Gesundheit

Nothing brings a mother to her knees like sick children. Sick, cranky, lethargic, irritable children. And somehow, summer colds have the ability to wreak more havoc than their winter counterparts.

Yes, it seems that all four children have the sniffles, a bit of congestion, and a lot of whines. I am pumping them full of Emergen-C and reading a lot of books.

Today, before I realized that I had all four of them down with this mess, we went on one of our weekly errands. While we are on our outing, an elderly lady generally shares her home made goodies with us. However, she was short in supply today, so rather than offering the children her usual cookies or brownies, she offered them each a package of crackers. Like the ones you get with salads, just a pack of two saltines or whatever.

The kids were visibly nonplussed, but thankfully, they were kind and remembered their manners.

Granny is sick, too. In fact, she has the worst of it. She has pretty well been in bed for two days running, which never happens. Before we left this afternoon, Thomas offered to save one of his sweets to share with her, although I was unaware of this.

When Mrs. C sadly told the kids no cookies, only crackers today, Thomas thanked her very kindly. He held tight to his crackers and when we got back in the car, opened them up. He claimed to be starving, but I noticed he only ate one cracker. I told him to eat his other cracker and wait patiently for dinner.

He carefully tucked the cracker down into the packaging and told me he was saving it.

'For what?' I asked, somewhat dubious.

'For Granny. I told her I would get her a sweetie and since all I have are two crackers, I decided I would save her one so I could share with her.'

I smiled at him and told him how much I appreciated that he was keeping his word, even though I knew he was tempted to eat that last cracker.

I may have only been smiling on the outside, but people, on the inside, my heart was swelling up with joy!