when the going gets tough

last week was a little rough.

esther margaret ran a very high fever for three days. the only times she would get up was if she saw me eating cheese or the little einstein's theme song came on.

claire got into another fight and had her third brush with death in a year.

amid the chaos, i didn't realize that our house was getting so filthy it looked and smelled like a barn. by the end (they are both fine), our dining table was covered in unfinished projects, tools, bicycle parts, syringes and medicine for claire, and everything that our very cranky and sick child would want to grab and put in her mouth. the floors, after not being swept for a week living with four dogs and constant in and out traffic, looked like a dusty bacterial carpet was starting to form over the wood. the washer was full of things either stained by urine or vomit. it was so dirty that it kind of looked like either you were in the house of someone really insane and old or you were in the projects.

now that things are back to normal, the house is clean again and esther margaret no longer looks like a miniature woolly mammoth after she's been walking around the house.