It’s 9:36am and I am waiting for Nicholas to wake up.� He was up most of the night coughing, shivering with a mild fever.� I rocked him for about thirty minutes in the five o’clock hour this morning.� We both enjoyed the comfort only early morning snuggling can bring.� I’m a bit torn up about him being sick, actually.� His baptism is on Saturday (at long last!) and while I know he will be fine by then, I can’t help but wonder why it is my boys always seem to catch every cough and cold they come across.
They eat a variety of fruits and vegetables, many of them organic.� I give them water to drink, or fresh juice on occasion.� Never any artificial fruit juices and nothing with added sugar, real or not.� The snacks they eat are either made here at home or made with all natural ingredients you can pronounce.� Yesterday I spent five hours making homemade beef stock for the homemade minestrone soup I plan to make tonight for dinner.� Really, I don’t think they can eat more healthy.
We aren’t zealots.� They get fast food several times a month.� Balance is good.
So why are they always sick?� Maybe they aren’t, but it sure does feel that way.� I wonder how they would fare if I let them eat junk food full of colors, preservatives, and chemical ingredients.
9:44 and he is still sleeping.� Not even a peep.
In the meantime, would you like to see what we did this weekend?� We painted the kitchen Oatmeal by Ralph Lauren.� It was a bit dicey finding the paint.� With Ralph Lauren officially discontinued at The Home Depot, I had to travel to the ends of the earth (Moreno Valley) to find just one can.� Still, I’m glad I did it.� The color turned out pretty perfect.� Maybe a touch darker than I had planned, but still quite soothing and lovely.
I love it so much; I want to paint the whole house in this color, including the living room.
9:50am and I hear him coughing in his sleep. Le sigh.
I don’t know if I have ever mentioned my love for oil paintings. I do. Love them, I mean. Especially en masse on a wall. As a child, I always associated oil paintings with long, far reaching ancestral lines. This is my great, great, great grandmother Adelaide. This fox hunting scene belonged to my husband’s great aunt Mildred. This is one of my distant cousins, perhaps from my father’s side. Do you see the resemblance in the eyes? Anyway, it all sounds terribly romantic to someone whose extended family lives tens of thousands of miles away.
{From the book Restoring a House in the City by Ingrid Abramovitch}
On Friday I decided it might be fun to collect some oil paintings. Nothing expensive, and nothing new. It’s the same day I started fiddling with the curtains in the living room and decided to keep the wall color as is, making the room a tone on tone creamy-caramel delight. On Saturday I walked past a rummage sale and saw this oil painting sitting next to a poster of mallard ducks in flight. There was a mallard duck lamp to match, too. I left behind the foul but brought home the $2 oil painting, which is admittedly filthy. I need to google how to clean it properly.� Still, I feel like God is giving me a big thumbs up on Plan G.
I don’t plan to keep it on the mantel. Against our more neutral walls, the painting looks far less orange. We’ll see. Things are always changing around here thanks to my fickle beast of a personality.
What’s this? 10:07am and I think I might hear a certain sick little boy rousing from sleep. True love is calling, so off I go. Have a nice day, everyone.
Wait…..what happened to the dark green in the kitchen? The Oatmeal is beautiful, but I LOVED the dark green direction you were going with. Did you leave the backsplash area dark? (Boy, I’m sounding very nosy here! Sorry about that!)
And this creamy-caramel delight direction that you are taking the living room is really pretty. The painting is a great inspiration piece for the room. I love when God throws me a design direction bone. You can’t really argue with divine intervention! That room is going to be warm and yummy when you are done with it.
Oh no, the dark green is still there and it shall stay! This is just on the back walls and by the door, which I don’t think I ever really showed before.
My kids seem to catch sick bugs right & left. I think my son was ill for 95% of his first 18 months of life (and we are still in recovery from 9 days of rotavirus). We are pretty healthy/ conscientious about food, but I don’t think it makes much difference. If one or both are in school/ daycare, you may as well just stock up on Infant Motrin and hope for the best.
