When your little petri dishes come home with the 12-hour bug that’s going around, give them a little extra sympathy and TLC because IT SUCKS!!!  I woke up Saturday morning all ready to go to Zumba and before I was even vertical I got that not-so-fresh feeling and spent the next hour “indisposed.”  After the initial purge I was walking around the house yakking into a bowl which Ben found completely disgusting.

Unfortunately, Ben had to drop his car off to be cleaned so I sucked it up and drove the 2 miles to pick him up.  As soon as we got to Scrub-A-Dub, Adlani turned green and needed to borrow my bowl.  Not good. 

Aliya had it two weeks ago and was sick during the night and fine the next day.  Norah had it on Thursday night and was good as new on Friday.  It didn’t slow Adlani down until he tried unsuccessfully to eat a donut and even then he was basically going about his regular activities except eating. He explained it to Ben as, “The food in your stomach starts coming up your neck and when you open your mouth to eat something, the food from your stomach falls out.”

I was knocked out for a full 12 hours, literally laying in bed with my head under the covers.  I appreciate a good clean-out once in a while, but this one was terrible!  I had stomach pains all day and couldn’t face food (could barely even choke water down) until 7 at night.  And then…good as new!  It was so strange how it knocked me out and then it was gone.     

When I finally got out of bed I felt like crawling right back in…or jumping out the window.  I don’t know what everyone else did all day but every single piece of everything owned by anyone was on the floor in every room.  Ugh. Where’s my vodka spray?

Adlani and Aliya BOTH got “Student of the Week” last week, which was SO exciting, especially for Adlani (and apparently for Ben, as you can tell by the group photo). We celebrated with cake and high-5’s all around.

Report cards came home the same day, and there were no surprises. Aliya got ALL 4’s (consistently demonstrates skill or behavior independently) except two 3/4’s, one 3, and 3’s in art, music, and gym.

Adlani got mostly 3’s (frequently demonstrates skill or behavior), some 2’s (progressing toward skill or behavior with teacher support), and he got mostly 4’s in English, a couple of 4’s in math, and a 4 in art. Considering that most of the evaluations are based on Spanish, which is still new to him, he seems to be right on track. Not to mention the fact that last year at this time he wouldn’t even hold a pencil and he just got a 4 in art. Amazing! Both teachers wrote really nice comments and it looks like Adlani has turned a corner.

We’ll have to figure out how to handle report card day when Adlani starts to care about them. He is almost a whole year younger than Aliya was when she was in kindergarten so it’s not fair to compare them, but it’s tough when they both bring report cards home the same day. Throw Norah into the mix and it could get even worse.

For now, all it takes is a little cake.  That usually works for me too.

Hmmm…where are those leftovers?

Today was an early release day for the kids, so I played hooky for a few hours and took them to the Museum of Science.  It didn’t feel like I was playing hooky considering the number of evening meetings I’ve gone to lately.  Anyway, we had free admission because we have a membership to another science museum, so we only had to pay for the admission to the Harry Potter exhibition, which was $66 (!!!) for the 4 of us.  Come to think of it, it didn’t feel like free admission either but I guess it would have been worse without the membership.

The Harry Potter exhibition was really cool though, and the best investment was the audio tour.  The kids each had a little handheld gizmo, and each exhibit had a number that you could punch into the gizmo and hear about the exhibit.  The exhibit was fully staffed by British-accented guides so that added a nice touch.  We weren’t allowed to take any photos in the exhibit, but I found pics on the internet of two of my favorite parts – Dobby the House Elf, and the Mandrakes (the squeaking really adds to their ickiness). 

The museum was not busy at all so it was very low-stress, no lines, no whining.  We spent about 3 hours total and everyone was exhausted so I think the timing was just right.  At 5 o’clock there was an announcement that the museum was closing and you’ve never seen 3 kids hightail it out of anywhere as fast.  I think they’ve seen Night at the Museum too many times.  They were sincerely afraid of being locked in, and having to ward off the dinosaur skeletons, stuffed bears, and the family of beavers.

On the way home we hit a complete white-out just after the Weston tolls – freaky!

Here are a few photos:

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Thanks Susi!
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Just in case I didn’t have enough to distract me from the things that I don’t want to do, along came Lily the Black Bear and her webcam.  You can sit and watch her breathe for hours, hoping for a glimpse of her cub which was born a couple of days ago.  The researchers are looking for volunteers to take 2-hour blocks of time and document anything exciting, like when the cub squeaks.  I like the highlight videos myself.  Here’s a video of the cub’s birth:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBNtANbW5vE&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0]

And a link to the North American Bear Center’s den cam.  There are currently 1791 people watching Lily sleep.

And here’s Lily’s Facebook page.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.  Lily and her cub, Peace, will be the cause of worldwide productivity reduction.  😉
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