Cabin fever

It's 8:30 on Friday morning, and Duncan is still asleep upstairs... he had quite a fever early on Wednesday morning, waking him and me up around 2:30 am, and it's really taken it out of him. Today is day three of staying home, and while you wouldn't think he's a sickie during the early and middle part of the day, when the Ibuprofen and Triaminic are doing their job, he really crashes in the evening. Last night he fell asleep on the couch with Maggie while I was making dinner, and that's very unusual; he was crabby as could be when awakened. I tried to get him up this morning and he wouldn't budge, and seems to need the sleep, so I've let him take it.

This means I haven't been able to leave the house much since Tuesday, and also means that I haven't been able to have face-to-face contact with Malcolm's teacher daily, to check on his progress. The policy of regular status checks is something I learned at Bell Canada, strangely enough, and it works. Malcolm made great strides during the last part of school before Christmas vacation, and worked hard over the Christmas holidays, and he really did well the first week of school. Now, however, he is into new material and the battle for understanding begins anew. There are no more complaints about me making him do homework, however, he buckled down without complaint for three hours on Wednesday afternoon, and another two hours yesterday, although he still has a tendency sometimes to be lazy and daydream if he can't figure out how to answer the question, rather than reading it again.

I did get out briefly to shop for some supplements to the turkey noodle soup I made yesterday ("turkey in the straw" as my mother calls it), and took both boys along. I hope to take advantage of Duncan's better periods today to get a few things done, but the usual 9 am Friday morning shopping by car with our very kind and generous neighbour won't happen this week. I guess Maggie can take care of that tomorrow, or I will.

I also haven't really had time to think. I don't just park him in front of the television; that kind of luxury treatment will practically guarantee weeks of sham illness in a bid for a repeat. Instead I'm encouraging him to play, do some art, write letters to his friends, read, etc. He feels well enough during the day to play guitar and sing, and play piano. Yesterday I did park him for a bit so that I could get some singing in, but it's been pretty much impossible to get my head together for calling new houses and requesting auditions.

We've been looking around for houses; there are several for rent in the neighborhood. One bit of news is interesting; a colleague of Maggie's is moving away from Brussels with her family at the end of the school year, after a stay of several years, and is planning on purchasing new furniture at her new house; there's a possibility that we might luck into enought stuff to allow us to rent a house vide (that is, unfurnished) rather than meublé (furnished). It would mean
some purchases, but we would have a much greater selection of houses, and likely a cheaper rental cost. Fingers crossed!