We picked up a bug a few weeks ago, and it isn’t entirely going away as quickly or as quietly as I would have liked.

First kid#3 , #5, #1 and #4 had a little fever.  It went away within a few days, so I thought that was it.  But then kid#3 and kid#5 got it back with a vengance for a few days. Then we woke up feeling a little off…and the next day I had a fever, and I’m still feeling run down.  #3 finally got it yesterday, plus he has completely lost his voice, which is hilarious for me since I have lost my voice every single time I even get the tiniest sore throat throughout my entire life.

So, we’re  all recovering slowly.  Fortunately we don’t have the flu or anything…just a cold hard enough to knock us off our feet.

 

The thing about colds, or just feeling under the weather for any reason, is that you can get cranky.

Hey, you got a fever there.

Just ask Ben. I may, or may not, have been unreasonably cranky on Sunday night.

Thankfully, Monday morning came around and I at least felt a little bit better and apologized profusely for it, and he was fine.  Granted, it was his turn that afternoon to run the cranky mill, so I got to give him the same grace he gave me.  You have to take care of each other through cold season.

But with kids, they don’t have the experience to know they are cranky when they are sick.  They just know they aren’t feeling well, and they think the world is falling apart because you put their orange cup in the dishwasher and they have to wait for it to finish washing in order to get it back, and they wanted water in that orange cup.

Really, these things matter when kids are sick.  You can’t anticipate everything that is going to bug them, and I don’t condone catering to their every whim…but everyone needs some grace when they’re sick.  Especially kids.

 

So, kid#1 was just feeling a little crabby this morning while we were reading Jane Eyre, which is kind of understandable because chapter 4 is like, a million pages long.  It is interesting to me, but the kids are zoning out halfway through.  By the end of the chapter, I noticed that kid#1 is starting to retreat a little…which is what I do when I don’t feel well.

 

 

Retreat!

What I did once I saw this was I told her to go take a break. Get some water and some lunch.  Meanwhile, I got all some ingredients out.

All of us girls put on our aprons (the boys took a break with Minecraft) and we got to work on making meatballs!  This got us working together, talking and making something that we could enjoy later.  She felt significantly better after we connected, and we’re back to normal.

You don’t need to do something really big in order to connect with your kids, and it doesn’t take much to make it matter.  It doesn’t have to be a big deal like taking them to Disneyland.  All these little times are going to be the ones they remember the most.  They are going to say, “Remember that afternoon when we made pineapple meatballs?  Those were great!”

–>  Recipe! <–

Cold season is coming up.  Have a few of these little tricks under your belt for when you need them 🙂

Here are some ideas off the top of my head:

• Make chicken homemade noodle soup together
• Make drop biscuits and eat with pumpkin butter
• Make sugar cookies
• Make a giant pot of tea with their choice of tea
• Make pudding together
• Bake a loaf of banana bread
• If you really want to be crazy, share a can of sardines and sweet potato crackers with them…that’ll spice up the day 😉

For the record, kid#1 and kid#2 finished the can for me…it was that awesome.