When you're too sick to go to church

Sunday morning at breakfast time, Collin announced that his stomach hurt.  Though he was acting perfectly normal, he was adamant that it did not hurt just a smidge, but a whole lot.  I was pretty suspicious when he assured me that it didn't hurt so much to turn down a cinnamon roll, but that he was too sick for church.  We talked about it at length, if there was a reason he didn't want to go to church, how the whole family was dressed and ready to go, how disappointed we'd be if Collin stayed home and suddenly felt better.  But because there's been a bad stomach bug going around, we decided not to be the family that brought it to church, and the kids and Cas stayed home.  

As part of our discussion, we thoroughly explained to Collin that if he was too sick for church, he was too sick to play in the backyard or go swimming later in the afternoon.  And of course he was fully recovered from his non-existent illness by the early afternoon and extremely disappointed that we were sticking to our guns about no swimming.  Initially we hung out calmly with a big book - 

And used the book to play peek-a-boo with Maya - 

The faker -

Reaching a compromise, we picked up all the toys in the living room to fill the rug with pillows from the couches.  Maya thought it was a scream -

Taking a rest from her pillow climb -

Tickles from Collin -

I love watching them play together -

Happy girl - 

Silly, and clearly healthy boy, leaping off the couch to the pillow pile - 

Do you see the little tear in her eye?  Push-over Mommy handed off my cellphone to keep my teething girl from melting down -

We made a trade for her toy phone from Alex and Coady as soon as I could distract her -

Later in the afternoon, Maya and I went for a swim but Collin had to stay inside.  He told me, "I'm so angry at you, I just want to crush you."  While we're glad he was using words to express emotion, we still have a ways to go on tone and respectful words!