Dress Up

On Valentine's Day, we opened a box from Phil's parents that included a robe his grandma had made for him as a boy. Jadon commandeered it immediately and went around as Obi Wan Kenobi. This reminded me of the dress up box, in deep storage since we moved. I uncovered it at last, and the boys were amazed at the array of textures and colors.

Jadon preferred a face mask with pirate hat; Isaiah liked various scarves and wraps as turbans. After we watched a clip of Superman, Abraham and Joe happily put on (and took off—over and over) Superman outfits.

This was a good thing, as I came down with the never-ending cold yesterday and hardly left the bed. I got in some good reading to the boys (since a mother's work is never done), and some good reading for myself, in between naps. Happily, I felt better today. (Or, as Phil said, "You look like you are alive now. Yesterday you looked ... dead.")

Phil, though, has the lingering cold from a very bad place. Today, the sixth day, he still was not really back to himself.

Yesterday he had gone out to do some light work pulling fencing, and noticed the clutch was slipping. I don't know much about cards, but that didn't sound good. He and the older boys tried to bleed the hydraulic system for the clutch, but it didn't quite go as it should.

After some internet research, he came across a piece of advice that said to pump the clutch 500 times. "You'll feel like an idiot even past 350 pumps, but somewhere around 400, you'll start to feel a change." So Phil went up and pumped the clutch 700 times, and, sure enough, it was working better at the end than it had before he started working on it.