Sick Babies...How To Avoid Boredom

The Quarantine continues.  We are currently on day four of our family quarantine.  We shall see if the quarantine is called by Awana tonight.  The first casualty was our youngest.  Saturday night he was running a fever, but told me "I not feel good, but I not crying about it."  Five minutes later that changed when he emptied his stomach in the toilet.  Yesterday it was our oldest, waking up at 1:30 in the morning to calmly empty his stomach without any fan fare.  He not once cried at all yesterday.  Today we are praying for a cease fire.

It was not until my second son was born that we were faced with the reality of sick children.  Our oldest son never got sick.  In two and a half years he had managed only one tiny ear infection and maybe a sniffle hear and there.  Ironically, the day our second son was born that all changed.

We knew that our second son was going to be born with gall stones.  An ultra sound had caught the anomaly at 22 weeks, so we were prepared for a very needy child.  What we weren't prepared for is a perfectly healthy baby, and an extremely needy toddler.

That's right, on the day our second son was born, our oldest developed a fever.  It was a bad one.  It was the Swine Flu (H1N1).  That was our first quarantine.  During that quarantine both my husband and I both ended up in the hospital for one thing or another, and our baby remained happy, healthy and well adjusted.

That Thanksgiving our oldest fell ill again, except no one was ready with any answers.  In three weeks I took him to the doctor's office five times and all any one had to say was that he had a virus.  Except the virus was causing him to run extremely high fevers intermittently for a dangerously long time.  Finally his regular physician got back from vacation and diagnosed him with bronchitis, a diagnosis that was confirmed by a chest x-ray that showed that the bronchitis had developed into walking pneumonia.

Needless to say, I was furious.  Especially since this incident would lead to his having severe asthma.  This was the beginning of his constant medical issues.  Due to this he would also develop a severe ear infection that would lead to him being hearing impaired.

Now, every time anyone in our house gets sick we immediately go into lock down.  No one comes in, no one leaves.  This leads to some issues as far as keeping the kids entertained.  Over the past two years I have accumulated some great ideas.

• Save movies for sick days.  We have old classics by Doris Day as well as "Meet Me In St. Louis", "Wizard of Oz", "White Christmas", "Singing In the Rain", "Court Jester", etc.  My boys love these movies and me pull them out only during sick days.
• Board Games.  Candy Land, Chutes and Ladders, Memory, Yahtzee.  These are great time fillers.  Also, board games based on learning shows like PBS's Super Why and Veggie Tales, and Nick's Dora the Explorer and Go Diego Go.
• Puzzles.  We love puzzles!  Floor Puzzles, board puzzles, table puzzles.  Kids don't usually realize they are being quiet when they are engrossed in a puzzle.
• Dress up.  This isn't just for girls.  My sons love finding old clothes and trying them on.  They also love playing with old shoes and ribbons.
• Newspapers and Boxes.  You've heard the old adage.  "Why do we even buy babies gifts when they only play with the boxes?"  This is true for any age.  Get a bunch of empty boxes and crumpled paper in a room and they do berserk!
• Bean bag games.  My sister-in-law turned me on to this one.  She has a great CD with lots of bean bag games and songs to go with it.  Here is a great website that has a lot activities that you can do with homemade bean bags. 

Here's hoping that you can use these ideas as a rainy day idea, instead of a sick day, but it is always good to be prepared.