Warning: This post is about broken fingers, vomit and diarrhea - not for the faint of heart

It is 10 o’clock in the morning, and it’s… Wednesday, I think. The past week and a half has just gone by – disappeared.

The Kant scholar left for a well needed conference, the International Kant Congress in Vienna, last Sunday morning, and almost immediately, thing started happening.

I thought I had invested well in an active day so that the evening would go smoothly. We had a long swim in the sea, a good late lunch, and then the boys went to the movies (Scorch trials, something: a law movie, I thought at first, how educating! But I think I would have been disappointed in that regard…).

That very evening though, the boys were rough-housing before bed (not unusual) and I had just settled down with a glass of Rioja, thinking I might actually be able to manage an entire week with four active boys, when the 12 year old came crying, hand held high. The 13 year old had kicked his hand and hit his right index finger in such a way that it was most possibly broken. Oh, Lord. It was almost 11 pm, already late for the boys to be up, and worse, the toddler was still awake, barely. But there it was. I grabbed the phone and called my friend and neighbor on the off-chance that she was still up, to see if she could be “on call,” in case the 13 year old needed an adult while I was in the ER with the 12 year old. Luckily, she was on her way home from a dinner, and as we started walking up the hill to the ER, she drove into the parking lot. In fact, she ended up taking some reading to our apartment, and spent most of the time we were away right there in the living room.

In the ER, the 12 year old’s finger was X-rayed and confirmed broken, however it did not require surgery or resetting, luckily, but just a splint. We were home by 1:30 am. The toddler and 6 year old had fallen asleep while the 13 year old read to them, fairly quickly, but the 13 year old was still awake, worried.

Most of Monday was lost, as everyone was really tired, and the 12 year old was in a lot of pain. Tuesday, Wednesday we were playing catch up. The 12 year old was having trouble getting his schoolwork done with his dominant hand out for the count.

By Wednesday evening, both the toddler and the 6 year old came down with bad colds, and Thursday was spent trying to get through that, while finishing some work. In the evening, the toddler started throwing up, and Friday and Saturday were lost to buckets, laundry, bleach, rocking and nursing. In the evening, thankfully, as the toddler was feeling much better, my husband came home – exhausted after an intense Kant week, but well.

But wait, this wasn’t the end of our miserable week.

On Sunday morning I went out for a walk around town, all by myself, alone – sweet, lovely solitude! I had some lunch, and a bit of retail therapy. I say “a bit,” because since we are always nearly broke; there’s no room to splurge. I bought some eye shadow for $3 on sale at H&M, and some pajamas for the little ones at the surplus store. This may not sound very exciting, but after a couple of hours, it was enough for me to have regained some sanity, and I headed home.

At home, I was greeted by a vomiting 12 year old. As I made dinner that evening, I started feeling sick, as did the 6 year old, and soon, the two of us were decked out in the bathroom, throwing up. A rough night ensued. I would run to the bathroom, get sick (sickness was pouring out from all ends at this point) and then crawl back into bed, and the toddler would want me to nurse him back to sleep. Rinse, and repeat.

The toddler, now perfectly healthy,
dining alone,
after having made everyone else sick

By morning I felt better, but physically drained. It took most of Monday and a very long nap for me to get back on my feet. The house was a wreck though, and I had to somehow restore the order. The 12 year old was still sick, but was not serial vomiting. The 6 year old however, just kept throwing up. As soon as he put anything in his tummy, even just a few teaspoons of water, it would come right back up. By evening, we were getting worried. If he kept throwing up overnight, we would have to take him to the hospital in the morning.

This is when my husband started vomiting and other unpleasant things that come with a stomach bug. Could this get any worse?

Late at night, after everyone had emptied their stomach contents in more ways than you want to know, and had settled down for a night full of bathroom visits, I broke out the Clorox and went crazy: I declared war on bacteria!

In my experience, kids usually start getting better a few hours after you decide to take them to the hospital. Sounds silly? It turned out to be true in this case as well. The 6 year old slept all night, and in the morning, he started retaining some water. By lunch, he was able to keep some yogurt down, and in the evening, he even had some dinner. This morning, he looks much better.

Is it over yet?

Part time working mothers

An ad for a real estate company in Washington caused people across the US to speak out against its representation of working moms.

As you can see, it depicts a woman in a chaotic situation surrounded by three kids on one side, and two business ready men in a neat office on the other. The ad is suggesting that you can't be a part time working mother AND a dedicated professional at the same time. Although the company has taken the ad down and apologized officially, the ad still stirs up emotion,

Not only does it make me mad because there are millions of women out there who are mothers AND professionals. And lets not forget about the working dads,

Worse though, the ad made me feel guilty. Sometimes the circumstances under which I work are even more chaotic than in the picture, and I fear that it affects the quality of my work. Maybe I can't do both? Maybe it's not possible?

