No More Pig Flu! (as Nova calls it)

   H1N1 has come and (almost) gone... from this household, anyway.  Charlotte's fever was gone this morning, and we will be free and clear to be out in public starting tomorrow.  As a result of this 5+ day confinement I have learned;

1.  We are over scheduled and it is nice to have a few days "off"

2.  More than three days in the house is enough to drive me bats.

3.  Some very nice homeschooling can happen just reading out loud on the couch (followed up by a couple of trips to our maps in the basement).

4.  Artificial dyes and preservatives (such as those found in children's Tylenol) have a pronounced (negative) affect on Nova.  (We will be starting the Feingold diet as soon as the materials arrive).  

5.  There is a blog called The Happiness Project that looks intriguing.  Actually more than that.  I'm now a follower.    

6.  There is surprisingly little information on training your very own messenger pigeon online.

7. "The Name of the Wind" is a good book--at least up to page 482, which is all the further I've gotten.

8. "Harry Potter" is just as good the second time around.  

9. Babies really sleep best while they are being held (I guess I really already knew this one, but I wanted to explain to the rest of you why I spent so much time reading and online).

10. It is good to check up on your credit cards now and then even if you aren't using them--it saved us $2,000.00 this week.

11.  Sitting outside in a sunny spot in your yard feels great! (and is not technically breaking the quarantine).  

12.  Sitting in a parked car overlooking the Mississippi river valley is also not technically exposing other people, but provides all the sensations of "getting out" a bit.

13.  I like parenthetical statements.

14.  The flu is no fun!

15. Oh, and, last of all, being sick is always worse at night.   

  

Blend and Super Blend

I was asked not to write about this so as not to "give away"  the secret recipe, but it is one of those sweet childhood things I know that I will forget about sooner rather than later if I do not write it down.  

Several months ago when Charlotte was a very new baby,  Solomon was helping out by making very many peanut butter and jelly lunches.  One day a disagreement erupted between Nova and Solomon about her sandwich.  She wanted jelly first, then peanut butter, and he had  made it the other way round.  I was about to come down and break up the impending fight when they came up with the most childishly ingenious solution--flip it over!  From then on this type of sandwich has been known as the Super Blend.  Regular (unflipped) sandwiches are known as Blend.  For weeks, the question at lunchtime was "Blend or Super Blend?"  There was even much talk about a restaurant--which is why I was under strict instructions not to share the "secret" recipe.  

So, please enjoy your Blend and Super Blend, but don't tell anyone else!