sick days / sunny days / solutions

poor sick Ellie + brothers happy for some extra movie time :)

We've all been taking turns in Ellie's position this week. I was sick over the weekend when we visited Aunt Glenda's and Kathie & Winslow & Grandpa Johnston. I assumed it was just pregnancy sickness though until Porter also started throwing up the next day. And then Landon, then Ellie...

This morning Ellie thought she might be ready to go back to school, but was just so tired. After lots of back and forth, she finally decided to stay home. After a morning of resting and a stroller-ride walk, she went outside with Owen a bit before lunch and before long they were climbing over the snow tunnel and wrapped up in their pretend world of brothers and dads and bad guys and magic... And they've been playing and pretending since - such magical wonderful sounds to hear! :)

And a discovery --

Last week (before the latest sickness) I was talking to Jordan about how tired I was feeling. "It should be the easiest part of pregnancy and Porter's sleeping all night (!!) and I'm napping in the afternoons... I feel like I should just feel like a superhero, but I'm suddenly just so tired!"  He immediately suggested maybe I was low on iron, and it was like a ta-da!/magic light bulb moment. (I'm not going crazy, I'm not just being lazy, I'm not just being a wimp... there's a reason!) I've almost always been low in iron through my other pregnancies, (and my diet has been almost completely void of any meat or dark green high iron veggies these days)  but I hadn't had my lab work done yet like I was supposed to and just kind of forgot about it. Jordan took a quick trip to the store and came back with iron capsules and a bag full of carefully chosen high-iron snacks  (shelled pumpkin seeds, roasted almonds, extra dark chocolate...) And by the next day I was feeling much more super-hero-ish :)

(Meaning, when I opened the fridge and saw package of raw hamburger in it, instead of thinking yet again "oh dear, what a waste! I'm never going to get around to cooking it and I'm just going to have to throw it out..."  Instead I opened the fridge and saw the hamburger and pulled it out and cooked it :) (Because that's what a super hero does around here I guess!)

I'm still trying to figure out the right balance of enough iron to help with tiredness without too much that it makes me sick... but It was sure nice to have a reason for feeling so tired (and a sweet husband to force lovingly remind me to take those little iron pills)


And I think everyone is finally just about back to being healthy for now, so I'm excited for a sunny day and  for the weekend ahead!