Staying focused while facing one distraction after another

One issue often discussed among homeschoolers is that of routine and schedules. Having a program – a curriculum, goals – and a plan for how you are going to reach these goals, is pretty much necessary, unless you are completely unschooling. However, while it is true that a structured regularity might make homeschooling easier, it is futile to think that you can maintain a strict schedule like a public or private school. If you homeschool in your home with a regular family, things are going to come up, planned and unplanned incidents, or sometimes illness, that will disrupt your schoolwork. The best way to deal with this is to embrace the distractions and learn to work around or with them while staying focused.

This our first week of school was extra challenging in this regard, as it was filled with a few scheduled (dentist visits across town and first week of teaching for my philosophy husband) and several unplanned events. I got sick over the weekend and was out of commission until Monday afternoon. We had a major plumbing problem in the bathrooms with raw sewage leakage (which had to be cleaned up once it was fixed). Then the sandstorm hit Lebanon, which you might not think would have much impact on homeschool activities, but we ended up housing or hosting a dust storm play date for the afternoon, with kids of all ages filling up the house. Last night, William went to bed with a stomach ache, and today he has been very sick.

One more day left of this week, Friday. What might happen tomorrow?

Sand storm in Lebanon

There’s a sand storm in Lebanon, and according to the news, it’s so bad that people are being hospitalized or even dying. Here in Beirut there’s sand but not a storm per se, since there’s no wind. It’s more like a sand fog. The air is filled with dust, and the heat is concentrated within, making outside venturing very unpleasant, at best. Yesterday, my weather forecast told me it was “96 degrees, Feels Like 131.” I thought, “No way!” until I went outside (I had to go get a book for August) – I have lived in the Middle East for years now, and Egypt was pretty hot at times, but this was one of the hottest days I’ve ever experienced. By the time I got to upper campus I was soaked in sweat.

When we went to the store, Abraham pointed to the sky and asked, “Is that the moon or the sun?” When we looked up we saw this (see picture). That is usually a big bright sky, but today, we could look straight at the sun and it looked tinyS. Awful.

Today all the schools, universities and public offices are closed, many private ones too, I imagine. Our boys are still doing their school work though, of course. No rest for the homeschooled!

Exploring online education

The entire family – or at least those in the family who are above the age of 12 – started taking classes this summer over at edx.org. You can take a course for free and sometimes you get some sort of certificate of completion, or you can pay money and earn actual college credit. There are all kinds of courses offered by different universities from all over the world. I started taking a grammar course with our 13 year old mainly to get an idea of how it works and to be able to bug him about assignment deadlines and find out what he is learning. It is offered by the University of Queensland and is pretty good so far. The accents are cute! Prof. Husband is taking an astronomy class, and both boys are taking a course on super heroes (historical). Later this month they will start an AP physics course. We used to use Khan Academy quite a bit, and the boys went through the geometry program there, but we haven’t looked at it for a while. There are so many good educational sites, and so many great things to learn out there! Just thinking about it makes me feel overwhelmed.

Where have I been?!

I have been determined for a while now to start writing again, and you have no idea how good it feels to put these words on paper!

At the end of last semester I started being able to get some more computer time for myself without the continuous interruption of the toddler. However, I then had to spend all my newfound computer time working over the summer. You see, my dear philosopher husband got accepted to no less than three conferences over the summer, and his employer only pays for (most of) one. Since we are already in a financial pickle most of the year (assistant professors in the humanities here do not make enough to support a foreign family of 6!) I had to step in.

As you can imagine, I’ve had more exciting summers. When I didn’t work, or attempted to work with a demanding toddler by my side, I took care of the house, kept a low key summer school going with the boys, and in general tried not to spend any money. We went to the beach quite a bit, for an hour or so almost every day; my little slice of paradise just a couple of minutes’ walk from our house. We also figured out how to make really awesome bagels, something that is difficult to find here, which was detrimental to my weight, but provided some diversion.

In sum, my summer consisted of three fairly dull but financially necessary months.

Though. One noteworthy accomplishment in our household this summer was the potty training of young master Max. Although he only just turned two right before summer, he started using the potty quite successfully at his own initiative, and was, within only a couple of weeks, fully potty trained. No more diapers here! Not even at night. I can hardly believe it. We’ve been a great sponsor of Pampers and Huggies for well over a decade now, and suddenly, it’s over. Just like that. It feels great, a tiny little bit sad (our last baby!), but mostly awesome. I am still waiting for my medal from the president or something like that. Don’t they give mothers of four boys awards after four successful potty trainings? If not, then they certainly should!

Our summer officially ended last week with our back to full school, and I finished my last job for a little while on Thursday. It is still summer weather here, of course, and we will keep going to the beach until it closes at the end of this month, but the rhythm has changed, and I am turning my attention to the boys – and myself – for a while. So here; to a new academic year! May yours be as prosperous and wonderful as you hope, and may all our notebooks be filled with exciting knowledge, adventures, and insights!