A Year in the Life of a Homeschooling Family: Day 17

Three definites, one possible and two okay-for-now. This is the current status on the chest infection making its rounds through our family. I feel very blessed to have got it first, and to have been so well looked after that I am ready to return the favour and then some!

Poor ol’ Gary is struggling on manfully at work but had a rotten night with painful coughing and much tossing and turning. Lil returned from work yesterday feeling rough, and is now pyrexic, faint-headed and in pain. Abigail is hot and tearful, and just not very well. And Thomas has gone to college as he has a presentation to do, but I think he is planning to ask his tutor if he can come home early.

If there is one thing I love about our family, it’s the immediate team spirit when one or more is down. Lillie, bless her, brought me a coffee in bed (and she is the one who is now ill!). I ordered her back to bed (y’know, ‘cos that’s what she did to me just two short days ago) and I called a ‘meeting-of-the-well’. Charlotte and Becca came bounding in, both with an attitude of ‘what can we do?’. Together we discussed the merits of taking a sick day, and all in full agreement divvied out the chores for the morning, with Becca taking the living room and dining room, Charlotte taking the washing up/drying up and putting away as well popping to the shops for supplies whilst I did the rest of the kitchen and Becca’s chores.

I gathered all our medication into one place and medicated everyone who needed it.

It was like a mother bird feeding her young. Only I didn’t pre-chew the tablets…or regurgitate them in their open mouths…Okay, so not very, very like a mother bird feeding her young. Moving swiftly on.

Charlotte rushed around getting Thomas his pack lunch and putting on the kettle for a Lemsip for Lil. I made up cosy nests for Lil and Abs in the living room:

Becs gathered pillows, teddies and warmed up some milk for steaming mugs of hot chocolate for all:

They all spent a relaxing morning snuggled up, watching ‘Death in Paradise’:

Charlotte did most of the work I set her, although it was definitely interspersed with trying to solve the murder on the TV!

Becca made sure she was near to both Lil and Abs just in case they needed anything:

Gifted with some time, I did all the jobs which had been put on the back-burner whilst I was ill, like changing our bedding, refilling the jars in our larder and jotting down which food-stuffs were getting low.

We had some yummy homemade leek and potato soup with cheese for lunch, and the children then had an hour free to whatever they wanted.

The little ones created a spa treatment room in their bedroom and managed to persuade me to go up and have multiple treatments for the bargain price of a pound each. I had a manicure, a pedicure, a back massage, a head massage and a hair treatment (with, I think, some lip salve, although I didn’t look too carefully, unsure of what I might discover they were slavering all over my hair). By 2pm I was feeling relaxed, if a little bit greasy, and the children went back to the Caribbean Islands for some more murder in the afternoon. Thomas had returned from college, with permission to take the next couple of day off, and joined them, Lemsip in hand:

I’m going to end with a picture my seven year old drew. I just thought it was so lovely:

Gary is now tucked up in bed asleep, Charlotte is in the kitchen getting a head start on chores (without me even needing to ask), Lillie is snuggled up on the sofa, Abigail is needing hugging and Becs is engulfed in a home-made bed she created with some blankets:

And me? Well, after I give Abs a huge huggle I am off to make a start on some chicken noodle soup. Chicken noodle soup made with love -the very best medicine in the world.