Super Baby!

Is it a cat? Is it a teakettle? No! It's Super Baby! Able to cry at the drop of a hat and thonk her head the moment you look away!

Yeah, thonk. If you have kids then you know the sound I'm describing. That sound that makes you hold your breath, hoping against hope it won't be followed by the wail of agony. Or *THONK* nervous laugh and BIG smile in hopes it will convince them, that didn't hurt. It was hilarious, not painful. PLEASE giggle, please, baby, please!

It feels like I can't go ten minutes these days without a thonk. I set her down to crawl and before my back is fully turned, thonk. She just started truly crawling a couple of weeks ago, yet she is already convinced it's not enough. No, I must walk. No, not eventually. Now!

She's pulling up on everything. Including the things like drawers and doors. Hate to tell you, but those move, kid. Not good candidates for supporting your weight.

Eight months and she was crawling circles around the two older babies in the waiting room of gymnastics this morning. This kid will be running soon. I suppose you have to when you're the youngest of four.

The Day My Laptop Died

I love my cats. I love my cats. I love my cats......

*#@$)*@#$&)@#&)@#**#)$(!#)_@#%*!#)$&%!)#!!!!!!!!!!

I. Love. My. CATS......

Despite my bleeding thigh and now ruined laptop.  Anyone know a cheap repair shop?

Pretty Birdies

Life's too serious. Here, let's look at some chickens.

 "Mom! Slow down!"

 "Did you say worms?"

  "I feel pretty. Oh, so pretty."

 "Dude! What's that on your neck!"

 "Put your left leg in! Put your left leg out!"

I'm torn on the caption for this one. What do you think?

Normal?

What is normal? And is it really necessary?


We got in to the occupational therapist months ahead of schedule. They had a cancellation. I had been clear that I could drop everything and be there at an hour's notice. They believed me! So we got in (fortunately with more than an hour's notice) and everything went fairly well at the evaluation. I've not got the report back yet though. She said it is pretty lengthy.... hmm..... yeah, that makes me feel better.

She did, of course, recommend we come in for weekly therapy. The first appointment was this week. I asked her if she could screen Tamarin for motor based issues and she agreed to let all the kids play for a little while together since she wanted to see how Howler interacts with her sisters anyway.

Release the hounds! That poor girl (who probably isn't that much younger than me, honestly, but probably has no kids) looked incredibly overwhelmed. After about fifteen minutes of observation she asked me, "Which one was it you were worried about?" In that very obvious, I can't tell because they all are abnormal, kind of voice.

I did admit there are plenty of times my household is chaos and it is a little hard since most people don't know how to handle my kids. In fact their grandparents don't like to watch all of them for long periods of time. I wouldn't imagine tricking anyone that isn't family into keeping them :p

They are willful and independent. That is partially by design. For any of you that know me, I've always been.... unique..... I don't run to the beat of my own drum, I've got a swing band (Hey, Pachuco!). I'm proud that my kids do the same, but yes, sometimes, it can be hard.

Sometimes, you can look at the people with their kids lined up beside them, perfectly quiet and hardly noticeable even after they have been spoken to. You imagine what it would be like to not have to constantly say, "slow down, quiet, stop, don't" especially in public.

Then, I think about those kids when they are released to the freedom of a field. Do they know what to do without being told what to do? Can they come up with their own imaginative play? What will they do when they are older and they deal with adult bullies? I can't imagine my children allowing someone to step all over them.

The good news is I am raising kids that won't put up with someone not respecting them. I am raising children with huge, colorful imaginations. I am raising children that don't think or act like 'normal' children.

So thank you, young Miss Therapist, but I think I'll keep my abnormal kids the way they are. There are enough cookie cutter children out there. I don't believe all children should be restricted to "acceptable" behavior to be considered normal. I'll let you work with my four year old on transitions, but remember I'm watching and this mama bear has a mean bite.

The Dogs

This pic is from Monday morning. Everyone happy and content wanting love and stealing breakfast. Tuesday I yelled and called and whistled for thirty minutes with no response.

He never ventures far from the house. I searched all around (and under) the house, in the barn and pig pen just in case he had followed Chris in that morning without being noticed and got stuck. I jumped in the car to go to the house behind the woods where Hooch has been hanging out to see if he had followed. Still no Chance.

I started walking every inch of the property. At this point I'm incredibly worried. I had given him a dewormer that morning. Could he have reacted to it? Things like that do happen. I had left shortly after and had been gone for a few hours. I was kicking myself for not keeping them confined like I typically would after giving a medication.

Finally, I did find him. Hidden on the far side of the barn, under a tree, not moving. I waded through the tall grass and beat back the tree branches thinking the worst. I picked him up. I guess I was a little rough because he looked at me like I was crazy. Once back to the right side of the barn I set him down and encouraged him to follow me. He took a few steps into the shade of the barn and flopped down again.

I loaded him up and off to the vet we went. He gave us an antibiotic and some more dewormer. The thought was that the worms had allowed an infection to set into his bowels, but Tuesday night he started puking confirming the alternative to the worm theory. It was parvo.

