a bit longer before we succumbed to the germs, but eventually Ian also developed a runny nose and cough. His cough seems to have gone away, but his nose is still very runny, and since Friday morning he has had pink eye. It started in one eye and spread to the other on Saturday. Oliver work up with pink eye in both eyes this morning.

Ever since I saw Ian's pink eye on Friday morning, I have been far more vigilant with hand washing and using hand sanitizer (for myself and also the kids). Nadia was the only one who went to church this morning due to the boys having pink eye. We didn't go to co-op on Friday, and we're not going to ladies Bible study this coming Tuesday. Hopefully we'll be healthy enough to go to co-op this Thursday and Friday. I'm ready for everyone to be healthy again. Also, due to Grandma's weakened immune system, we need to be completely healthy before she can come visit us again. We usually see Grandma and Pop Pop a few times a month, but we only saw them briefly on one occasion last month (at a soccer game), and we haven't seen them yet this month. We miss them, and I know they miss seeing the kids too. Hopefully Grandma will keep getting better and the kids will return to full health as soon as possible!

I recorded two little videos of Ian "reading" two books just as a way for me to reminisce in the future of what he sounded like when he was three years old. The pictures of Oliver (above) were taken last week. One was at the playground, and the other was of him eating his very first pumpkin chocolate chip cookie. If you want proof that two siblings of the same gender can have VERY different personalities, just get to know Ian and Oliver. They are opposite in many ways. Oliver eats everything and puts everything in his mouth. When Ian was that age he wasn't feeding himself anything or putting anything else in his mouth. Ian can't stand to be a mess or get wet. If there is a tiny bit of food on his face, he starts begging for a napkin. Oliver obviously doesn't mind if his hands and face get really messy. Ian has always had many fears and is not very adventurous. Oliver loves to climb and shows no fear. My heart almost stopped a couple of days ago when I found him standing on top of the piano keys. He had pushed a small white chair over to the piano bench and climbed from the white chair to the piano bench and then from the piano bench up to the keyboard. Oh my goodness. His siblings were in the room with them, and although they have never done such a thing, it didn't strike them that they needed to let me know that Oliver was doing something unsafe. As you can see from the one video below, Nadia will often alert me when Oliver is headed to the steps or the bathroom (we try to keep the door locked but sometimes the kids forget to close it). Well we shall see if Nadia, Paul, or I wake up with pink eye tomorrow.