An Apple a Day

Our oldest has been learning about colors this month.

Colors and apples.

On Friday's, we get a folder sent home containing some of his artwork and every week it's a new apple, a new color.

The first week he brought home a coloring sheet of an apple which he had dutifully colored orange.

'Orange?' I thought musing over the coloring sheet. 'That's not right. Apples aren't orange.'

But why not? In art, we can color things whatever way we want; purple elephants, green suns, red bananas even orange apples.

His next two apples were 'normal'; a Macintosh red and a Granny Smith green.

Then he came home with the apple above- little red paper squares clinging to the body of the apple in the appropriate place, apple leaf and stem colored with a waxy green crayon.

'Too perfect.' I thought looking at how none of the squares strayed far from 'inside the lines'.

Even so, I love it because it was made by my little boy; his miniature hands pressed the squares to the dots of glue and he grasped the crayon and wielded it to the paper to add vibrancy and color to the top.

Too bad this apple can't really keep the doctor away like that old adage says...

Peyton was sick at the beginning of the month over Labor day weekend. I thought we had dodged it too until last Thursday when I came down with the worst sore throat (that wasn't strep) ever.

Then came the horrible headaches that couldn't be relieved even by Tylenol.

The loss of taste and smell...

Sneezes that started from the tips of my toes and were blasted out my nose.

And lots and lots of tissue balled up and used; in my robe, on my bedside table, a square tucked into my jeans pocket and some in the cup holder of the truck for good measure.

Yesterday Chloe started getting it too. Her eyes were watering unceasingly and have remained puffy and swollen. Her delicate voice today is scratchy and deep.

So we've been hunkering down the last few days just trying to feel and get better.

Thankfully, I'm on the upswing now. I'm just watching and waiting for Chloe to get well soon too.

Meanwhile, maybe Peyton and I will go color some paper apples. I'm thinking turquoise might be a fun color to start with...

P.S. Colors according to Peyton:

Red: Fred

Orange: Oh-ranch

Yellow: Yeh-yoh

Green: Gween

Blue: Boo

Purple: Pur-pur