This past Monday, Aiden stayed home from school. He had been up all night with (yet another) tummy ache. The real person who needed a day off was mom who didn’t get any sleep from 10:30 until almost 2. Poor (ACL-surgery-recovering) dad took the shift at 2 and ended up downstairs sleeping on the couch for the night once poor Aiden finally dozed off. He was actually feeling fine in the morning, but I was worried about sending him given that he’s been to the nurse around 5 times in the past few weeks with stomach aches in the afternoons (the pediatrician thinks it’s his body getting back to normal after a bad bout of tummy issues 2 weeks ago and we’re trying a variety of things including no milk & sugar for a while). Anyway, I told him that he was, by no means, spending the day on the couch playing video games. I was VERY pleasantly surprised by how he spent his day.

• Aiden and Brady built trick-tracks in the front hallway for most of the morning
• Aiden played in the playroom with magna tiles and other toys for a while alone
• While I went to volunteer in Logan’s class (daddy was at the house working), he took Kona for a walk, played outside in the back yard and was making himself a waffle snack (sugar-free syrup and peanut butter) when I returned:

• He built this floor puzzle for a while and then worked with the activity book. For a kid who LOVES LOVES LOVES his ipad and minecraft, this was quite an accomplishment. I don’t think he even touched an electronic device once all day! Go Aiden!

I’ll go ahead and include this picture here because, on Aiden’s day off, Brady had a doctor’s appointment in the afternoon to have his eyes dilated. He is *slightly* more far-sighted than other kids his age (who are all apparently far-sighted because their eyes are small and still growing). The doctor wanted us to come back after we had his initial screening last week and have his eyes dilated to see if internal structures looked healthy (which they do). No glasses needed for now and hopefully he outgrows the issue. Because the eyes don’t return to normal for at least 3 hours, they are very sensitive to sunlight and, therefore, require the use of these super-awesome space wrap-arounds! I have to say that Brady was VERY brave. His doctor (Mr. “no chair-side manner or personality WHAT-SO-EVER”) failed to mention that the first of 3 drops he gave Brady in each eye, “feels like soap in your eyes”. Awesome!!!! Thanks for the heads-up on that one! Brady was quite sad about the stinging and asked in a small voice to go home while wrapping his arms around me and clinging on for dear life. After a couple hugs and some reassurance that the worst was over, he powered through the next 2 drops and did GREAT!