Whew! I was beginning to think I'd never get back to time enough to write entries in a blog. Here's what all we have been up to the past week or two:
1.)Friday before Memorial day weekend. Shadow, the black lab, still very sick and losing weight, so we took him to the vet. She had no ideas.
2.)Saturday-Monday, Memorial Day. Dog continues vommitting and having diarrhea, still refusing to eat. By Monday he is so weak I'm thinking he will just waste away and die. He only moves to follow me from place to place. I call our vet's emergency on-call. This vet says she can't do anything, and to call the vet school at a nearby University. They will be glad to see Shadow....for a base fee of $800-$1,000. Can't afford that, so no help for Shadow. Husband and I spend Monday scrubbing carpet.
3.)Last Tuesday the vet was finally open here, and I took poor Shadow in to get barium X-rays. This was an all-day procedure. (and a $200 one at that) The good news is we finally found out why he is sick: he didn't have a blockage, as we'd suspected, but he HAD had one sometime prior, and it had been so large his large colon was distended and "stretched" to 4 times normal. Peristalsys was not working because the bowel was so distended. The bad news is that the vet said there is nothing to do for this. Hopefully his body will heal on it's own and learn to adapt, but only time will tell. His weight had plummetted from 49 pounds to 40 pounds. That's 20% of his body gone when he should be growing!
This was our 8th grader's last day of school, so had to run across town to pick up all her diabetic supplies from the school. I've spent far too much of this year at that school having conferenes with the dean, the principal, the social worker....glad this time was my last trip over there.
This was ALSO the first day of softball for C. She lost her first game 8-6.
4.) Last Wednesday I woke up at 5:30 in the morning to the poor dog laying in his crate covered in liquid stool. Covered! Poor thing couldn't help it, but what a wonderous day that was! Me, in nightgown in the front yard with a hose and a disgusting crate...dog in back yard with disgusting crust. After coffee-ing myself up I got dog clean in the shower in the basement. This was quite an ordeal for the dog AND me, but by 8a.m. we had survived and were clean. I figured Shadow would never speak to me again, but he still follows me everywhere. He really is my Shadow.
Wednesday was also E's last day of pre-K at public school. I was almost sad that it was over because she is my youngest and growing up so fast! She is so social; I have to find something for her to get involved in with other children.
C's second softball game; her team won 17-3! It was a very short game.
5.)Thursday I FINALLY got some formal schooling in with C. We had a good day. She did Math, History, Reading, Language Arts, Science, and a Reading quiz. She is getting all A's, except in Reading, which is a 90.9%. I gave her the option of officially ending 3rd grade with those grades, or going a few more days to bring the Reading grade up. She opted to get the grade up because she is a perfectionist, and doesn't like anything less than A's. Wonder where she gets that....? ;)
6.) C and I only did History, which we actually do for fun, and she read 2 of her library books Friday. She gets credit for these, as long as she can tell me about the books, so that I know she understood them.
Her softball game was cancelled due to thunderstorms and tornado warnings all around.
7.) The weekend. Hmmmm...we didn't really do anything in particular. I caught up on a lot of laundry and cleaning. Hubby mowed the lawn, we went to the store, he spent several hours playing softball with C, and working on pitching with her. Her game Sunday was canceled due to more thunderstorms. Her coach called, and spoke with me about getting her into more intensive softball training. She is the best player on her team, and he wondered if she would be interested. Besides animals, her passion is softball, so YES, we are interested. I knew she was good last year, and she is this year, too, but it was good to have that phone call from a coach to verify that I wasn't being a biased parent.
Saturday evening the dog began to eat. He hasn't wanted to eat anything for over 2 weeks. By Sunday he seemed to be making up for lost time. He ate. And ate. And ATE! He hasn't vommitted since last Monday, and his stools are getting a little better. I imagine HE knows better than I when he is well enough to handle food, so I allowed him to eat when he was hungry. He ate every 1-2 hours Sunday. I'm so happy he is feeling better!
8.) Monday I averaged out the girls' grades again, and C had raised her grade to a 95% in Reading. I had been trying to decide if it would be cheating if I gave her extra credit for something, but I didn't have to! She spent a lot of time reading last week and over the weekend, so with all that it really helped.
I issued E and C's report cards. They both got straight A's, and were promoted. E to Kindergarten (even though she's been doing that since January) and C to 4th grade. They were more excited with their grades and promotions here than I would have thought. They were jumping up and down screaming because they are now officially in a higher grade. I am going to go broke, though. They get $1.00 for each A, and any child in our house that gets straight A's gets an $5.00 bonus. I owe C $11, and E $12! E has an extra dollar because she had an extra class in "Critical Thinking" that C didn't have. Music, Art, Handwriting, and P.E. don't count. I debated on Bible, and decided to count it because C works hard to understand that and read it, and they both work together in their Bible study workbook. It's just as much a class as Math or Science, and it is a class that they NEED to have for life. If you don't know and learn the Word, when it's time to account, God isn't going to care you got an A in Math; He will care how you lived your life and treated others.
9.) Yesterday. Oh yesterday was a lovely day. Ha! Our oldest daughter woke us up at 1:30 to tell us B had run away again. (She left notes again)I figured where she went, and checked the phone. I was correct. We called the police, who finally showed up 2 hours later, and made another report. B has quite a lot of police reports for someone that turned 14 only 2 months ago. The police went and got her and brought her back home. Her friend's mother had actually come and picked her up at 11:15. What kind of parent would just pick up a mentally ill, diabetic young girl after curfew without talking to a parent?!? The house was pitch dark. It was obvious we weren't awake! B took 2 huge bags of clothes with her and flat out told the woman she was running away. She gave her usual "My Daddy beats me" saga, and added to it that we only allow her bread and water. The woman told the police she figured it would be okay with us. Oh, okay. Yeah, that's great. Come get our daughter in the middle of the night without even letting us know or asking. I would NEVER allow one of my children's friends to come over here or leave with us without first speaking to a parent. and if they gave a little teen-age drama-queen story of abuse I would call the police. Either it's made up, or there really is abuse, so I should let the proper people know to get help for the child. NOT just take her, and whisk her off to drop her at ANOTHER girls house. This third girls mother didn't even know B or us.
Thanks to B I was up from 1:30a.m. yesterday; she was brought home about 5:30a.m. By this time we were under thunderstorm attack again, so I stayed up. I tried to sleep, but the thunder and dogs whining kept me awake. Hubby got back to sleep until 11:00. He didn't have to work due to the rain. We had thunderstorms off and on all day yesterday, and by bedtime last night there were tornado warnings all over around us. C's softball game was cancelled again because of the weather....three games in a row now! I stayed out on the couch watching tornado warnings until midnight last night. I NEVER stay up that late...especially when I've been up 23 hours.
I made it up by my usual 5:30 today, though, and here I am. Now I've caught up on all the basics here. All the girls, except B are doing great. The dog is doing great. I haven't weighed him, but his ribs and hipbones aren't sticking out anymore. I'm doing great...for a woman with a total of 8 hours sleep in the past 48 hours. : ) Hope amyone reading this is doing well, also.
