Crazy Hair

Our church hosted an awesome family carnival last month. This is what everyone looked like when they got to dinner (at Chuy's, of course).

Yep, even Grandpa got in on the hair coloring fun.

The church is hosting another fun family event this month: Trunk or Treat your Way through the Bible! My family will be there. We would love to see all of our friends there as well.

A day with Friends at the Lake

Liam

Eliza Claire

Ruby before the boat ever moved.

Eliza Claire being adventurous

Superman, oh, I mean Uncle Kevin

Declan

Rehm helping raise the sail

Sean, Jason and Nicole

Jason

Rehm and the Hatch

A girl who knows how to relax.

In case you were wondering

I do still do fancy hair, occasionally. And Ruby's hair is long enough for her to get a turn more often. Today she asked for two braids...

Because I didn't have enough to do

Yep, that is the master closet. And yep, that is an 8- 10 foot rack/shelf that has fallen. Now to dig through the mess. Wonder how long that is going to take?

Splish, Splash!

Remember to click on the pictures to see them larger.

Yes friends that is my son lying in the street! Not the brightest idea he's ever had.

Eliza Claire

Charlotte

We have had a lot of rain in the last few weeks. Sunday was another rainy day. Luckily today it was raining but not storming. So when the children asked to go out and play in it, we were able to say "YES!" They had a blast. Well, until Ruby lost a croc to the storm drain.

Eliza Claire sad about Ruby's shoe. Ruby, un-phased.

I'm not sure exactly how the shoe ended up in the storm drain. I think Ruby took her shoe off and was letting it float like a boat. Eliza Claire was very upset over the lost shoe. Much more so than Ruby. Both girls wanted to know when we got to go back to the lake so they could look for Ruby's croc as they are sure that is where it will end up.

Tea for Two, or well, Five

Charlotte requested a tea party for her birthday. She wanted to invite both school and non-school friends. To make everyone feel at home, we settled on two friends from church and two from school. The party went well. They all seemed to have a great time.


We had lots of yummy food including, cake/cupcakes, fruit, veggies, peanut butter and jelly finger sandwiches, chex mix, and English rabbit. We did have hot tea, with lemon, sugar cubes, and cream to choose from. And given there age we also added "punch" as we didn't really think they'd drink much tea. "Punch" consisted of limade and Sprite mixed 50/50.


The girls did a lot of playing. They played dress up and several make believe games. Then they made crowns before having cake.


Eliza Claire and Ruby had their own little tea party in the kitchen with Grandma and Daddy.

The birthday girl

I don't know what she was doing here. I guess just being silly

A Handful of Mayhem

Ruby's teacher sent home a sheet of construction paper with instructions to trace every family member's hand print, including pets if you wanted to. Bonus points if you can figure out why two of the fish "hand prints" are different.

My Other Two Children

In addition to the four human children I have, I also have two canine children. I've never been one to refer to pets as children in the past. Don't get me wrong, I love them a lot but I know they are pets, and while spoiled, they are not treated like offspring.

So why am I now referring to them as children? Well, because they are now requiring as much care and time as my children. They are old, 11.75 to be exact. Howdy has a lot of arthritis issues that are affecting his mobility. I talked about that last month. Tobie is now having esophagus problems (that have caused vomiting, multiple times a day for a week) and pneumonia. She has also, over the last 9 months or so, lost a lot of weight and we don't know why.

It seems like they switch off months being the Crisis Dog. It started several months ago when Tobie injured herself jumping off the patio table. Since then every month there is a new crisis and a new care regimen. Just when it starts to seem manageable both financially and physically the other one has a new crisis.

I know many of you are now thinking. They are old, maybe it is time for it to be "their time." We have also thought about this. We are not willing to go to heroic means to keep them here but at the same time we are not willing to prematurely give up if they have good quality of life. We won't do surgeries or spend thousands but we will keep them comfortable.

So what does keeping them comfortable entail?

Howdy's daily medicine requirements

For Howdy it requires two different kinds of pain medication. One is given twice a day the other is given three times a day. He also gets three different vitamin supplements. To get him to take his medicine we have to put it in a small bit of cream cheese and wrap it in enough lunch meat to cover the cream cheese. He used to take it in a quarter of a slice of American cheese mushed around the pills, but he no longer likes that. He also has to have some rice and chicken broth added to his kibble to get him to actually eat it.

Tobie's daily medicine requirements

Tobie is doing much better than a week ago. She was diagnosed with megaesophagus and pneumonia. There is no treatment for the megaesophagus expect for changing the consistency of the dog's food to something that will stay in the stomach easier (like meatballs) and holding them in a begging position for 30 minutes following every meal. Oh, and feeding them small frequent meals. The pneumonia requires three different antibiotics and is a direct result from the megaesophagus.

Michael holding Tobie following an evening feeding earlier this week. While he doesn't have her in begging position it was the best we could do without building a special contraption for her.

