Home sick

It's tough to school when sickness hits the home.

In the wee hours Sunday morning Gabby started puking. She had gone to bed not feeling well. It started with a bad stomach ache at her swim meet. She almost went home early, but persevered. It was around 4 in the morning when Max and I heard her in the bathroom. (Yay! She made it to the bathroom!) I cleaned her up and sent her back to bed with towels and a bowl. She threw up one more time maybe an hour later. I stayed home from church to take care of her.

All day her tummy hurt but she managed to keep water down until just before bedtime. Then one more vomit. Poor kid, she always cried "No!" when she throws up. As though some evil person is torturing her.

That was it, except for a lingering stomach ache.

Yesterday, we didn't do much for school. I read a couple sections aloud from the biology text. I encouraged her to read more in House of the Scorpion but she said reading made her feel worse.
Now it is Tuesday. Gabby's stomach still hurts on and off and I would say her mood is fairly sour. Again I read a couple biology sections to her. She will finish the pages I've assigned in House of the Scorpion, but I'm afraid I won't get her to do more.

If she was in public school I would have kept her home yesterday and today. Bri would have brought her school work. I'd have expected her to be caught up after 3-4 days.
It feels harder to "catch up" with homeschool, though. Each day we do the maximum that we can do. (Or that I can get her to do, depending on how you look at it). She's not a particularly fast worker. She's actually pretty slow -- smart, definitely, not at all lazy, just needing more time. I guess you could call her thorough and careful, a perfectionist.

Those qualities always made bricks and mortar school hard. Gabby felt frustrated with how much time she needed to complete assignments and afraid to bring in anything less than perfect. What child can do 3 hours of homework a night?

Homeschooling has changed things. I feel like a weight has lifted from us. The homework/school project/this things is due when? weight. Now I allow her as much time as she wants to complete assignments. I think we do less of some kinds of work than the children over at the middle school. We never do busy-work, for example. But we do more projects, reading, and discussing.

If I get get Gabby to do a math chapter assessment and take a few notes for her biology project, I'd consider the day a success. Even with no geography or any language arts besides reading. But I'm not sure I can make it happen, though. And should it really matter? I don't know.

But I'm looking around the house and I can tell you the situation is not good. I haven't done laundry, dishes, or cleaned at all today. Apparently Gabby is not the only one who doesn't feel up to working.