Climbing

 Yes, face paint has become a real thing in the last few days, first the knight and now stripes.  What can I say?  It's holidays!

Levi and I met up with some friends and went to the bike paths and playground today.  There are some jumps that the kids can ride over and some that are bigger still that they are not quite up to riding over.  Levi has progressed his riding now and is significantly more confident with the whole thing.  He is doing the small jumps without difficulty and doesn't cry when he falls off anymore!  Then Levi decided to climb the trees.  At least he did it in a helmet. 

I have times when I despair that the next generation will have any respect at all.  Well, except for my child of course, because he is perfect!  There was another couple of families there and it blew me away how those kids played.  They stood in the middle of the jumps so no one could use them.  When they were finished using their bikes or scooters they just left them in the middle of the pathway!  One of the boys about 10 or 11, threw a cup at a kid jumping a bike.  Had he hit him, the bike and the rider would have taken a huge tumble.  That we did react to and the thrower looked contrite and stopped.  My question though is where is his family?  Why did a stranger have to discipline her son doing an incredibly dangerous activity.  It is not like she wasn't standing there partially watching.  I am hoping that we were just witnesses to bad parenting, but there are times that I do despair about the state of the children!

Medieval Day

Medieval Day was just fabulous.  The kids all loved it and were just exhausted by the end.  They ran at pells with jousting poles.  They painted shields and their faces.  All around it was a wonderful day in the sun.  They jumped on castles and climbed on frames. 

Still Hot

 Another day, another fever!!  This is the longest freaking fever that I have ever had to deal with.  We are on about day 4 and still the fever persists.  Actually it isn't a bad illness  to have to deal with because with the medication on board, he can still play and enjoy his friends but there is a limit.  A limit of about three hours.  You can see it in his eyes, even when he is coping and he has just started having his;

"eyes leak but I'm not crying Mum because I'm not sad"

We had another fun day of playing, first at Pine Rivers park again and then the kids wanted a fire down at the creek again.  They love just poking at fire and it is an easy thing to do, especially since the big floods in January deposited enormous amounts of driftwood that is now perfectly dry and high above the water line.

Levi is in his favourite shirt.  He wears it about every other day and any time that it is clean.  It is another shirt that grips my heart because his brother loved it too.  Levi is now in the last of Frankie's shirts.  Frank was just three when he died but the prednisone saw him increasing in size, sometimes by a size a week!  It meant that keeping him in cute shirts was an endless task.  After these shirts we just put him in hospital gowns, because it was too hard to get to all his lines in a Tshirt and Frankie didn't care.  I see Frank at times when Levi wears these shirts but I love that they both have the same favourite shirt.

 At the creek, as the boys played, I sat and enjoyed the moment.  There was peace in it all.  The boys playing happily and the creek doing what it had been doing for countless years; years before I was born, perhaps even years before Brisbane existed.  The creek has changed course even in the last few months and it is fun to watch it happen.  I feel trapped sometimes here but the creek can make it worth it all, just by being somewhere that you can go and talk to yourself, talk to God and sometimes even find answers

Playing at the Creek

Levi is still sick but it isn't really slowing him down.  Actually, more honestly, about 75% of the time it isn't slowing him down.  The rest of the time he is either due for medicine or has just had it and it still hasn't kicked in yet.  His temperature this morning was 104.6 F.  He woke several times last night and usually right as the Motrin was wearing off.  We had Ty and Steffi today (after warning their mum that Levi was sick), but I'm sure that partially the decision for her was easy as Levi got this illness from Ty originally.  You can still see in his eyes that he was only just coping and this was taken right in the middle of his 'good' time. 

 Also two boys came over with their grandmother for some time 'On the Farm'.  We took them to the creek and built a fire for them to have a picnic lunch down there.  They were very city type boys and they had never had a fire they could just poke around at and a creek to just throw rocks in.  They will remember the day for a long time I imagine.  It makes me remember how wonderful it is for Levi to grow up in this place, where he can run around barefoot and wield sticks and throw rocks, build towers and sculpt mud.  All without feeling like he is doing something wrong and without Someone watching over his shoulder all the time.