I've now been to a veterinarians office eight times since Tuesday. I will be headed there again in a few hours. If you have no experience with parvovirus, let me tell you a bit about it.

The first sign something is wrong with your dog is usually lethargy, followed by explosive awful smelling diarrhea. I know, these symptoms sound like a million other things. The big sign it's parvo though is when they start puking water. They cannot keep fluids in their body on either end. That's why most dogs with parvo die of dehydration. Usually their diarrhea progresses to a bloody mess. Bacteria capitalize on the opportunity to attack the intestines. If the dehydration doesn't get them then a bacterial infection will.

We took Chance to an emergency vet Tuesday night where they gave him a few injections to ease the vomiting till we could get him back to the regular vet in the morning. I debated where to take him. I was not impressed with the vet the day before, but they are one of the closest offices to us and he needed to get on an IV as soon as possible. I dropped him off, but was not happy with the attitude and service I was getting.

I decided to take all my other dogs in for their annual vaccinations (they were due next month anyway) at our old veterinarian's office an hour away. When we got there we found out Sassy (Chance's sister) already had a fever and was probably in the early stages of the illness.

Standard protocol is hooking the dog up to an IV and waiting it out. They usually give the dog antibiotics and some medicine to ease the vomiting as well. What I didn't know is some vets these days are using Tamiflu and having great success with dogs treated with it.

I went back to the veterinarian's office I had left Chance at and suggested we try this. When I was met with even crappier attitude than I had earlier that day I decided to pull him out and take him to the vet an hour away. Wow, if I thought the attitude was bad previously, believe me I will not darken their doorstep again.

Yesterday, Sassy was still not symptomatic so we thought she was okay to come home and continue on antibiotics and tamiflu. Unfortunately she had some diarrhea a couple of hours ago so I'm going to take her back just to be on the safe side. What an exhausting week! But, as long as both pups are healthy at the end of it then it's worth it.

Tour de Love

This is Amy, a cycling buddy of mine. She got married today, a beautiful outdoor wedding....

On bikes.

I wish more weddings were like this! 

Congrats Amy and Terry! May your life together be long and the water stops be well stocked :)


What's the most interesting wedding you've ever attended? This one is definitely at the top of my list.

More is Better

Anyone else seen the AT&T commercials lately that have the small kids in them? The dialogue is along the lines of, "We all want more, more is better, right?" "Doing two things at once is better than one, right?" "Fast is better! Everything needs to go faster!"

These commercials irk me. I get what they are trying to sell: We're the bigger, better network, we have more abilities the other guys don't. However, reducing it down to life in general makes me livid.

This is part of the gaping whole in our world's psyche. The idea that more is always better. Quantity over quality. The idea that you could and should always be doing more.

There are so many parables, fables, tales about appreciating what you have that are going to be foreign to this generation. How can you expect children to appreciate what they have when they have been brought up believing that you should always be looking toward the next thing, the next step up.

How many parents buy new electronics as soon as they come out?
"What's wrong with your old one?"
"Nothing."
"Then why are you replacing it?"
"Oh, well, the new one is faster, has more pixels, is bigger (or smaller), etc."

If you think your kid isn't paying attention, you are sorely mistaken. What about when you talk about how small your house is or how you wished you lived in THAT neighborhood, had THAT car, had MORE money. They are listening.

Why not show some gratitude for what you have? Why not encourage your child to slow down and enjoy the now without needing to find their next fix of "more". They'll spend their entire life chasing their tail and constantly feeling jealous and deprived, if you don't be the good example of how to live a slower, less cluttered and yet fuller life.

Take the Night Off

This is my closest friend. We only get together once every month or two for coffee and tea at All About Cha. These visits are sanity savers for me. It's easy to lose yourself in motherhood and being the grown up. He reminds me who I used to be. When I leave our tea meetings I feel like the freak I used to be :) Thanks for tolerating me for 18 years!

This time we ate at Kabsa House. If you are a local you have got to try the food here, it's wonderful! Then of course the obligatory Sara Sara Cupcake since he lives in Tulsa and has to get his fix down here.

I have been reading this book:

It was talking about introverts and extroverts. Now, I've always thought of introverts as being people who preferred to be alone and extroverts as people who enjoy being in groups. I've always thought of these things as a character trait, but in this book it talks about these things being necessary for mental health. Introverts truly NEED to be alone in order to "recharge" and be ready to take on another day versus an extrovert who NEEDS to feed off the energy of others.

I won't deny I'm a feeder. In fact I'd probably be considered a queen bee of extroverts. Sometimes, I think the superficial connection with people online can replace that need for face to face adult interaction, but it just doesn't taste the same. So thank you, Jay, for letting me feed off your energy this week. It was wonderfully sweet :)

So what are you? An introvert or extrovert? Also how the heck do you fit in time to recharge or feed?

Update: My husband read this post and called me Audrey II. If you are lucky enough to get that reference you're welcome for the song now running through your head.