J crept into our room at 2 am complaining that her head hurt and she was coughing too much to sleep. Sure enough, she had a fever, and even after some Motrin she was shivering under her covers, so I spent much of the night in bed with her before stumbling back to my own bed in the early morning. Next thing I knew I was the last person awake (story of my life), Cute W was reading The Lord of the Rings to J over breakfast, and I was wandering around, wondering where M could possibly be. It turns out that my bedside clock was the only one left in the house that hadn’t been sprung forward yet, so I was an hour behind and she was already off to school.
By the time I got myself oriented, J had already written out her agenda for the day:
Basically eating and being lazy.
She and I read some more The Lord of the Rings again. I do not relate to that book at all. I can’t keep track of all the names, much less pronounce them. But it’s something else that J and Cute W are bonding over. In fact, he just ordered a poster-sized map of Middle Earth, and she was thrilled. It’s hanging directly above her bed so that she can follow the group’s progress while she listens to the bedtime reading. –Just now, when Cute W realized that I was talking about J’s current obsession, he ran upstairs to find her homemade bookmark, in which she’d quoted, “One ring to rule them all,/One ring to find them,/One ring to bring them all,/ And in the darkness bind them.” I said, “Oh, yeah, I saw that, and she’s writing down the names of the chapters, too, right?” And Cute W just sort of shook his head at me, that I didn’t appreciate the significance of her copying this down. “It’s just, all the LOTR geeks–never mind,” he interrupted himself. “You just don’t get it.” He’s right.
She also pulled out the Smarty Girl Science Growing Gems Kit that Santa had slid into her stocking because it was on super-sale and he couldn’t resist.
J hadn’t been particularly interested in this kit because it was too pink-and-sparkly girlish, so the other day I said that we should give it to someone else if she wasn’t going to use it. That, plus the prospect of a full sick day, motivated her to give it a shot. We were both pleasantly surprised, because the little activities, all involving super-absorbent polymers that suck up water to expand, were easy and fun. Her favorite were the super-fine bits which grew instantly to look like a pile of snow. Her assessment? “I thought that this was going to be lame, but it’s actually very fun.”
Then she did some reading.
And finally, she watched the movie Oliver. As soon as she requested this movie, I almost laughed out loud, because she’d been talking about it for the last week or so, and no one else in the family was particularly interested in watching it again. So a big, long sick day was the perfect opportunity for her.
For a sickie, she had a pretty good day. The only bummer is that the sickness might mess up our plan for tomorrow, which was to go to Great Escape Lodge & Indoor Water Park overnight to write a review for KidsOutAndAbout.com. I know, I know: it’s a tough job, but someone’s gotta do it! Anyway, she seemed a bit perkier this afternoon, but we’ll see what tonight brings.
