He loves a good dragon story. I am going to look up My Father's Dragon since I haven't hears of it. Marry Poppins...kind of don't know why I didn't think of that! My brain is short circuiting. I need to find out about this Freddy Detective, Ginger Pye, and Phantom Tollbooth. Thank you so much!!

Beats the neck out of me! Without morning coffee, my family is checking for my pulse.

We had done a couple How to Train Your Dragon books, two Bunnicula books, and I am about to start Mr. Poppers Penguins. I am drawing a blank for what to read after that. It has been so many years since I had young ones, and can't seem to remember what all I read to my own kids at that age. They are pretty emotional about mamma and baby brother in the hospital, and daddy coming and going all the time. The three year old will listen to anything since he just likes to be snuggled with me on the couch. A little comedy would be wise. I don't think N can handle super serious or scary situations at the moment even though he normally loves a good intense adventure. He has listened to the first two Harry Potter books on audio, and usually they are favorites. But he has had a rather upset or down cast faces when I have asked about re-reading the first one or listening to them to help him go to sleep. I just think there is too much worry in his little heart to manage something with heavy themes. I have my Kindle so I can just buy books and download since we are staying home and isolated in the hopes of getting the three year old healthy and keeping him that way. I am playing race the clock on that since he needs to be done with this respiratory virus before little T is released. Suggestions?

Thank you for the help. I totally forgot about the zinc. I need to make sure I am getting zinc into them.

Thank you! I very much appreciate the support.

One other thought. If you don't have to use the whole balance rapidly, could you just do most of your regular, weekly grocery shopping on it freeing up grocery money to use on something else?

Thank you! At the moment, I am rather stressed. Our 3 year old grandson has come down with yet another virus, cold. That is something that could kill his new, baby brother. So I have to get him healthy, and keep his 7 year old brother healthy. I figure I have 2-3 weeks before T is released from the NICU, and it feels like I have a massive weight on my shoulders. This child has been sick pretty much steady for 2 months, and has not had any immune system to speak of since he had covid in late May. The doctors have NO constructive advice, so I feel like I am in the weeds. I am trying NOT to stress eat.

I have been suspecting this. I am trying to rebuild the immune system of my three year old grandson. He had covid in May, a concerning case but then seemed to rebound. However, since mid-November, he has only had one week that he wasn't sick with some sort of virus. One week. That is it. If I were a Silent Generation mother, I would be convinced that my child had suffered measles without me knowing it because it has that same wiping out the immune system feel to it. And of course no one has any answers. None. They are masking again which is good, and I am trying to emphasize hand washing. In the absence of anything constructive from the pediatrician and convinced that most of the "natural" advice is voodoo, I am doing the five things that I hope are common sense helps. Emphasizing nutrient dense foods, organic vitamin C gummies, organic vitamin D3 gummies, fresh air and sunshine when it actually presents itself (hard to do in winter), and rest when I can get him to take extra naps or go to bed early. This is absolutely, literally, life and death. His little brother was born yesterday, six weeks premature, and is in the NICU. We don't know how long T will be in the hospital, but when he comes home, one of his big brother's viruses could endanger his little life. So if I said I was absolutely stressed about it, that would be the understatement of the century! On top of which, Dd was pregnant (but didn't know it) when she contracted covid, and though we killed ourselves providing modified bed rest and high nutrition for months in the hopes of warding off what looked like this past summer, long covid, this could cause her to relapse. I never talked about her pregnancy on WTM, just our battle with long covid and helping her because I truly did not expect the baby to survive, and wasn't in the mood to talk about that. But here we are. He is stable enough to believe that he will eventually come home, and I am very frightened.

Many many hugs, Band!

I will be off the thread for a while. We had an emergency situation with dd this week, and I left Tuesday for Alabama and made the mad dash to get here to care for our grandsons. I will be cooking a lot of kid friendly stuff, but also predict that my own eating is going to be quite weird for a couple of weeks.

You could get five dozen eggs with that money! 😁 Seriously, does your family eat a lot of tomato based products like tacos sauces, spaghetti sauce, etc. ? The reason I ask is that there is a prediction that inflation will continue due to water/irrigation issues in California. If you have pantry space for jars and cans, that might be a good idea. Dried fruit is always expensive so if that is something your kids eat, I would buy a bunch extra. Dried fruit in sealed bags will last a very, very long time. I don't know what all can even be purchased on an EBT. Coffee and tea comes to mind if that is allowed and you use a lot.

