The kids and I are just getting over a round of horrible sickness. Arden started throwing up Friday night and continued getting sick all night and all day Saturday and even into Saturday night after she fell asleep. She finally seemed to be better Sunday, but by that evening my stomach felt funny and soon enough I, too, was throwing up. It was pretty horrible. Like I thought I might be dying. I finally was able to make it to bed and felt like the worst was over around 3 in the morning. I slept for about an hour only to be wakened by Huston's cry, and I rushed him to the bathroom to be sick. He got sick several more times, but since it was finally Monday and I had seen how awful this stomach bug was, I called his doctor and they called him in some Zofran, which kept the nausea at bay. He still had a fever and was just lying around, but at least he wasn't throwing up. We spent Monday just resting and moving very slowly. He got sick one more time at 2 in the morning, but woke up today perky and peppy and feeling great.
Today the sun is shining and everyone feels better and I've been doing some more cleaning and laundry and playing with the kids, and I just keep being overcome by these intense feelings of joy and gratitude. So strong that they make me cry. I fold their little clothes and think "these clothes are so big, how can they be for my babies?" and also "their clothes will never be this tiny again!" I keep soaking in their chatter and trying to absorb the stories they're telling me. So often I only half listen to all of their talking, but one day I'm going to miss it!
I don't know what is causing the intensity of my emotions today (although I did watch the end of Toy Story 3 with the kids yesterday, which turned me into a weepy mess at the thought of my kids growing up. That movie should be rated TSFPTW: too sad for parents to watch), but I think Huston could sense something. Because I hugged him, and he said, "Mommy, I'll always be your baby. And when I grow up I'll still live here - I won't move far away." Bless his heart! I love that boy so much.
I'm so grateful for my sweet Huston who is currently obsessed with flags and is constantly asking for a "printing picture" of the union jack, or the flag with fifteen stars, or the flag with the circle stars, so he can color them. His room is littered with flag pictures he has colored. He calls out all the flags he sees as we're driving, and is constantly talking about how some business forgot to put their flag up today, or how it's okay for that flag to be flying in the rain because it's an "all kinds of weather flag" (otherwise known as an all-weather flag). Lately he's been stripping down to his underwear and running around with a U.S. flag because, as he says, "I just like to feel the flag." He practices folding the flags, takes his miniature Texas, American, and Fort Worth flags in the car with us and rolls his window down so he can see them wave, tapes his colored pictures of flags to his wall, collects them all together and tells me about the different flags, gets excited when he sees flags on the Rangers games on TV, and wants us to take him to Puerto Rico and Great Britain so he can see their flags in person.
He's also been super interested in two episodes of Mickey Mouse lately: The Quest for the Crystal Mickey, and the Great Clubhouse Hunt. In both episodes, the clubhouse disappears and reappears, and for some reason that captured his imagination. He'll draw the entire clubhouse and then cut it apart and make the glove balloon disappear, and the shoe garage disappear, and the gate disappear. He'll create the clubhouse out of his Magna Tiles, and then make different parts fly away and reappear. And for awhile he was constantly singing the song from one of the episodes, "The pieces of the clubhouse look a lot like Mickey Mouse, number one...the pants, number two...the shoe, number three... the head, number four... the ears, and number five... the hand!" He does a great imitation of Professor Von Drake's voice. :)
And I'm so grateful for my little Arden who has an amazing imagination to rival her older brother's. She got a "seek and find" book from her Mimi while she was sick that she calls her "finding book" and has turned it into a little game. She keeps pretending like this: "My brother who is six...my sixth brother...lost all of his things and I have to find them. Have you seen his red belt? I have to follow my map (her "finding book") and go across the river into the dark and spooky forest. Maybe a fox can help me. Because sometimes foxes are nice. I see something orange. Is it a fox? No, it's just a squirrel. But I just don't know how I'm going to cross the river. I have to go over hill and dale, hill and dale, to find it." It is incredibly adorable to watch her play! She is always wrapped up in her imaginary world, which is usually accompanied by a trail of trinkets behind her. She'll drag out all of her dress up things and pretend that she's getting ready for Easter, or bring her basket of toys she got for Easter and make up some imaginary story with them.
Sometimes she likes to make me pretend "Ruby and Max" with her (the rabbit characters from some books she likes). She'll say, "I'm Ruby and you're Max," but then instead of just addressing me as Max, she'll say, "Okay, Max, said Ruby." She does it every time and it's so funny! Then she bosses me around like a good Ruby and tells me what to do and, more importantly, what I can't do. She takes great delight in that!
Thank you, Lord, for my sweet children. What a blessing they are!
