My daughter is home sick from school, nothing too terrible, but enough to justify a day or two of taking it easy (and hopefully not infecting others.) The rule in our house though, is that unless you are incapacitated by illness (or passing a kidney stone which, unfortunately one of our kids did this weekend) you have to get up and move.
No one gets to spend the day in bed, just because you have the sniffles. It’s always been clear to me – the more you act sick, the more sick you will act.
So, I make mild to moderately sick kids get out of their beds and at the very least, dress in comfortable clothes and come downstairs to get something to eat and watch TV or a movie. And if I don’t think they are moving enough I give them “chores” to do. (It’s not that I’m such a mean mom, but one of the problems my asthmatic kids can get into is lung trouble when they don’t move around enough and force deep breaths during illness.)
This morning, I asked Addy to go out to the hen house to get a few chicken photos for me.
On the way, she grabbed the jar of freeze dried meal worms from the counter. She figured that if she gave the birds some of the treats, they would then politely pose for a photo in exchange.
What Addy didn’t realize was that chickens *love* meal worms and while she did get photos of the chickens, she quickly discovered that no posing goes on when meal worms are anywhere in the picture.
That’s okay, if she’s still home tomorrow, I’ll send Addy out to the coop for more photos, but this time, I’ll tell her that instead of meal worms, a soft voice and a gentle touch will most likely get her all the posing she wants.
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Wendy Thomas writes about the lessons learned while raising children and chickens in New Hampshire. Contact her at [email protected]
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