We never placed expectations for participation upon our adult kids, and during school breaks, we discussed whether or not they wanted to come home and what not. We are a very close knit nuclear family though who does not have a lot of social events within the extended family. Everyone is so far flung and busy that we don't really have "command performances". I do not like the infantilizing of young adults. Colleges need to end that game..I do see though that when colleges expect mom and dad to write checks for many tens of thousands of dollars because financial aid and scholarships have not come close to keeping up with tuition much less room and board, it has infuriated a LOT of parents who now see themselves as customers of an institution with very poor customer service, and that has consequences. Our middle son attended a college that was really harsh. The faculty were inhuman. When his grandpa died, he thought about coming home just for one day for the funeral, but the school has a zero tolerance policy for attendance, and he was told by more than one professor that he would be automatically failed for the semester if he did so. As one faculty member put it, " The only funeral you better attend is your own or transfer schools." He did not come home since he had a 4.0 and that single absence would have caused him to be failed in 15 credit hours of work causing him to lose his scholarship. I wish he would have transferred. We hate and despise that university. Interestingly, in the past five years they have lost 1/3rd of their student body and have sunk to an all time graduation rate low. Gee, I can't imagine why!

Brilliant! Just brilliant!

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 Accurate!

I agree. It is tough for sure. I think that this is a good time in life to help them learn to cope with these things. There will always be someone at your heels who is equally or more talented. It is just the way of things. Open communication and full support for both young men is the way to go.

I had class this morning too. Note to self. No more stinking engineering and physics classes during the winter term. Ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh. I am an excellent student, but the struggle to concentrate and make the big effort is very real this winter.

Today, I am really having a hard time motivating myself. I took Lewis out for a quick walk, and his entire attitude was, "Why are you making me do this? And why is my bathroom facility so grey, grim, cold, and pointless?" I had no good answer soft him so I just patted his head and said, "Suck it up, buttercup!" I mean, what else is there? I need to tear apart a row of quilt blocks because I set a one way fabric in upside down so on top of my Michigan greige life, I am annoyed by that. So I am ignoring this. Mark is at his mom's, and said he grabbed our mail on the way, and had my Mother Earth News magazine which would have pictures of green things in it so I am a little miffed that I have to wait until he is done with work to get it. I am about to go do my kayak training exercises. Those do tend to perk me up. Maybe my attitude will improve after that.

Awesome!!

Today: we got up quite late. Coffee but no breakfast Lunch - potato soup, roast green beans, and tang all Supper - hashbrowns, scrambled eggs with vegetables - spinach, celery, green onion, mushrooms, red pepper

I rarely drink tea. Mark drinks all the tea. I am not certain he has ever met a tea he does not like. Therefore an entire cupboard of my kitchen is devoted to an incoherent, random, epic pile of boxes and tins of tea. This is how has they are stored, and I cannot "organize" them because some how, some way, this makes sense to him, and he might not be able to find the tea he is craving if this is messed with so as to NOT ruin his tea mojo, I do.not.touch. 😁

😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍

I am not Catholic. I am just going to make a generic observation since I am pretty familiar with the faith and with other christian faiths. I think it is important for all of the leadership in a child's life to be informed of threats to child's physical danger, and enough information about that for those persons to be able to then make wise decisions should there be any point at which they might need to advocate for the child. I think in the instance of any religious family, regardless of the religion or denomination, the spiritual leaders and administrators should be informed. So in this case, if the priest does not already know that at religious events he has a minor child attending/participating who might be separated from the physical care of the safe custodian/parents/guardian whatever, the priest needs to know. This is entirely separate of the fact that this same child may later come to confession or counseling or whatever. A restraining order has the most chance of any success in protecting a child when all the adults involved are informed, and that means sports coaches, and piano teachers, and drivers ed instructors, and pastors, and Sunday school teachers, and ya...it feels like a big violation of a child's privacy. But this violation of privacy beats all to pieces the worst case scenarios of violated restraining and custody orders. This actually doesn't need to have a single thing to do with the confession. This is also making sure that if kid is dropped to church for a kid event, the people in charge know to call the police if the unsafe person shows up or tries to take the child. It is in my mind, the first line of defense. Once the adults are informed, the chances that an inadvertent bad advice situation occurring drops significantly.

My husband does not like texting. His brother, who is self employed on a flexible schedule, likes to text or call Mark when he is in the middle of meetings. His work day is set. His brother knows this, but can't seem to make a mental note of it. So he then went to texting me to see if I would go get Mark to answer his phone. Nope. Hard no. I ignore. Mark will eventually call him back on his own time at the end of the work day. He isn't going to text, and he is most definitely not going to interrupt work to call because brother sent him a photo of used sailboat. Good grief. I get along really well with him, but this is a bridge too far. Do not try to weasel other people into facilitating communication. The only time this should happen is a legitimate, family emergency.

Great idea!

Yes. Normally Michigan does have sunny, snowy days in January. Nope. It has been almost exclusively drizzle rain, grey skies, no reflective snow, just dreary. I am keeping my spirits up with a focus on training for the kayaking and sailing season which reminds me thank at spring and summer and sunshine are coming. I have been looking at my garden plans, and looking at gardening primers and magazines just to vicariously feel some sunshine. We have a trip to the Alabama house the first week of March, it will be sunny and warm there. I am looking forward to it! It is a real struggle to not let the gloominess get to me.