One of my littles has a fever today and it’s rattling his little body and making my heart hurt. I am thankful I can clear my calendar so we can spend some time reading, snuggling and drinking lots of fluids but it makes me feel as helpless as I did way back in our early days of Kangaroo Care in the NICU when I felt like all I could do was hold on for dear life as I tried to cuddle my guys into good health.
I can’t believe how big my guys are getting. They are skiing up a storm every weekend in Snoqualmie Pass and trying to convince me they are ready for Double Black runs (they are not!) But I am impressed by the terrain on this local Seattle mountain and I’m actually getting back into skiing too. This past weekend my niece and nephew came up to the mountain and I’m excited to watch them learn to ski one day too. For now we’re working on just getting happy in our snowsuits.
In our house, since we are 7 going on 13, and butting heads more frequently on how our daily life should be, this parenting book I was sent called 123 Magic has been rather helpful. I’m only a few chapters in but it’s giving me some practical tools and insights into communicating with my little guys. I’m hoping there is a chapter that tells me how to deal with skiing daredevils and how to prevent them from doing crazy things.
I also just finished the Nightingale by Kristin Hannah for book club and it was such a good read-I couldn’t put it down. ( I also read her author bio and I can’t believe she was on bedrest for 5 months!)
My guys are into Magic Treehouse books and I’ve been letting them play the games on the website and I’m impressed at how much history the kids learn from these books. I signed them up for the Magic Treehouse Adventure club and I’m excited to see what this is going to be all about. I made the mistake though of putting their birthday instead of mine into the signup widget and it locked the site. I think the site just wants to make sure a grownup is signing up and not a kid.
My husband found my copy of Marie Kondo’s cleaning book in a pile of things I was getting rid of and it has become his new favorite book. So now we are madly cleaning and ridding our house of “things that do not bring joy!” I am totally hoping her new book “Spark Joy” is about shopping and buying tons of things to fill all the empty space we created so maybe I’ll like her a little better.
And this book I was sent, the Dogs of Newton by the brother of a little girl lost in the horrific Sandy Hook school shooting has made me realize that I have to bravely support foundations like the Brady Campaign in their efforts to stop gun violence in the United States. I realize that joining my voice with so many courageous families is just one more thing I can do on days I feel helpless taking care of my kids and this book about the therapy dogs who helped kids get back to school after something so tragic is an important book on our bookshelf.
So today, I know we’ll be reading a lot and I think we’ll be heading for some chicken noodle soup or maybe takeout ramen from Kizuki (also known as Kukai Ramen). What are you up to this Monday? And do you have any suggestions for what to do when you have a sick child at home? Or do you have some favorite books for 7-year-old boys?
(PS. I received copies of 123 Magic and the Dogs of Newton for review but was not required to post and the opinions above are my own.)
Terumi Pong is a Seattle-based family travel writer and mom of twin teenage boys. She loves coffee and pastries, shopping local and looking for greener ways to live. She is also known as Scout’s mom (Scout is a 5ish pound little black yorkie-poo)
Communication with children seemed to be as much luck as skill for me, or maybe I was just hoping that was the case. Our kids didn’t seem to come with a sense of fear built into them, I stopped taking them to the park because it didn’t seem possible to explain that petting and touching bears came with a high degree of risk.
I have never heard of any of these books before. The cleaning book sounds really interesting.
Oh my goodness the cleaning book is unreal! I think I’ve bought three copies now for friends too!