Row Your Boat

Ivan and Lincoln and I have had the stomach flu. :( Late Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning was the worst of it. I was so weak from throwing up that I couldn't even sit up to feed Adelia. Aaron had to lay her in the bed next to me so I could nurse her laying down. And as for the boys...I think we've washed every crib sheet and twin mattress sheet we own, several times. Not to mention, pillow cases, blankets, pajamas, and stuffed animals. So fun.

Lucky for me, I have a mother who loves me very much. She came down yesterday and spent the whole day taking care of all of us sickies, so Aaron didn't have to miss class. She held Adelia, played with the boys (why is it that my children never just want to lay down and sleep the day away when they are sick. I know I do.), did laundry, washed dishes, fixed lunch, put the boys down for their naps, and kept me company during the parts of the day that I felt well enough to come out and lay on the couch. Thank you Mom, I don't know how we would have survived without your help!

Today we are all doing much better. But I wasn't sure if we were still contagious or not, so I kept us all away from people. But after spending the entire day inside yesterday, we were all feeling a little stir crazy. Almost a year ago, we made paper boats and sailed them in the little man-made stream on campus with some of our friends. Lincoln loved it, but the boats were made out of paper and so they didn't survive very many runs down the stream. Today we decided to give sail boats another try. But this time we made a super-duty boat. :)

I duct taped two empty two liter bottles together. Then I cut out one side of a cereal box and taped it on top of the bottles. For a mast I taped two shishkabob sticks together and we poked those through the cereal box. While I did all of that, Lincoln and Ivan colored sails. Actually, Linc colored his sail, and Ivan took the paper he was supposed to color into a sail and ripped it up all over the kitchen floor, and then colored his library coloring sheet from a couple days ago that had a teddy bear on it. So on one side I taped the sail Lincoln had colored, and on the other side, I cut out the teddy bear and taped it on. It actually turned out a lot cuter than I thought it would, but I didn't get a good picture of it on the teddy bear side.

Since it was a lot later in the day than I was planning on, I packed a lunch for us to eat up on campus, so when we got home the boys could go right down for naps. We drove up to campus and called Aaron to see if he wanted to take his lunch break and come sail the boat with us. He did.

We started right after the water goes under the sidewalk going away from the duck pond. The current wasn't as strong as I thought it would be right at first, so the wind actually caught the sail and took the boat in the wrong direction up stream. Aaron found some big sticks and he and Ivan went on one side of the stream and Lincoln, Adelia, and I went on the other and used the sticks to push the boat down stream. The boys liked this part best of all I think.

Our boat made it all the way to the end of the stream. (The water goes through a big grate and underground to be pumped back up to the top down the water fall that fills the duck pond.) We took it a little ways back up, to where the current starts getting fast enough that not much prodding is needed, and let it do another run. Then Lincoln got in trouble for not listening (he wanted to go on the side of the stream by the road, but neither Aaron and I were over there at that point, so I told him no, and he went anyway), and threw a huge tantrum because I made him have a time out. At that point I knew we were past time to go home. But we had a lot of fun with our little boat, and I think we'll try to remember to go sail boats more often.