Connor is a creature of habit.  His bedtime routine is definitely a good example of that.  During the book exchange that he and Logan do each night, lately Connor has been bringing back two books from Logan’s room.  He then will find two more books for our bedtime reading each night.  He insists on finding his own books “I pick!”.  During reading, he is quite engaged with books; he will point out the same character on different pages.  Sometimes he even giggles at some funny faces and says “That’s funny!”.  He now asks many questions too, “why?”, “what"?” and “where?”. 

    After our reading and grabbing a couple of his favorite books, I carry him and let him turn off the light for the room.  We then return to the nursing chair to sit and cuddle briefly.  I used to sing several lullaby, but now he only asks for “one song”.  Right afterward, he asks for “night-night”, so I put him in bed.  He puts the two books on the night stand and immediately lays down.  But as soon as I walk out and close the door, I will hear “daddy!”.  Once Stuart walks in, he says a few things to Connor, then Connor will like to have the two books placed under his pillow.  He then will fall asleep without any more complaints.

     We went to a gymnastic place this morning to attend Marcus’s birthday party.  We arrived at the same time as the birthday boy, so we talked with Marcus & family and walked around the gym for a bit before the party started.  We had come to this gym once last year for another birthday party, thus we were familiar with the areas.  Once the party started, both Logan and Connor did not want to participate as we expected.  Fortunately the gym allowed the parents to be with the kids this time, so I held Connor’s hand while convincing Logan to follow the activity instruction.  We ran around the parachute along with the music, and attempted to do what we were told.  After at least five minutes, the boys finally warmed up a little bit and I could see glimpse of smiles from them.  Stuart tagged in while I tagged out to take some pictures.  When the instructor led all the kids and parents underneath the parachute for fun, the ice finally broke and the boys were fully into the play.  Especially Connor, he seemed to be really paying attention, sitting and following the instructor as told.  Logan loved to climb up and down the huge blocks, and Connor followed his steps too.  When we moved on to the other part of the gym, they both loved running on the trampoline and had so much fun jumping into the foam pool.  Connor was careful; he chose to climb into the pool rather than jumping in like all other kids.

     They continued on playing in the gym for probably more than an hour, then we cleaned up to start the pizza party.  Everyone was hungry and happy to sit down to eat.  After eating almost two slices, Connor was eyeing the cupcakes, but he did wait patiently until we all sang the birthday song to Marcus.  Connor enjoyed the chocolate cake after I removed the icing; Logan actually declined having any cake as he had almost three slices of pizza.  Afterward Michelle passed out the party gifts for all the kids.  Connor picked a stuffed Woody with a little bit of my persuasion (instead of Jessie).  Logan wanted a dinosaur but was happy when he found a stuffed horse in the basket.  We then said our thanks and goodbyes as we took Logan and Connor home for a well earned nap.

    Things are finally back to routine and we managed to relax a bit today.  Logan was happy too as he was able to have some weekend Xbox time.  We did some shopping and some cleaning of the house.  The house had been a mess due to the hectic week of being sick and the busy work schedule.  We must have done at least 5 loads of laundry in a row.  We also took Connor to get a haircut as his hair suddenly became out of control.  He did very well sitting and letting the lady cut his hair as long as I was holding his hand.  He enjoyed watching the big kids’ cartoon on their TV as well.  He did so much better than Logan did two weeks ago who was fidgeting during the entire hair cut.

   Yesterday when Logan woke up in the morning, we heard a cough from him.  He told us that he had coughed a 100 times, and that he should not go to school.  He also did not have an appetite for breakfast.  But during the time we observed him, he had a total of two coughs, was still in good spirit and a temp of 98.4, so we told him to go to school as he was fine.  When I picked him up at the end of the day, the teacher reported that Logan did not cough much but he started to have a runny nose.  Afterward at home, he was still in good spirit and ate dinner well.  Unfortunately at midnight, we heard Logan crying aloud for daddy.  He said he needed to “choke”, and he did puke just a little bit into the garbage can when Stuart handed it to him.  He was very warm too.  We put a ice pack on his forehead and tested his temp, 101.7.  I brought Tylenol in for him; Logan immediately said no and started tearing so sadly.  He finally agreed to take it after some convincing.  I stayed with him to read a couple of books, then Logan agreed to return to sleep.

