A Sick Day Without the Telly.

Rhayn is sick. I am keeping her home from school today. Not a big deal right? She can lay on the couch and watch movies while she rests. Normally this would be the case. Not today, she is actually grounded from the tv for a week. (She has lost her radio privileges, too.) It may seem harsh to have her grounded from both, but I am sick of being lied to.

I asked Rhayn to clean the trash out of the back seat of our truck. I was planning on trading vehicles with Will and driving our car so I wanted the girls' stuff out of the back seat. She went out for a few minutes then came back in. "Are you done, Rhayn?" "Yes" "Is the back seat area clean?" "Yes."

I went outside to check, because I have had to resort to that. She had only shoved the trash in the pocket in the back of the seat and under the seats. I had actually pulled all of those same items out from under the seats before I asked her to clean. Which means I knew exactly what was back there, she hadn't even brought one item in to throw away. I called her to come out so that I could show her what she had done wrong. I told her that because she lied to me there would be consequences. Then I walked into the house and discussed it with Will.

We decided to first take away her radio/cd player privileges for one week for not doing the job. Then we would ask her what she thought was a fair consequence for lying. First she said "Not going outside" then "Not playing with Gwennie." Um, yeah right, I am going to ground her from playing with her sister? Ha. Finally she said "The tv, not watching the tv." Perfect.

But today I am struggling with how to make her rest while she is sick without allowing her to watch tv or listen to her cd player (she likes audio books and is currently listening to Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.)

In some ways I think that not allowing her to watch any tv for a week is really good for her, its beneficial, because instead of being able to turn on the tv Monday night, Will played piano with her, teaching her the first line of Good King Wencelas which is her current favorite song to sing. (Last year it was We Three Kings.) She mastered the first line and the second line is basically the same. Then I taught her the third line and she has been playing it over and over. I am not sure how to explain to her to play with more than one finger, but she is doing it and enjoying it.

It isn't even 9:30 and I am struggling with getting her to rest. I think it would have been ok to send her to school, but her cough is really wet and she had a low grade fever every night this week. She says her throat hurts, this morning saying it felt like it was very small and hard for her to swallow. I only hope that she is better, because I feel terrible for her. And I really want to go to Handwork tomorrow (as does Gwennie.)