This week was one of those "blacked out" kind of weeks, where you look at the family calendar hanging in the kitchen and can't find space to write anything else. It had its fair share of drama, too.
Monday:
Wade stayed home from school. He'd been sick the day before but seemed fine the next day. (I'm starting to wonder if he accidentally ate something with peanuts, though he won't own up to it.) That afternoon he had an orthodontic appointment and got the thumbs up for doing a good job with his palate expander. He's going to have that thing for several more months, but he's doing great with it. He's excited to change the band color on his brackets at the next visit. Right now he's sporting yellow.
Tuesday:
Rhiannon went on a field trip in the morning at a lab here on base and absolutely loved it. She loved the chemistry lab and seeing different experiments. (Ask her about the liquid nitrogen popcorn!)
I finally got Oscar into the vet that day after a week of his diarrhea--poor doggy, we just kept thinking it would clear up, but it turns out he had giardia, a water-born illness that is VERY common in Ridgecrest. Came home with some medicine for him, and the very next day he was better, as though it had never happened. Hurray! The bad part is that he HATED being there at the vet and barked like crazy. He doesn't have a yippy bark--when he's at the vet he has a
cover-your-ears-and-hope-the-building-doesn't-come-crashing-down-on-us-earthquake bark. At least, that's what it felt like to me!
Wednesday:
Drama Day.
I volunteered at both Rhiannon and Wade's schools that day, and then that afternoon the kids helped me give Oscar a bath, the first one since his neutering. It was so fun, and he was such a happy, clean puppy! 10 minutes later was a different story. Long story short, he found one of Rhiannon's anklet socks and swallowed it whole. I didn't even know it was in his mouth until he went out to the middle of the yard, turned around and looked at me, and opened his mouth. I guess he knew he was in trouble because he WOULD NOT come to us, no matter how we encouraged and enticed him.
By the time we caught him, the sock was gone. (An overnight visit to the vet, more earthquake barking, lots of tears, x-rays, catheter, IVs, and $500 later, I picked him up from the vet the next day and no sock had shown up yet.) I called Jason to ask for his help getting Wade to his baseball scrimmage, and then Oscar and I hung out at the vet for a few hours. Wade did well at his game, and we survived the cold, too. It was weird and depressing to come home though after the game to a quiet house and no tail wagging--we all felt really bad and scared for Oscar.
Thursday:
Went visiting teaching in the morning and picked up Oscar in the afternoon. Still no sock. They'd tried to fill him with fluids to help him pass it, with no luck. I asked to take him home, and they said to watch for vomiting or diarrhea and to bring him back asap if that happened. Oscar has a nice bare patch on one of his front legs from where they shaved him for the IV, but otherwise he was jumping and happy and completely oblivious to the horror and sadness he'd caused his owners! The vet techs guessed that he was barking so badly because he was being protective of me--they said he'd calmed down and had been a dream patient for them, thank goodness! I took him home, threw some pillows on the floor, and took a long nap with the puppy--we were both worn out. That night Jason played raquetball with the young men from church, Rhiannon learned some first aid in preparation for Girls Camp this summer, and Wade and I stood outside in the dark for 90 minutes waiting for his baseball team pictures to get taken. It was a weird set-up, but the weather was nice!
Friday:
I helped out at Wade's school book fair for a bit. That afternoon Oscar and I were running around in the yard when all of a sudden he froze, bent over, and threw up the sock! I think that's got to be the weirdest thing in my whole life to see, and weirder still that I was so happy about it! Check out this news story about another dog with a laundry problem. It's something I came across when I was scouring the Internet with worry:
Turns out it wasn't a tumor after all...
That night we all sat back and put our feet up. We needed it!
Saturday:
Today we all
Rhiannon went to her Expanding Your Horizons science/math conference at 8am. She got a t-shirt, a fun bag, made interesting projects, and enjoyed being with friends. She says she will DEFINITELY do it again next year! Ask her about the forensics class and others she went to!
After that Wade and I went to his baseball Opening Day festivities, then home again so I could quickly change and go to our stake Women's Conference. The theme was President Uchtdorf's Forget-Me-Not talk, and I loved every minute of it. The last class was my favorite, on being happy. The presenter, one of my favorite people Sister Foster, asked everyone to close their eyes and think of something that made them happy today or yesterday. I raised my hand and said in a loud voice, "I had a rough week with our puppy. He swallowed a sock, and yesterday it finally issued forth!" That got a pretty good laugh from the whole room. Sister Foster made the point that if you think you're supposed to be happy all the time, you're delusional. But you do need to find things to be happy about! She shared a wonderful quote that we all appreciated:
How awesome is that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
After the conference I raced home again, changed, and joined Jason at Wade's first official baseball game of the season. His Red Sox team won, thanks to Wade's game-winning run! His hitting was awesome, definitely a huge improvement already from last year.
That night Jason had about 10 young men over for another pizza/planning/Playstation 3 evening. The boys were great--it's nice having a house full of young men who are fun, funny, and well-mannered! Oh, and Oscar LOVED having that many people in the house! He hardly made a peep and loved walking around sniffing everybody, tail wagging! The boys were good sports about it!
Sorry for the long post, but it's been a long week! This upcoming week will include 2 sub jobs, more baseball, a barbecue with our new neighbors, and preparation for our Spring Break getaway to Utah. Hope everyone has a great week, too!
