Lavender Reminder

We had planned to spend an adventurous and relaxing 10 days camping in the San Juans ~ our big vacation for the year. So far, we're still on fever watch.

Only now, we're watching all three. Last night, as we were finishing the last of the packing and I was tossing the kids into their last warm bath for a week (camping has a warm, quick, sporadic shower!), I realized that Collin, who had not had a fever for nearly 18 blessed hours, was spiking again: 101.6.

Since the other two were right there, I checked them too: Owen 100.4; Kate 99.4.
To be fair, Kate has run 99.3 and 99.4 the whole week, which by pediatric standards is not a fever in an infant (*has to be over 100.4). But Owen is exactly 100.4. Nonetheless, Owen is not acting sick in any way. If I hadn't taken his temp, I would never have known (perhaps more fussy, but he's also very much a two-year old at the moment so the tears and tantrums come quick - luckily so do the hugs and giggles!)

So anyway, they bathed, and Collin broke into chills. Two hours later, his fever broke and he slept "soundly" (*talks in his sleep) and sleeps still (it's 7:15 a.m.). He did wake around 6 and ask to load up for the ferry to go camping ~ even he is "sick" of postponing (plus I'm certain he has some cabin-fever as he's been holed up in the house a full week today). I told him to go back to sleep so he'd be really healthy and have lots of energy to play on the beach.

Now it's assessment time. As I said, Collin broke his fever sometime around 11 p.m. But he went almost 18 hours yesterday. Do we try to go camping and "hope" that it's really over this time? Owen doesn't feel warm, slept all night soundly, and is downstairs - dressed and ready to go. Kate woke twice (not her norm) but isn't running a fever and is still sleeping. *Did I mention that she threw up earlier in the week already? That's why I've been monitoring her temp so closely. But she also had a formula bottle that day for the second time, so I chalked the incident up to that ... ??

Time for a mommy/daddy pow-wow. Perhaps a late afternoon ferry should be the goal ~ if everyone has energy and stays fever free? Hmmm ...

At 7:30 a.m., I have a headache. And it's not a hangover. What's up with that? You're supposed to get lots of sleep on vacations!

But then again, my goal this vacation was to spend as much quality one-on-one (three?) time with my kids as I could because I feel like I've been working so much ~ and I'm definitely getting my quality time. My other goal (equal importance) was to spend quality time with my hubby though, and THAT I am not getting as we've been juggling work and manipulating our hours - in between store runs for tylenol, mac-n-cheese, and gatorade. Between the two of us, with the kids home each day, we work from 8 to midnight at least then split the kids for nighttime duty. I haven't really seen him in a week.

Which is a great roundup and segway to the title of this post: lavender reminder. Thank you, Katie, for the lavender that sits in my kitchen and welcomed me this morning with brightness to remind me of the wonderful day it'll be and how lucky I am to have the opportunity to watch my children sleep, to listen to the birds twitter on our birdfeeders, and to watch the clouds outside burn through and the blue skies emerge ~ over the Islands or over our sick beds. And it's Saturday, so neither Kevin nor I needs to work.

But seriously, would everyone please get better so we can go camping and start our "vacation" already??