Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving this year was kind of a bust for our family. We spent the day home sick while everyone else was eating turkey and pie we were home trying to keep our lunch down.

The weekend before Thanksgiving Luke came down with a stomach bug. He couldn't keep much of anything down for 24 hours. The next morning he was mostly fine. He kept his food down however his appetite wasn't there. We thought we were in the clear when nobody else got sick for the next few days. Our luck ran out on Wednesday. I get a call at work from Mom that she has come down with a stomach bug that sounded eerily familiar to Luke's.  Mom like Luke woke up the next day feeling better and kept her food down. However, her appetite had not returned and is still missing.

Even Wednesday we knew we shouldn't be going out on Thanksgiving but we held out a bit of hope for some miraculous recovery that would allow us to make the trip. Alyce's upset stomach and a fever of 103 erased any doubt where we were going to be spending Turkey Day. Alyce luckily only got sick once and spent most of the day either taking naps or laying on the couch watching TV.

I took the opportunity to do some work on my wall. I received more than one awkward look from the neighbors as I was loading shovelfuls of rock into a wheelbarrow as they were off to Thanksgiving dinner. After explaining to them our situation you could see the understanding in their eyes. Each and every person I talked to offered to bring food back from their dinners. It was very neighborly of them and embodied the Thanksgiving spirit.

The aftermath of this round of influenza is still felt. Just yesterday Luke's appetite came back a full 7 days after the first onset of symptoms. Alyce never really seemed to lose her appetite however the quantity of consumption has gone down. Mom has yet to regain her appetite and is limiting what she eats. Not because she couldn't keep it down but because it isn't agreeing with her. I'm hoping that this will pass me by. If I am to get sick I can be thankful that I was healthy while everyone else was sick so I could take care of them.

Climbing with Gideon

Last weekend Alyce had her birthday party at McDonald's. We invited all of our friends that had kids and some classmates of Alyce's and kids from the neighborhood. Gideon, being the kid of some friends was there.

As both Gideon and Alyce get older they are playing with each other less and less. While that is a loss for Alyce it is a gain for Luke. He and Gideon are fast becoming friends. While Alyce was running around with all of her girlfriends Luke was doing his best to keep with with Gideon.

The playground at this McDonald's was rather large. It spanned two stories and was probably 30 feet wide. The only way to get up into the maze of tunnels was to climb up from one ledge to the next. The problem for Luke was that each ledge was about two inches too tall for Luke to get his knee up on the ledge and up to the next level. In comes Gideon to help Luke up each and every ledge. A first Gideon tried to push Luke up by his behind but after a few failed attempts Gideon climbed up to the next ledge and drug Luke to his level. It wasn't pretty but it was effective. Once up top Luke was able to keep up, find the slides, and ride down starting the process over again.

I have to give Gideon a lot of credit. By helping Luke he was really cutting down on the number of cycles he could ride the slide. He was acting like quite the big brother making sure Luke wasn't left behind.

Flips

Luke has learned a fun trick. It's something I've been doing with Alyce for some time. I just call it flips. Basically Alyce or Luke grabs my thumbs, walk up my legs, and finish it off with flip and landing on their feet. Luke when he does is only successful about half the time. When he fails he spreads his legs apart and they get caught on my arm. I'm not in a position to help him out when he does that so he ends up on a pile on the floor. It is a gentle drop so it's not like I dropped him on his head.

We do flips mostly when I get home from work. I first flip Alyce once or twice then Luke sees what we are doing and wants to join in. After that I make each one of them take turns. And of course Jake is jumping on me all excited to see me so it makes for quite the commotion when I get home. I wouldn't change it for the world.