LOVE the oatmeal. But I feel a little queasy with all this talk about RL paint being discontinued at Home Depot. I see the line is being replaced with Martha paint. Bummer.
Ms. Amy, I hear you. RL is my go to paint. Every room in my house is RL paint except one, and I don’t like the color!
Good bye, Polo Green, Oatmeal, Devonshire, and Cameo Pink. You will be missed.
hi there — something to note — if you find a retailer that mixes Mythic paint (zero VOC and utterly fantastic paint) they can mix any Ralph Lauren paint color. It’s pre-loaded into their fancy mixing computers. Our Mythic retailer stocks RL chips (probably lifted from Home Depot…) so I can mix to my heart’s delight.
Love the wall color. And the painting.
And I agree with others. It seems to be part of having young kids. We are sick from September – March or April every year, non-stop I feel.
I love that paint colour so much!! I wonder how much luck I would have colour matching RL paint in Australia. Hmmm, a project for me…..
I agree with you about the kids seeming to be sick all the time. Mine seem to be growing out of it finally….
Jules, It is very normal for your kids to get sick often, it s nothing that you are or not doing, it is all about their immune system, as they get older their immune system will strengthen and get sick less often. Infections are transmitted by them always putting their hands and objects into their mouths. Also some infections are spread by droplets that can spread thru the air directly into another person that includes respiratory droplets (the commom cold).. Once that person touches his eyes or mouth, he can be infected. Have them wash their hands frequently, especially after using the bathroom and before eating for sure. I hope you find this helpful. Parents were physicians so this is what I was always told :) Have a great day !!
I’m sorry the baby is not feeling well, the only thing I can think is that gluten allergy:( The walls look great and I love the idea of an oil painting collection. Happy hunting!!!
Weird as it sounds, Jules – be happy he’s getting sick now (as long as it’s not serious sick) as opposed to when he is in school and will miss a lot of time. When my Ross was in daycare he was getting sick all the time – that’s what they do, as Esther pointed out above, especially when they put hands to mouth, etc.. Now as he is older and has also caught his fair share of the innumerable common colds, etc… he is not nearly as sick as often as his classmates in Kindergarten. It’s a combo of the immune system getting better/stronger and the fact that, as in colds, you never catch the same cold twice, etc. Not much comfort though, to a mom of a sick little one. Hope he feels better soon!
Hope the baby feels better. I have a bunch of oil paintings my Grandmother did and I want to get them reframed. Hit me up if you figure out a way to do that and it doesn’t cost a fortune. And love the paint.
I just realized this year that my kids are not always sick anymore. Every winter it felt as if between my four kids I was home with someone EVERY week. I hate to tell you they are 20,17,15 and 11. Yes, I think they are FINALLY immune to many of the cold and flu viruses that kids get once they go to school. My second daughter was getting sick constantly as a baby because my first would bring every germ home from school. The doctor told me, “Just wait ’til the third one.” Guess what? My third daughter hardly ever got sick, or if she did she weathered it quite well.
I think it just depends on the child. Either way, it will get better as they get older and their immune system gets stronger. You are doing nothing wrong. Sometimes no matter how much we wash their hands, or how healthy their diet is, they get sick. Short of putting them in a bubble there isn’t much you can do, other than use common sense. As my mom always told me, “This too will pass.”
P.S. Love the kitchen color!
Been lurking, but wanted to chime in here…
First of all, I love it that you went out in search of oil paintings because you like them – it’s nice to surround yourself with things you love.
and…
I asked the same thing about one of my girls. I asked the Dr. about it, too since I felt I was doing everything right to avoid colds and illness – and she said “Imagine how sick she’d be if you didn’t do all that?” So – I guess it’s a matter of perspective – you’re just doing the best you can and their immunity will get stronger and stronger over time.
Thanks for all the “pick me ups” everyone! :) Nicholas is still sick, and his cough is soooo bad. :( Hopefully he will get better before his baptism on Saturday! :(
Love the kitchen! And praying that Nicholas will be well before his baptism…