the comforts of home

Gabriel and I came down with a new cold this rainy, chill morning. Mike volunteered to take Frances to school and so the two of us did something rather unusual. We spent the entire morning at home. The boy is napping now, still pajama-clad, probably dreaming of baseball.

This is what we did:

*colored a cardboard box and pretended it was a basketball hoop, a robot head, and a pirate ship

*sewed together (I added hair to Frances's Gary-the-Monster Halloween costume; Gabriel made grand 3 inch long stitches on some fabric in an embroidery hoop)

*read lots of lots of stories and poems

*ate two lunches, the first at 9:30 am

*talked with Gramma on the phone

*went for a walk in the rain to deliver granola to a friend and jump in puddles

*read lots and lots more stories and poems

Restorative in body and spirit! I'm not sure why it takes a virus to help me sign on to a morning with my dear boy free from work, errands, social dates, gym-going, and general goal-oriented behavior. Goals, I think, are sometimes overrated.

Do you have a sniffle too? Take a sick day! It's a tried and true curative for whatever may ail you, and what's more (as I discovered today), it can serve as a reminder that all sorts of unexpected good and quiet things can happen when we stop trying to make things happen.