Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's Back To The Vet We Go...

I was about to let the dogs outside today when I noticed something protruding from Rosie’s left side. Don picked her up out of the crate and she yelped several times. I immediately freaked out and took her to the vet. Apparently she has a malformed floating rib. It has always been that way, but we are noticing it now that she is so skinny. So, the good news…she is maintaining her weight and we think we’ve come to the root of all of her problems. The bad news…she is going to have to have both of her knees replaced. The vet thinks that she’s always had knee problems, but with the weather, they are getting worse, so we are noticing them now. They evaluate knee problems on a scale from 1 (best) to 4 (worst). Her left knee is a 4 and her right knee is a 3. This is why she yelps when she comes out of her crate and when someone picks her up. Her weight loss is probably due to her pain and not being able to stand up long enough to eat. The short-term fix is lots of pain meds, vitamins, rest, a new super-comfy bed for her crate and more food and water. She is going to be reevaluated on Monday by the knee surgery vet, so we will know more then. Poor Molly is going crazy when Rosie goes to the vet or has to be separated from her for any length of time. She barked the whole 2 ½ hours we were at the vet today. Last time I had to separate them, I took Molly for a long walk, 2 car rides, a trip to the pet store and even bought her a huge bone and she still barked. Umm…can you say “attachment disorder?”!

When It Rains, It Pours!!!

I haven’t blogged in a while, so I thought I’d give an update on my life. The week my hubby was in Key West, all 4 children had a stomach virus. Three of them were puking at the same time one night. FUN! He came home Wednesday (2/4) and two days later, it was my turn. I thought I just had bad heartburn, so I went out with a friend to Ruby Tuesdays on Friday. Bad freakin’ idea! I threw up in the bathroom. On the plus side, it was a clean bathroom. After dinner, I was feeling much better and needed to go to Wal-Mart for a birthday present. We were in the toy isle when I started to get nauseous again. I headed straight for the check out and then to the bathroom. No plus side to this one, the bathroom was N-A-S-T-Y! I was able to drive myself home, but I called my lovely husband on the way home and asked for a bowl and a clean toilet.

Saturday night (2/5), my Chihuahua, Rosie, started acting funny. She wasn’t able to walk and looked emaciated. I hadn’t really noticed because she’s usually pretty skinny and I see her every day. Don and I stayed up all night with her, giving her canned food on a fork and hand feeding her water. The vet isn’t open Sunday, so I took her in first thing Monday morning. They ran the gamut of tests and everything came back normal, including the test for Addison’s disease. They still don’t know what’s wrong with her. I just picked up some anti-inflammatory pills for her today and she has a follow up next week. Hopefully the medication will kick in and she’ll return to normal.

Then on Sunday (2/6), Donald got really sick. I took him to Patient First and he tested positive for influenza. Just great! The poor kid was miserable and I felt like the worst parent ever for forgetting their flu shots. I had them scheduled in November, but we went to Ohio unexpectedly and I forgot to reschedule. Grr… So, he was off school for 5 days (my punishment for forgetting the shots). He is feeling much better now. All that’s left is bad cough. The other kids didn’t get it (knock on wood), but Don did. He’s been sick all weekend.

We pretty much just hung out all that week. I was exhausted and frustrated from dealing with all of the sickies. Friday night (2/13) we had a nice dinner at Cheeseburger in Paradise and headed to a hotel room for the night. We stayed at the Springhill Suites Marriot on the beach. The kids went swimming, watched some Valentine’s Day movies on TV and fell asleep. Don and I were able to relax a bit by ourselves…ahh… The next day we had a great breakfast at the hotel’s full breakfast bar, played at the beach for a while, had lunch at Planet Pizza and then went to find a storage area for all of our crap. I was really trying to avoid the storage unit, but we don’t have a choice. I guess we could make a cool box fort downstairs, or a maze for all of our potential house buyers LOL!

