Staying Connected to Loved Ones the Cute and Cuddly Way

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone.  #CloudPetsForever #CollectiveBias

 

What do you do when you suddenly find yourself away from a loved one for weeks on end? Changing careers became an obvious choice for us as teaching just wasn’t working out anymore. The change, however, meant Mark had to go to 6 weeks of training before being officially hired. 

 

6 weeks! The longest we’ve ever been apart is maybe 1 full week for him to play with the band at NCAA…and he was not missing me too much during those trips, nor were our kids old enough to really feel the effect of Dad being gone. 

This, though. This has been tough. We moved 1300 miles for the job, and then he went off a couple hundred more to train. The kids are missing their dad immensely, and I’ve found it hard to go to bed at a decent hour while wondering if I should check the door locks a couple more times just to be sure. 

 

One thing the kids have loved (and truly I have too), is that we purchased a very basic television plan. While it’s been fun for them to veg a bit while Mom tries to get work/school/cleaning done, I was not expecting the rush of commercials! 

 

“Mom I don’t know how to make my bed, I need the zipper sheets” – Let me teach you!

“Mom I’ll never take a shower unless I can have cool lights flashing at the same time” – Take a bath!

“Mom we’ll pick up our dirty clothes if it’s a basketball hoop!” – Guess you’ll start to smell stinky!

 

But then. Then there was the one for CloudPets™. A stuffed animal that combined both cuteness with a special way to receive messages from loved ones. And this is what I heard 

 

“Mom we really need a cloud pet so we can send it to Dad and tell him we miss him”.

 

My heart, be still. These kids love and miss their Daddy, and gosh darn so do I. So you know what? We went to Walmart and bought the Kitty CloudPet™. The way this works is you don’t actually send the CloudPet™ as one of my children assumed. No you hang out with it at home, download the free app that goes with it, and invite approved (through the parental controls!), other loved ones who may be far away to send messages to your CloudPet™. Oh and don’t forget to grab the 3 AA batteries it will need.  

Currently CloudPets™ can be found in select Walmart stores, but will soon be available nationwide! We found the pallet display in the kids clothing section of our local store.

Meet Darth Kitty – the kids had to compromise on a name since one just wanted to call her Kitty, and the other wanted Darth Vader. We had a lot of fun figuring out how to get Darth Kitty set up to receive messages, and then we sent Daddy a special invite to start sending messages. You can watch a video and see just how easy the Set Up is.

 

After a successful test run of “Hi Girls…can you hear me? Did this work?” message, he moved on to telling them bedtime stories. He can take time whenever he has a break at work to send the message, and then I choose when to send it to Darth Kitty so all can hear together – usually as a special bedtime bonding time. 

We were getting pretty sad that Dad is missing their first day of school this year. When he was a teacher it was always fun to send them all off together – school and work. But not this year. I’m hoping we’ll find a special message from Darth Kitty next Tuesday morning with some encouraging words that can only come from a Daddy on the first day of school.  

I have a feeling we’ll find with this new job Dad may miss more of the special events then we’re used to. While in the past his schedule has always lined up with the kids, it will now vary from day to night, and include holidays. I’m pretty sure Darth Kitty will be put to good use during those missed occasions. 

How do you stay connected with loved ones?