Sickness

Everyone is sick. Everyone. I don't know how we all got sick, but somehow it is sweeping through the house. It started a few weeks ago when I got strep throat. Then the kids got sick. Colds, mainly. Then Nick got sick. He may have strep but since he refuses to go to the doctor we won't know. I've told him what can happen if strep goes unresolved but he doesn't care.

Then last night Ruby got sick. Now I'll be the first to admit, I complain about Ruby a lot. She pees in my house, she pukes randomly, there is hair everywhere, and she barks her head off. But I still love her and don't want anything bad to happen to her. She was sick. She literally wouldn't even lift her head off the floor.

I took her to a 24 hour vet hospital. She was super dehydrated. Her blood counts were way off. Her respirations and heart rate were elevated. So we did a bunch of stuff. X-rays, blood tests, fecal tests, urinalysis, etc. They wanted to admit her for 2 days to give her IV fluids. They gave me the estimate and I nearly had a heart attack. $1,750.00. Yeah, that's not happening.

We decided to treat her outpatient. They gave her 2 fluid boluses subcutaneously (she looked like a camel), and sent us home with a prescription for Flagyl. That along with the treatment she already had at the hospital was just $397.62. Much better. She got home and she drank a whole bowl of water. I'm keeping an eye on her, and we'll go to the regular vet this afternoon or tomorrow depending on when we have time and how she is drinking. She's doing better already. I also have a friend who's a vet so we're keeping in touch with her as well.

I have high hopes she'll recover just fine. This was scary though because we've never had a dog get sick like this before. Yosha tore his ACL and his hips went out. Brady had a stroke. But they were both 9+ years old. Ruby is 5 at the most.

Praying for speedy recoveries for everyone in this house! We need to get better ASAP!

Gretchen Suzane

My little Gretchie bear is getting so big!! She's almost 2 years old and I can't believe it. She's so smart and coordinated and talented and I love my little miracle baby. Here are some of the things she's doing:

She's climbing:
    This little monster is going to be a gymnast, I swear. She can climb, run, jump, do amazing things. On the playground, it's borderline scary. I have to watch this kid so carefully or else she could do something dangerous, or at least more dangerous than the things she already attempts. Like her other favorite new thing, climbing out of her crib. Which she hasn't perfected, so it's a terrifying job of putting her to bed and listening for any thuds. It's just about time for a big girl bed, but man I don't want to start that yet either.

She's talking:
     I swear she talks better than Annabelle. She can say so many things and she gets better everyday. Her newest thing is asking to go to the potty. She likes to try to use the potty 4 times an hour, I promise. I don't like to sit with her and stop whatever we're doing every 15 minutes but I don't want to stifle this new passion for the potty. So we sit. All the time. And it's really hard to resist that sweet little voice saying, "Mama, I wanna use the potty!". She also knows everyone's name in our family. Daddy, Mom, Dom, Sissy and she calls herself baby. Grandpa is Pa-pow and she talks about him ALL THE TIME. So sweet to hear our names nowadays.

She's hilarious:
     She likes to be everyone's center of attention. If I'm holding her and Nick talks to me and I turn to him, she will literally pull my face back until it's facing her. She will repeat your name over and over again until you are facing her again.

She's huge:
     My sister went to give me an old pair of Addie's shoes and they wouldn't fit. When we compared their feet, Gretchen's are actually bigger than Addie's. Not yet 2 and she's wearing a size 7. Big girl. Also wearing all 3T clothes. I'm interested to see her stats when we go to her 2 year appointment...which I guess I should make.

Anyway, she's an adorable, fun, playful, gorgeous little monster and I wouldn't trade her for the world.

Ice Bucket Challenge

This ice bucket challenge is a crazy thing. It's been going around the internet for awhile and raised a TON of money for the ASL foundation. Our family has avoided being called out publicly but we finally got called out, or at least a few of us did. Both Dominick and I got called out to take the ice bucket challenge. Dominick was challenged by his Nani and I was challenged by my good friend Lauren. We both completed the challenge and decided to spread the wealth and donate to another good cause, Friends of Kids with Cancer. Let me tell you, it was FREEZING and Dominick hated it! He immediately started crying and ran inside. Once we got dry though he was pretty proud of himself. :)

Nick stood by and watched us get drenched in ice water and all he said after it was over is, Thank you for not nominating me!

Happy ice bucket challenging!

Back in action

I've been MIA for months. Now I have no excuses. I have a computer at home (thanks Emily!) and my kids are going to school. I can finally get back to recording about our life so we can reread all the important stuff.

Get ready blogger world, because I have some catching up to do!