The great thing about barfing sickness is...

...it's usually short-lived. It seems to burn itself out before the body can develop a proper immune response to it.

I'll spare you the unpleasant details, but Robert and Bobby aren't feeling well on either end of their digestive tracts today :( No fever, just lots of bodily fluids.

I'm glad I only have to clean up the child's messes...two loads of laundry today just for him.

*sigh*

I'm keeping a tight quarantine on Bobby and my hands are chapped and sore from all the handwashing going on. Alice and James and I are unaffected so far. Robert was generally happy and normal most of the day. I gave everyone haircuts this morning, we watched a movie, and then we took down the Christmas decorations. It was a great way to start the new year...I'm tempted to make it a tradition :)

It was nice when Robert fell asleep on the couch at 6:00 tonight. I put him in bed and Alice, James, and I had a little one-on-one-on-one time. Alice LOVES getting so much of my attention. I LOVE being with less than all of my kids. It's a special treat to focus on one or two at a time. James dinked around and played with stuff quietly while I focused on Alice. A quiet, comfortable, and connecting kind of evening. I guess that's another great thing about barfing sickness.

In other news, I drilled a hole in our kitchen floor this week. Yeah, well, I was working on Part 2 of the climbing wall exhibit (drilling indoors instead of in the freezing, dirty, dark garage...can you blame me?!) and I got a little enthusiastic with the power drill. It's a shallow hole, and quite pretty now, but I was absolutely horrified when I saw what I had done. The kids sensed my dread and fell completely silent. After looking over the hole a bit, Robert said in all solemnity, "Mommy, I sure love you, but I do NOT love that hole in the floor."

Well said.

Bobby and I have also finally gotten around to starting some savings for college. I don't like the idea of giving a kid everything, but I don't like the idea of leaving a kid completely on his/her own, either. We'll put enough away to reap a few state tax benefits now (we certainly need that in Illinois!) and hopefully the funds will help our kids keep going in the future. We haven't decided yet how to frame this opportunity for our kids...is it a gift or a scholarship? It's a 529 plan, so only "qualified educational expenses" are covered, but is that amount ALL the help we will offer? What if the kid goes somewhere reeeeeeeally pricey and "needs" more than we had allotted for him/her? Or what if the kid earns a scholarship and doesn't use everything we had planned to give? Does the excess money go to the graduate, or does it remain in our custody for the next student? We still have to discuss the ground rules as a couple and decide where to stand. It's a good problem to have. I'm excited at the prospect, actually.

I wonder if our kids will even accept the help. I remember applying to colleges and not thinking much about the cost involved. I did eventually chose a fiscally sensible university that offered a full scholarship. My dad showed me how to apply for a student loan to pay for room and board. I also worked part-time as an undergraduate research assistant to pay for everything else. I was worried my dependence would be a burden to them. Then again, I did use one of their cars for a very, very long time, and I was incredibly grateful for their dental and health and car insurance that saw me through to graduation. My mom even paid for piano lessons while I was still a freshman in college. And I'm pretty sure they helped in other ways. They must have...food, gas, furniture and appliances. So maybe I was more dependent on them than I thought.

If I had needed to work harder to support myself (i.e. no scholarship or research assistantship), would I have sacrificed my education to stubbornly pay my own way? It's hard to tell. If I had known that my parents had set aside an amount of money to help with my future education, though, I would have counted on it. Hmmm. Gotta think about this a bit more. I'm just relieved and happy that I get to think about this at all. It's a great problem to have.

Now I'm off to bed. If there's more laundry to be done tonight, I want to be well rested for it.