A Few More Small Life Changes

Since our seperation D has been living in a motel room. He has now found a place to rent, with 2 bedrooms so the girls can visit, and has permission from the landlord to take 2 of our dogs. We have 8 dogs, and he will be taking the 2 largest ones, Lucky, his 9 year old yellow lab, and Shadow, MY 2 year old black lab. These are 2 of the best, smartest dogs I've ever known. In fact, Lucky is the dog that made me begin liking dogs. I will miss her, but she belongs with D, as she is crazy about him, and miserable here with him gone. Shadow, on the other hand...I'm REALLY going to miss him. He really IS my shadow, following me from room to room, laying beside me wherever I am. Shadow knows and obeys all commands, worries about me when I'm sick, or upset, and is fiercly protective of me, and our home. I have posted about him before, check my May and June 2008 archives on this blog, when I nursed him through near-death. He is the largest dog we have, at 95 pounds, so I suppose the bright side to this move is that those 50 pound bags of dog food I buy every week might last a little longer, but I AM GOING TO MISS HIM SO MUCH! This dog, even though huge, is MY baby, and the only reason he is going to live with D is that Shadow is a little OVERprotective sometimes, and D and I feel he would be better off without 5 other male dogs in such close proximity.

Below is Lucky, tucked in with her stuffed animal. (Yes, she's spolied, LOL) and Shadow, who grew tired of waiting for dinner time, and brought us the dog bowl, and the water jug. He feels it is HIS responsibility to let us knw when food or water needs refilled.





Often, people dont think about pets when they hear the word "divorce", but each and every one of our pets are special and very dear to us, they are ALL definitely members of our family. I can't just get rid of them; they have been part of our family for years, and we intentionally kept each of them. I will still have plenty of animals here, 6 dogs, and 6 cats, plus D's one remaining fish (maybe he can take that...I'm not too into fish, LOL, but there's going to be yet another hole in this family, with the 2 labs moving. At least I will still be able to see them when I drop the girls off for visits with their dad.

Kittens

The kittens are 5 weeks old today. They are, of course, adorable. They are also very smart. The little boy kitty is named Spot III (His father would be Spot II, and his grandmother is a feral cat we only catch glimpses of out our back windows, named, obviously, Original Spot.) Had I known we would end up keeping these kittens I would have better names for them. However, my intentions had been to find them all good homes, and I let my daughters name them.

Spot understands English, because as soon as my husband told me it was up to me, this cat can not leave me alone. He cries at the gate until I come pet him. If I step over the gate to go in the girls' room, he climbs up my legs. If I sit down for a minute, I'm stuck for half an hour because he climbs in my lap and cuddles with me. Here's how he helps me do History with the girls. We've been doing History as a bedtime story, so please excuse the raggedy, old nightgown. That's Spot on my back.




Because Spot was smart enough to worm his little way into my heart, I began feeling guilty about the 2 little girl kitties. After all, it's not fair to keep one, and send the other 2 off to someone who might not love them as much as we do. Now I know why I made it 37 years with never having kittens around me. I'd have 37 cats if I'd been around kittens all my life. Look how much C loves them:





The 2 female kittens each have their own personality, too. Ashley is the runt, and hard to get a picture of because she thinks she's a might lioness. This little girl is FAST, and she loves to pounce and attack anything that catches her eye. I took this picture a few days ago. She WAS sitting still in the center of the photo, but in the split second between the flash going off, and the picture actually being taken she was off!



Abby is timid. She doesn't like to be picked up, but she will ease her way over to cuddle on her own time. The least little thing scares her, and she likes to hide under the bed, or behind the door. At least I don't have to worry about Abby tearing up my house like her sister. LOL As you can see she is a GORGEOUS long-haired calico:




They just began eating solid food a few days ago. (kitten chow softened with water)




So it looks as if we may be keeping all three. My next door neighbor might possibly take one, but I'm not going to look much farther for any homes. Next door is okay, because we can visit.

For any of you who read my blog and have a daughter that is in daily e-mail contact with C tell your daughter not to mention this little post because my girls still think we won't be keeping any kittens. C's birthday is next week. One of the things she asked for was to keep the kittens. I'd like it to be a surprise.

Next post: taking up a collection to pay for neutering/spaying fees. LOL I called the vet yesterday, and it's a bit more expensive than I recall from years ago. $285!!!! EACH!

Very Busy Lately

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.