The Croup and the Couch

So it's been kind of a rough month for us and I haven't felt much like writing about it.  Here's recap so hopefully we can push past these bumpy weeks.

Drew had his 10-month birthday, so of course Tess insisted a party was in order.  We told her it was just a little birthday, so we only had a little celebration.  We had chocolate ice cream and Tess made Drew a card.

We had a fun zoo day with friends, which sounded like a good idea.  But in retrospect....[insert foreshadowing here].

  Danielle and Tess

 Tess came home and wanted to make her own zoo.

Then Dipsy came for a visit!  Hooray, hooray!  Tess loves her Dispy and I was hoping a fun visit would lighten the mood around here.

We started in on a usual fast-paced Dipsy visit with the mission:  "Find Miriam a new couch!   Pronto!"  Surprisingly, we found something we liked at the first store we visited.  Tess had a meltdown at the store because she would miss her red couch with the holes.  She hid under a coffee table and cried.

That night Tess came down with a 103 degree fever and I knew she had caught the croup from a friend at the zoo.  It kept getting worse and worse until she completely lost her voice and was pretty listless, and we were essentially housebound for the rest of the trip. Not the funnest vacation ever, but I was glad to have Mom to help with the kids because Tess was very sick. 

Hey, that's not a red couch that Tess is passed out on!  We may have been housebound, but that didn't stop us from completing our mission!

One last kids-on-the-red-couch picture.

 A picture for Tess so she can sit on our new couch and look at pictures of the old red couch.  

And here it is!  I keep waiting for a time when the house is all picked up and put neatly away so that I can take a better picture, but that just hasn't happened yet.  I'll let you know when it does.

So Tess was sick a good solid week and we had a lot of downtime.  She's better though, but still tired from being sick.  When she asks to take a nap everyday, I know she's still not 100%.

Kind of sad because this is our FAVORITE time of year.  The days have been golden and beautiful (from what I hear).  We planned activities for the weekend, but instead spent it fighting off one Tess tantrum after another. We were finally able to make cookies late Saturday night.

But Drewie's been sick too.  This is not my usual happy-go-lucky boy.  He's starting to feel better now.  I'm giving us until Monday to get all our grumps out and then we are going to be the shiny-happy Higginbotham family again!