E.M.A. Tuesday

Last Thursday night, Ben started running a fever. It got up to 105.3 and he started throwing up. His fever broke with acetaminophen and motrin, but Friday, he still had a high fever at times. We headed to the doctor after another bout of feverish puking. She ran some blood work and did a strep test, but it all came back fine, so we were told we'd just have to wait out the virus. Sunday afternoon, Ben seemed to be better with just a low fever, so I went ahead with Monday's plan. Monday evening, though, he was back up to having a high enough fever we were on alert in case we needed to head to the ER. The doctor told us if his temp went over 105.3 to head for the ER because he could have seizures with such high temps. Monday night, between temp checks, I was scrambling to come up with a back-up plan for our adventures. Ben wasn't healthy enough to be out all day like I thought we would do. Instead, the kids got in the car and we headed for WalMart. Not the best idea, but I wiped down the cart with a Clorox wipe, put Ben in it, and filled the cart with some crafty supplies.

 

Our plan was to do a few crafts and let the boys make games. Jon and Will make up their own board games all the time. They are constantly asking for pieces of cardboard to make pieces, note cards to make playing cards, and big blank paper to draw the game board. Those two, in particular, were in heaven when I picked up some white cardboard gift boxes to keep their game in. We left WalMart and headed home to create.

 

The boys chose a kit with three wooden cars to paint. Maddie picked out a bead set for making bracelets and necklaces. Those two kids kept them busy most of the morning.

After lunch, they got started on decorating poster boards with pencils, new markers, and rulers. They picked out a few character sets that served as the game pieces -- Maddie picked fairies, Will had iridescent dragons, Jon had knights, and Ben chose dinosaurs. Ben started fading in the afternoon. His temperature didn't get quite as high as it had been, but he was definitely not feeling well.

Maddie did some more beading, then proudly showed what she made. Between all the drawing and coloring, I taught Will how to make God's Eyes using some of the sticks we gathered on Monday. When he ran out of sticks, he used the Popsicle sticks we got at WalMart this morning. He started out saying it was a "lame" activity (I guess that's the word of the week?), but when he did it for a while, he really enjoyed the process and the product. He was so excited to make more, and he joyfully exclaimed, "Gramma would LOVE this, Mom! I can't wait to teach her how to do it."

When all the crafts ran out of excitement, we pulled out the rest of our fresh blueberries that we picked, and we started cooking. I taught Will how to make blueberry jam that we added with more fresh blueberries to Greek yogurt. We put it in the icecream maker and made our own blueberry frozen yogurt. What a tasty treat! (Of course, we had to sample it before dinner.)

This was definitely not the day I had planned when I pencilled in all our EMAs for the week, but it worked out okay. The kids had fun even though we didn't go anywhere exciting. All of them said they enjoyed the day. In the afternoon, Ben slept. The poor kiddo had another high fever. Now, to come up with a new plan for tomorrow since he is too sick for the original plan.