We do not know what caused Tobie to develop the megaesophagus. Dogs are sometimes born with the condition and it has to be managed their whole lives. But for dogs like Tobie that develop it later in life there is usually an underlying cause. Unfortunately 80% of the time the underlying cause is not found and can therefore not be treated.

Luckily after about 72 hours on the antibiotics Tobie's megaesophogas symptoms have disappeared. We don't know why, but we are thrilled those symptoms have abated, at least for now. Trust me, a week of regurgitating every time she had water to drink, fell asleep or changed positions was long enough. Unluckily the antibiotics have affected Tobie's appetite. The only thing we have found this week that she will actually eat is boiled chicken with rice. Given her continued weigh loss it is extremely important that she eat.

The goal is to get 1500 calories in her a day. She is eating about a pound of chicken a day and a couple cups of rice, but that does not get her to the calorie target. We have been experimenting with adding kibble to get the extra calories she needs but she is not liking it. Today I went as far as crushing kibble in the food processor to sprinkle over the mixture. Not a hit. We have tried adding in peanut butter, she wasn't a fan. We have tried canned dog food, no longer a fan. She has become a princess. Oh, she also will no longer take her medicine in food balls (cream cheese with lunch meat or cheese) so now we have to do the pry open the mouth shove in the meds and hold her mouth closed until she swallows them trick. So much fun.

Ground kibble - Yes, I am debating on how many times I'll have to wash the food processor before I am willing to use it for human food again

Postal scale. It works great for weighing food. Right now we are using it for weighing Tobie's chicken.

Tobie is currently taking three different antibiotics, an acid reducer, probiotics, and three vitamin supplements.

So between preparing all the medicines and getting them to actually take them, cooking all their special foods, mixing all their foods, making sure they eat said food and don't eat each other's food, staying in the room while they physically eat - they won't eat otherwise, etc., the dogs are taking a lot of time. It is like having an infant in the house again. And they are getting expensive to boot.

But at the end of the day when I see one of them trot over with that sparkle in their eye, I know that it is not their time, yet...

Jenn

Lost!

Wednesday night as I'm leaving What A Wednesday (our church's mid-week program for children four through forth grade) Michael calls me.

Michael: Have you seen the Popcorn order form? (Side note: It is popcorn selling time for the cub scouts. Rehm and Michael have been out once or twice in the neighborhood and have sold about $250 of popcorn. )

Me: Yeah, it is hanging on the hooks in the kitchen, where we display the kids artwork, with the baggie of money collected.

Michael: No it's not! I took it to church with me tonight.

Me: OK, so how was I supposed to know you had it at church with you? In that case, no, I haven't seen it.

Michael: Mom wanted to order popcorn so I brought it to church tonight so she could order. Now I can't find it. Can you look around and see if you see it anywhere?

Me: Um, yeah sure.

I spend the next 20 minutes combing the campus looking for a folded up paper. Of course, most of the programming is finished and most of the clean up has already been done. I do not find it and am pretty sure that it has been picked up and thrown away.

Michael has checked the van, called his parents and can't find the form either. He is pretty stressed out over having lost it and trying to recreate it. Of course this will entail visiting each house a second time and asking what they ordered. Pretty easy for the houses that gave checks, not as easy for the houses that paid cash. (This would be a good reason to always pay check when you order from a kid fundraiser. Then if they lose the form they can get in touch with you!) His other stress was telling Rehm. He knew Rehm was going to freak out over this.

The next morning he is fixing Rehm's breakfast.

Michael: I have some bad news. Do you want it before or after breakfast?

Rehm: Before.

Michael: I can't find your popcorn order form. It must have fallen out of my pocket at church last night.

Rehm: No it didn't. I have it! I wanted to look at it in the van on the way home!

All that commotion, all that worry and the boy had it the whole time.

Needless to say, his father gave him a bit of a lecture on not taking things out of someone else's pocket without permission.

So if you would like to buy some popcorn and support the boy scouts let us know. I know a cub scout who would be happy to have your business.

Jenn

This is for Lucie

I received word through my mother-in-law, that one of her friends, a faithful Mayhem Mania reader would like me to post something new on the blog. Apparently she is tired of House, Mouse, Louse Spouse and ready for something new. Actually, she specifically wants me to post about Charlotte's birthday tea party.

Lucie, I'm very sorry I haven't gotten anything up in a while. Life has been a bit of a blur for the last week and a half. Even more so than usual. Tobie, the dog, has been sick and for about a week was throwing up multiple times a day. She and her brother continue to be extremely high maintenance. I will be posting about all of that soon. Then there was getting the house ready for a tea party. With all the children constantly destroying whatever room I just cleaned that took lots of time. And then there was the tea party itself. Of course, after all that I ended up sick for about 48 hours.

I am finally starting to emerge from the rubble that is now my house and instead of cleaning said house and trying to find the washing machine under all the laundry that has piled up I am working on several blog posts just for you.

So stay tuned there should be lots to read and see soon.
Jenn