Summer School Holidays: Week Six ~ Healing Wound, Photography and Books

The summer holidays always seem to fly past and this year is no exception. Here we are at the very last week of our summer break. We even took an extra week off and they still went fast. Most public and private schools will be starting these school year sometime this week, after the Australia Day Public holiday on Tuesday, but starting a school year in the middle of the week is hard so we generally don't attempt it anymore. It works much better for the boys and me to start fresh on a Monday with a full week in front of us.

The Munchkin's leg and foot continue to heal despite ceasing his round of antibiotics on the Friday morning previous. I texted these photos to our family doctor and when I didn't hear anything back, took that to mean he was happy with the progress and we didn't need to attend his clinic for a review appointment.

I made a concerted attempt this week to get outside and take some photographs. I always enjoy photography after some rain!

By Saturday it became apparent that there were still some issues with Munchkin... but this time only in his foot! By the time we noticed that the issue was something more than just one simple mosquito bite on the bottom of his foot (that dark scab in the middle of his arch) our doctor was closed for the weekend. So the plan was to watch him carefully through the weekend and go back to the doctor Monday morning...

Munchkin spent a LOT of his last week of holidays reading...

We finished Auggie & Me as our read aloud, and Monster finished The Secret World of Wombats as his independent read for the week. 

Munchkin reads a LOT... the remaining photos are ALL books that he read independently through the week. He probably spends a minimum of two hours per day reading!

Summer School Holidays: Week Five ~ Infections and Books

What a wild and crazy week this turned out to be. Despite Munchkin's scratched leg looking really good when they arrived home from camping Friday lunch time last week, it all went downhill from Saturday. Friday evening during his bath he scrubbed all the scabs off, and then they spent all afternoon Saturday in our friend's pool. So by Sunday morning we had some issues...

By late Sunday afternoon the scratches were oozing and I didn't feel comfortable waiting to see our family doctor Monday morning so hubby took him to an after hours GP clinic at the hospital. They diagnosed that it was indeed infected and started him on a course of antibiotics. Just to be on the safe side I made an appointment first thing Monday morning with the nurse at our doctor's clinic. When our doctor saw his leg his initial response was "WHOA" so that confirmed the seriousness of it.

He was happy with the antibiotic the hospital prescribed but simply raised the dosage from three times per day to four times per day. Then he asked to see us Friday morning for a review. Meanwhile, Nurse Donna drew a black line all around the redness on his leg so we could confirm that the infection was resolving and responding to the antibiotics.

Next came the fun of keeping him distracted (the itching was insane) and preventing him from touching the wound. There was much TV watching and extra computer playing happening through the week.

This photo was taken Tuesday morning and clearly showed that the redness was shrinking and therefore the infection was improving and responding to the antibiotics well.

These photos were taken Friday and our family doctor was very pleased with how the wounds were healing. So we were given strict instructions to watch the wounds carefully over the weekend as he finished his last dose of antibiotics Friday morning. Our doctor was pretty sure he wouldn't need another course of antibiotics, but wanted to monitor carefully for a few days to make sure Munchkin's body continued the healing process without the aid of the antibiotics.

As if the infection wasn't enough, we had our second big heatwave begin the end of this week with the weather heating up slowly as the week progressed, and HOT temperatures forecast for the weekend. So after our doctor's appointment I spent Friday batch cooking food so I wouldn't have to use anything other than the microwave through the worst of the heat.

Two independent reads for Monster for the week...

We finished the last of the Pippi books this week as well...

Independent chapter book selections for Munchkin... along with TV and computer, reading also kept him well distracted from his infected leg.

Some fun picture book reads that Munchkin found at the library on Thursday.

Summer School Holidays: Week Four ~ Vacation Time and Belated Celebrations

I got an AMAZING birthday present from my husband and my brother-in-law. They decided to take the five boys camping and offered me the opportunity to stay home alone for five days and four nights! I jumped at the chance and planned to work on projects and things that need near silence and little interruption. So enjoy three parts to this post... photos of the projects and work that I did while home alone...

Photos of the boys enjoying the beautiful campground and surrounding beach area...

And photos or our lovely belated Christmas and birthday celebration with a dear friend of ours to finish off the week.

To start off, I was plant sitting. Munchkin had planted several things a few days before they left (see previous blog post) and I was made to promise that I would look after them and water them if necessary. His radish thrived while he was gone...

I set up a new puzzle on the dining table as I knew I wouldn't be using it for eating. Towards the end of the week I abandoned this puzzle and started a different one though. I just wasn't enjoying this puzzle AT ALL and life is just too short for that.

I had all my books stacked on the makeshift table I've created next to my chair. Each day I made sure to read some for one or two of these books. 

My evening project was to sort Legos. If you look carefully you will see a purple box on the right-hand side of the photo full to overflowing. When the boys have played with Lego they dump anything they don't need anymore into that box and the IDEA is that the box gets sorted BEFORE it is full to overflowing. But first we needed new tubs so we could make a 2nd box for black, grey and white. So each night I would watch several episodes of Friends while doing the sorting.

More plant excitement when I noticed that the Bok Choy had sprouted and hubby's chili plant had ripe chilies on it.

The Lego sorting chore got finished in just two nights I think. Now all the Legos are sorted back into the colour box system that works well for us. All that is left to deal with (in the purple box) is a small container of minifigs and studs (rectangle box) and the random stuff I found that doesn't even belong with the Legos (orange bowl).

We got some MUCH needed rain towards the end of the week...

Meanwhile... halfway through the week hubby posted on Facebook that Munchkin had slipped and fallen on some rocks and scraped up his leg pretty well.

I enjoyed playing around with my photography on my phone camera. I much prefer my large DSL camera but every once in awhile I take the plunge and play around with the camera on my phone. I was pretty pleased with this photo I took after the rainstorm from above.

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The next series of photos below are taken by my brother-in-law and they are included to show you some of the fun the five boys had together.

They really enjoyed their first ever camping trip.

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Meanwhile, I thoroughly enjoyed my five days of solitude, BUT I did learn some valuable lessons about myself. First of all, though I was not afraid to be alone, the nights were hard. I realized I have NEVER slept entirely alone since moving to Australia 20 years ago and therefore I had tremendous difficulties sleeping at night, and it got worse each night rather than better. Secondly, at my core I am an extroverted people person and five days of complete solitude is TOO much. In the future, should I get such a long stretch of time alone again, I need to plan a lunch date or coffee date on at least one day with some friends. I was more than ready to have my men home by the time they walked in the door around midday on Friday.

Saturday we headed to a dear friends house for lunch, belated Christmas and my birthday celebrations, and the boys enjoyed an afternoon spent in their pool. They took full advantage of the beautiful weather and were in the water for easily four hours. Monster surprised me by spending some time helping Munchkin with his swimming skills, while Monkey worked on his swimming skills on his own in another part of the pool. They also spent lots of time playing with the diving toys.

Two of the beautiful plants that were in bloom in my friend's backyard.

All three boys were blessed with wonderful presents that our friends put much thought and effort into. They always find the perfect gifts for each boy's personality and interests.

I just sat back and had fun capturing their facial expressions...

Monster was quite happy with his selection of gifts...

Monkey was blessed with some wonderful art supplies and his facial expressions were just classic.

All of the book selections this week are independent choices of Munchkin's.