   The rest of the night was tough too.  Connor woke up at 3am and Logan woke up around 5am, so Stuart had to pay both a visit.  By 6am, I was so worried about oversleeping since it was going to be an important day at work, that I stayed awake and finally got up. Connor woke up at 6:45 and Logan was up at 7:05.  Logan knew that he was not well and that he was staying home.  He had hinted that he wanted to play a Xbox game.  I had a talk with him that he needed to stay low key at home to get well, no games, and have some quiet times to allow daddy to work too.

    According to Stuart, Logan was not well during the day, having teary eyes, leaky nose, a low grade fever, poor appetite and looking tired.  He did try to ask a few times to play the pirate game (Xbox), but did not put up a fight when denied.  He played by himself at times (Legos), but they played many different toys together as well as a couple of board games.  Of course, he also watched more TV than usual for a school day.   Tomorrow Stuart is taking a day off to be with Logan and we hope that everyone gets healthy again quickly.

     Since late yesterday, I started getting sick.  Body aches, runny nose, sneezing and coughing all started pretty quickly.  I felt quite bad last night after the kids went to sleep; even the medicines did not make it better.  Poor Connor, no wonder he looked so bad on Saturday afternoon before the ibuprofen kicked in.  Today every time I sneezed, Connor would say “Bless You!”.  When I told the boys that I was sick, Connor leaned his head toward me and gave me kisses. 

     The weather was as yucky as how I felt, but we managed to go to Costco in the morning and took a short walk while bundled up in the afternoon.  The rest of the day, we played inside the house.  We were all sitting in the living room; Stuart played tic tac toe and drawing with Logan while Connor and I played with building blocks.  Tonight when the boys wanted to play with swords and guns, Logan gave me a sword and said “Mommy, you can just sit on the chair and play sword with us”.  I think they were taking it easy on me.

     Connor had a good night sleep Saturday night and woke up without any more fever.  His runny nose also improved and just had some residual congestion and cough.  He was back to his usual self too.  It was slightly cooler on Sunday but still very sunny, so we decided to try miniature golf together.  Both Logan and Connor were excited, holding their clubs and golf balls to the first hole.  As soon as it was our turn to start playing, Logan just wanted to start putting and did not really want any guidance from Stuart.  He was quite good trying to get the ball into the hole; he probably thought that the point of the game was the fastest to get to the hole rather than the number of hits.  He was good waiting for his turn among our group, but he was slightly impatient to wait until the previous group to finish with each hole.  He managed to finish the entire 18 holes without much complaints.  Connor, on the other hand, did not really care to play.  We tried to guide him through the first couple of holes; later he kinda just gave up trying.  He ended up just following us walking through the holes; he finally lost his patience and started asking for snack.  With some popcorn in hand, he managed to walk through the rest of the game.  We all then took a snack at one of the picnic tables, enjoying the nice sunshine.  Logan remembered about the arcade games located inside the facility, so we allowed him to play 3 games.  Connor and I just sat under the sun watching other players on the course and he was always excited each time the light-rail train went by.

    In the afternoon, we went to the Almaden Lake Park for some exercise.  We brought Logan’s bike and he did not mind hopping on.  He biked from one side of the lake to the opposite side where the playgrounds were.  He can bike quite fast these days, and he did not mind the slightly up and down hill sections.  He learned how to use his brakes quite well too.  Since Connor was recovering from a cold, we had him in the stroller.  Both Stuart and I had to jog at times to keep up with Logan.  When we arrived at the playgrounds, Logan and Connor had fun playing at the toddler area for a long time.  After the snack, we moved on to the “spider web” climbing structures.  Logan enjoys climbing on them these days, and for the first time, Connor was interested in them too.  He was not too bold though and wanted my help while he tried climbing on it.  Before sunset, we got Logan back on the bike, so we could make our way back home.

   After dinner, we skyped with Grandma to wish her happy birthday.  Since they learned about Grandma’s birthday, they had been singing the Happy Birthday song all day, especially Connor.  But when it was time to sing to Grandma, Connor was a bit shy.  It was cute that when Grandma tried to round both boys over to help her blow out a candle.  Grandma tried to gather them by asking “where are you"?”.  Connor immediately said “Home” (which I thought was funny).  Logan and Connor helped blow out the candle through the screen and wished Grandma a happy birthday!