Sunday we borrowed the moving truck from the storage unit and filled up about half of it. We are finally well on our way to getting the house on the market. I finished the kid’s rooms today. I’m hoping to get my bow room done this week and work on our bedroom and bathroom this weekend. Don just informed me that he has to work the next 2 weekends and then will be leaving for NV for 3 weeks. I’m feeling completely overwhelmed. I hope that I will be able to stay focused and get stuff done. I also have the girl’s birthday party, the St. Patty’s day green potluck and 3 other play dates to host. It should be an eventful month!

Half-Day Hell

This week has been half-days for the school kids. For some reason Donald has not been adjusting well. He is half day Kindergarten, so really he's only going 1/4 of a day - two hours. I'm not sure what happens to him in these two hours, but he comes home with an attitude and is nasty to everyone. Yesterday, he became well acquainted with his room. We are also officially "unplugged" until Friday. This means no TV or video games. I find it helpful to ban these things in times of chaos. It really helps the kids realize that they are not drones, that other people exist and teaches them how to play with others again. I really need to revisit the idea of TV and video games only on the weekends. I enjoy my kids-in-front-of-the-TV-alone time though...hmm...hard decisions :)

What's in a Name

I'm not happy with my blog name. I'm really NOT the creative-titleling type either. I've been racking my brain all week, and nothing. I'm just going in circles. Any ideas would be appreciated.

Moving Stress

This move is hitting me hard, mostly physically right now. I'm sure the emotional will set in after the chaos is over. When it rains in this house, it pours! We found out we were going to move on 1/8. Our tentative move date is April 15th. I have been trying to break things down into little tasks so I'm not overwhelmed, but it's not working. Our first priority is selling our house. The market has slowed down, so I'm worried. Our house is not in good showing condition. It desperately needs a makeover and we don't have the time or money to do it right now. So far, I have been packing up the clutter, which has proved to be a big task. I have finished the living room, dining room, family room and I'm almost done with the kitchen. Today I'm tackling the laundry. It has been neglected for 2 weeks and is starting to take over the upstairs. I'm hoping to also clean downstairs tonight. Hubby cleaned our bathroom and has been working in our bedroom. Our bedroom is a major project. It is the shove-all while I clean the rest of the house and I never get around to cleaning it. I appreciate all of his help, especially since he has been sick and working all week and still comes home and cleans. My only issue is that he is a piler. He sorted everything by room, but I have to still go thru all of it and pack or toss it. Tomorrow, we have a birthday party and Chuckin' Cheese and then I'm coming home to start the kid's rooms. They are both complete disaster areas. I can't even get in the door. I'm kind of excited to purge some of their stuff. The housing we're moving into is big, but we won't have a playroom. All of their toys will have to be in their room. We are going to try to enforce a no toys downstairs rule, well see how that goes LOL! I have until Tuesday to get everything done because there is someone who wants to see the house. I'm just hoping that I can pull it off. I'll be here by myself after Saturday afternoon because hubby has to go to Key West for 10 days. I'm hoping for small miracles or huge energy bursts!

"Snow" Day

This morning I was awakened by the phone ringing at 6:00am. It was the schools automated message telling me that school was cancelled. I hung up the phone and looked out the window only to see - GREEN GRASS! They cancelled school because it MAY snow 1 - 3 inches. LMAO! Normally, I would be happy to have a snow day, but Donald has already been off school for 4 days now. We took him out of school on Friday to go to Maryland and check out housing. Then, yesterday was MLK day, so no school. I don't think I can take another day :). I love spending time with my son, but I need a break. I don't know how I did it when he was home all day. I guess he was more tolerable because he had not yet found his smart mouth.

Just Add Soup

My children are pretty picky eaters, particularly my oldest Donald, who is 6. He has 4 basic food groups: chicken nuggets, ramen noodles, PB&J and junky snacks. If a meal doesn't fall into one of these food groups, he will not eat it. I made Tuna Noodle Casserole for dinner. Usually they gripe about the tuna and the mushrooms in the soup and I wonder why I bother cooking anything. Tonight, Donald finished 4 helpings of casserole. What was different you ask? I added 3 cans of soup instead of 2. Apparently if you drowned what ever you are making with soup, they will eat it! Good to know, since I will be attempting Swedish Meatballs later this week and they detest ground beef. I'm now off to buy stock in Campbell's cream soups!