The Common Cold

What Do You Do With A Cold?

I woke up Monday morning with a stuffy nose and thought to myself, "No, I won't have this!" I took vitamin C all day, drank lots of fluids, and went about my day thinking that I would get over it. By evening I was looking for the Alka-Seltzer Plus cold medicine and the tissues. You know how it goes.

Tuesday I sat on the couch and surfed the internet, caught up with email & FB friends, and played with some
new Apps, but eventually got bored. This reminded me of the many days I spent home from school as a kid recovering from colds and childhood illnesses. How did mothers divert their children's attention from uncomfortable symptoms and keep them busy before computers, cell phones and tablets?

For my mom it was an endless supply of craft projects that kept me focused and occupied. She had a box that was full of emergency tools, ideas & materials like:

1. Ribbon of all sorts
2. Buttons
3. Beads
4. Fabric scraps
5. Felt
6. Needle & thread
7. Glue
8. Scissors
9. Sequins
10. Pins
11. Styrofoam balls
12. Popsicle sticks
13. Pipe Cleaners
14. Paper of all sort
15. Pencils & pens
16. Colored pencils
17. Markers
18. Bottle caps
19. Corks
20. Craft magazines, other magazines

I could go on, but you get the picture. One perpetual project that we were always working on was Christmas ornaments. To this day my tree is full of hand made ornaments from when I was a sick at home child (It's true I haven't taken my tree down yet). Still, making ornaments can get boring too. So here's a list of the various types of projects that came out of the emergency craft box:

1. Doll clothes
2. Paper dolls & paper clothes
3. Felt Mice dolls
4. Small stuffed animals
5. Doll accessories
6. Doll house furniture & accessories
7. Hair accessories
8. Jewelry
9. Drawings
10. Collage
11. Clothing designs
12. Clothing decoration
13. Purses & handbags
14. Home decor plans

How do you distract your kids on sick days, other than with electronic devices?