It’s been a long week around here.  It always seems like just when we almost get in a groove, something else happens to knock us on our butts.  So last week we started school.  And we were just starting to get on a roll.  Then this week happened.

Monday school was a disaster.  Just one of “those” days.  We finally got the kids in bed that night, and an hour or so later the oldest called to us, panicked, “Mom!  MOM!  Caleb’s choking!”  He wasn’t really choking exactly.  Turns out, he has croup, but at the time we thought he was having an asthma attack.  He hadn’t really had any signs of a “cold,”  and this first coughing fit was more gasping for air than actual coughing.  So we had a 911 call and, ultimately, a trip to the emergency room.  (Thankfully, no ambulance ride was needed.  A whiff of lemon essential oil did amazing things to open up his airways so he was “just”  wheezing and not struggling for breath, and we could take him in his own familiar carseat.)

We got home at about 3:30 in the morning and, needless to say, were more than a bit short on sleep.  Thankfully, he hasn’t had any real difficulty breathing since that first time (just sounds bad – that croupy cough sounds awful even when it’s not bad), but we still haven’t gotten much sleep all week.

Littlest Pet Shop

Then last night Livia came down with a fever.  She was feverish all day today – and yet most of the day she seems to have felt pretty much “herself.”  This is good – sort of.  But it means it’s pretty hard to keep her fairly restful.  We were blessed to have sweet older girls who were really good about playing kindly with her today.  Ariel asked what she wanted to do, and she said, “play Pets.”  By which she meant “Littlest Pet Shop” pets.

We have some pretty new ones.  As a BzzAgent, I was sent a package with some of the newest variety of pets.  I can’t remember what they’re called, but the girls like them because they have a lot of options for customization.  They tell me you can switch the heads around from body to body.  (I think that’s weird, but they think it’s cool.)  They have little hairbow-type thingies that can be switched out.  And even the “houses” have these walls with spots to “plug in”  all these little doodads.  I don’t know what to call them.  They’re little decoration things – kind of like charms or something, I guess.

The only downside is that these newer pets are not very “younger sibling”-friendly, because there are so many teeny-tiny pieces.  But we found a good way to store all the little doodads.  They fit great inside a plastic baby food “tub.”  And because it has a lid, they don’t spill and the tub can easily be tossed into a bin with everything else.  (You could probably use a glass baby food jar, too, but it’s hard to reach into.)