I just had to go and do the medicine again.  His temperature is better, only 102.4 now.  He wanted to switch back into my bed as well.  With Ty staying the night, I thought that he might sleep by himself but I think it was a bit much for a sick little boy. 

Really not better

Yes, I think he really is as sick as he looks.  The Motrin will hold him together for a little while but not really very long.  We had brief glimpses of drug induced happiness, but most of the time we soldiered on.  Levi woke about 4 times last night mostly from fever and coughing.  Consequently he slept late.  Swimming was on the agenda but he slept through any chance of that.  While the Motrin is holding his fever down, he plays, albeit quieter than normally. 

I had to go grocery shopping or really we weren't going to eat this week.  I felt bad but frankly he was either going to be in this position on the couch, or in this position in the cart.  I snuggled him up and just went and did it.  I had him in a sweater and with mine around him, and he was still cold.  Sweet thing is now in bed with a hot water bottle, an electric throw and his robe on.  I am going to die of heat exhaustion in there but maybe he will be warm enough.

Tomorrow we have about a million boys between the ages of 4 and 6 coming over, so I hope he is a bit better.  Ty and Steffi are coming over and I am looking after them, in return for her looking after Levi last week.  Luke and Nate are coming over to play in the morning.  Then there are two boys coming over.  They are 5 year old twins, grandsons of a friend of Jo's.  OK, not a million, seven, but I think it will feel like a million, especially if Levi is still a bit sick. 

I am going to snuggle into bed beside the hot little mancub

Saturday

 Today we woke late, both of us.  Then we went to Pine Rivers Park.  It was a great day, for a while.  Levi and Zac and Alex all had a blast, playing on the big spider web and kicking a soccer ball on the grass.  It was a beautiful day.  The sun was shining and it was getting close to hot out.  Right about then, Levi asked for his jumper (sweater).

Now if you know anything about Levi and I, you know that neither of us was born with a thermostat that works.  It has to be freezing for either of us to even contemplate putting on an extra layer.  Well, freezing or sick!

By lunch time, he was slowing down and sat on my knee during lunch.  I was rethinking dropping him at a friend's house and took him home.  I gave him Motrin and about 15 minutes later there he was begging to go.  So I let him.  OK there was more to it than that, I told Cheryl and then I let him. 

Then I worked my tail off.  I have other kids I am looking after most of next week, so I knew that if I wanted to get stuff done around the yard I needed to do it this weekend.  So I mowed and weed whacked for 4 hours while Levi played at a friend's house.  Then as night fell, I went over and they fed us both.  Gotta love friend's like that!!

This face got more and more common during the day.  Poor little tacker.

Planes, Cars and still more Boxes

 A fairly eventful few days for Levi and I even given that he was sick and I was at work for some of it.  On Thursday, his Vacation care all went to the carnival.  I talked to the workers and they said that one is organized every year.  Brilliant really!  All the nearby Vacation Cares get together and pool their money.  Then they get slides and rides and face painters.  The kids get free access to everything without checking because only Vacation Care kids are invited.  They get a Sausage sizzle lunch, fairy floss and a Popsicle.  Then they just wear themselves out all day until the poor parents have to get them.  When I picked up Levi, all the kids were sitting quietly watching a DVD.  All the kids were barely conscious.  The teachers were just sitting back relaxing!

Levi has been on the edge of sick the last few days, not quite sick but not quite well either.  He is in there snoring quite loudly at the moment, so he isn't better yet.  It has just meant that I have kept him quieter than I normally do.  We went to see the movie Cars 2 today and I had to stop part way on the 15 minute car journey because he felt car sick.  He must be really on edge. 

The movie was not as good as Cars 1 in my opinion, but it was entertainment out of the house for Levi and a few mates, so worth the cost.  The first movie had lots of great messages in it, but the sequel was more just going through the motions.

Levi has been really into making random boxes into things, since we made the rocket car (Incidentally battered but still trucking on).  He gets the boxes that get delivered and makes them into anything that comes to mind.  It is lovely to watch his imagination at work.  This latest one is a plane.  He is drawing the console here below.  Yes his mouth and tongue are still very important drawing tools!

 He punched holes in the side for the balloons that will "give him lift".  I thought that was great!