This is a Happenin' Place!

I have realized that lately I have really only blogged about the challenging side of the kiddos, especially Miss Ailey.  Shame on me!  There are so many sweet things that she does!  This past week has been a challenge because Ailey had a fever starting Tuesday night and it escalated to 103+ with us going in to see the doctor Thursday night.  He confirmed what I thought it was - croup.  Yuck!  I had noticed her breathing becoming labored in the early morning hours on Thursday and researched it online and it was the most fitting explanation.  She is the first of the kids to get that.  Poor baby, I took her to co-op and just kept her with me the whole time because I didn't want her sharing whatever it was and she was a trooper!  (I honestly thought at first that is was due to the vaccinations she had gotten last week.  All the kids have a delayed reaction in one way or another to them, so I just concluded that is what the fever was due to.)  One of the other moms held her and let her go and watch sharks being dissected in the older kids' biology class and she was apparently very interested in all of that.  She's curious about most things, which I think is where the challenge for now comes in.  I think as she gets older it will definitely turn into a gift!  Anyway, I believe it was Thursday, early evening, I found her in her room playing with all the cook stuff while she was supposed to be taking a nap and she looked up at me and said in her sweet little girl voice, "I'm cooking, do you want to come and play with me?"  Well, I couldn't pass up that invitation!  I love it!  We sat and fixed quite a feast!  She's also super cuddly when she doesn't feel good and lots of times when she does and she's been so very cuddly and sweet.  She keeps coming and asking to hold me or Sam.  We've also found that a lot of the trouble we've had lately of getting her to go to sleep at night is her just not wanting to feel alone.  We did have her sleeping in the boys' room, but she and Zekey and many times Braden kept each other awake for HOURS and that was just NOT working.  We put her back in her room and now laying down with her until she gets settled and then leaving the door open a crack so she's not all the way shut off seems to be just what she needs.  Yay!  Sam keeps commenting how different girls are from boys. :)  Its so true, though!  The boys actually prefer the dark and the door closed all the way.  When my sister and I were little, we liked the door open and I remember when we would go stay with my granny that she would lay down on the pallet on the floor with us until we were asleep or nearly so, so that we wouldn't be scared.  Anyway, she's responding better.  Yay! She's also been super helpful and willing to assist me.  She especially loves to do the dishes.  Well, she likes to make a huge watery mess, while I do the dishes, but she has been wanting to do everything I do.  So sweet!

Yesterday, we had a Toby Mac cleaning day.  I put on Toby Mac songs and we cleaned up some of the house.  We had an impromptu dance party and at one point I was in the kitchen at the counter doing something and Braden came up beside me gyrating all funny and said, "C'mon, Mom!"  So, we had some dancin' to do!  It was so funny!  He's always doing something like that and sadly, my sorry memory forgets before I can get it written down on here!  Hoping to do better with that.

Poor Zekey had a horrible earache last night.  I really, really hate it when Zekey doesn't feel good.  Most of the time he suffers in silence and it takes a while to even figure out that he's not doing okay.  He's not usually vocal about it.  BUT, there are times when he feels absolutely rotten and then he does vocalize it and it just breaks my heart and I start crying with him!  Last night was one of those times.  He deals with majorly bad allergies and it goes from normally yuck to terribly yuck in a matter of hours for him.  He was sort of congested yesterday and then it got upped to the next level and he started talking about his ear hurting.  He started crying and pacing all over the house and telling his ear that it was a bad ear.  He couldn't get any sort of relief.  I tried to give him a warm compress, which helped a little, but not for any length of time. :(  I also gave him motrin, which didn't seem to do diddley-squat!  I got him into the shower which helped all the while he was in there, but the minute he was out, he was in pain again!  So, I got online and looked up what else I could do!  I knew about the onion and garlic oil drops because I'd tried that with him when he had an ear infection before, but it didn't seem to do much for him at the time.  This time, however, we weren't dealing with an infection, but an ache because of sudden pressure build-up, so I fixed up some oil, dropped it in and then massaged down his lymph nodes in his neck.  I gave him a warm compress again, this time putting a baggie of hot water and wrapped it in a warm, wet wash cloth.  It stayed warm longer.  Progress!  I also added some claritin in the mix.  He was still feeling yuck up to bed time and it had been a while since the motrin, so I gave him Tylenol to help with the pain and inflammation.  He went to sleep pretty quickly and only woke up once during the night.  It seemed that his ear was already better when he woke up, so he went back to sleep and had been his normal chipper self since he got up this morning!  I was praying LOTS concerning healing this week and know that the Lord was with us every step of the way and totally had his healing hand on this family!  Thank you, Healer!  In case anyone wants it, here is the website I got some really good earache info from.

Brea is definitely crawling now, although she does revert back to the belly flop and scootch on occasion.  She also sat up all by herself last night for several seconds before returning to crawling.  She's be in crawl position and then stopping and plopping to one side propped up by one arm plenty lately.  It was just a matter of time before she sat all the way up by herself. :)

Today is shaping up to be a very good day.  Praise the Lord from whom all blessing flow!  Love you, God!