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Bad Day Anyone?

Traveling is always fun…especially when you travel with the us! Each summer, I try to visit my parents in Colorado for a couple of weeks. So this particular trip I headed off with my usual crew consisting of my four youngest children, plus one of B-Boo’s friends. The van was packed full with a ton of suitcases, snacks, etc. We left behind hubby, who agreed to take care of the pets while we were gone. This included two snakes, 2 love birds, a rat and a hamster. The night before we left, we made sure to feed the snakes so that they’d be ok until we got back.

My parents live 12 hours from us. We head out very early in the morning and go as far as we can as fast as we can; which can take a while with small bladders and all of that. On this particular trip, we decided to stop in Farmington, New Mexico and pick up groceries at Sam’s Club. We called mom to find out what she wanted, finished shopping and headed outside; into the rain and to a very flat tire!

Luckily, we were in the same parking lot as Big O Tires…or not. They were closing in 10 minutes and it didn’t matter that I had purchased the tire from my local Big O, they refused to help. Frustrated and wondering how in the world I was going to get the tire off, fixed, back on and make it another two hours to mom’s…well, you get the picture! I was going to have to drag everything out of the van and try and figure it out! About that time, a gentleman came up to me and stated that all members of Sam’s Club get their tires fixed as a membership courtesy. I headed inside to talk to the tire people, who were busy at the moment. I waited and then spilled my story to the tire man who said that he wasn’t sure when he’d be able to help but to bring the tire in and he’d get someone to fix it. At this point, I lost it. Now, I don’t do that very often, but the thought of my groceries getting soaked, my kids sitting in the Sam’s parking lot, a flat tire and a long drive ahead finally did me in! On top of that, I’d tried to call dear hubby who was pretty short with me stating he couldn’t talk and hung up on me. Well!

Apparently my hysteria won the poor young man over, because he grabbed his tire stuff and followed me outside to the van. He took off the tire and told me to give him a few minutes and took the tire inside. By now, the kids were having fun coloring outside in the rain (ok, it was down to a sprinkle now) and so we waited.

See, now up to this point, you probably thought this story was about me, right? Nope! While we waited, I tried calling my hubby again. He answered the phone and listened patiently as I griped to him about what was going on and his ignoring me in my time of need. Then I let him talk. 🙂

Did I mention hubby was in a boot recovering from a torn Achilles tendon?  And that God has granted him enormous patience when it comes to putting up with his family and their pets?

Apparently he’d been standing at the back sliding door looking out in the yard when he felt something slither across his foot. He looked down to find the ball python had escaped from his cage and had made it’s way through the house, across his foot and into the backyard. Now I understand that most men would probably have said “Good Riddance” at this point, especially with a serious injury to their ankle; but not my man! He bravely spent the next 45 minutes chasing the python around our almost quarter acre back yard and even managed to capture her!  Then he had the patience to listen to me gripe about my problems and only when I was done did he ask how to lock the cage so the snake wouldn’t escape again! Now that’s what I call marriage!

About this time the tire guy came out with a fixed tire and even put it back on my van for me…and wouldn’t take a penny! I had the girls grab the groceries and help me get them loaded into the already overloaded van, at which point, B-Boo promptly dropped the berries on the ground, spilling them everywhere!

Did I mention I was having a bad day?

I remember this day well!

November 8, 2006 was such an interesting day! I had gotten up early knowing I had to get the kids out of the house by 8 am in order to get our youngest son’s rat, Buster, to the vet. Poor Buster has been scratching himself raw.I guess in order to appreciate Buster; I’d have to share his story.

Best Friends

 

Our son had been having a bit of a hard time this past summer. He was lonely and just not making friends easily. So, we made a deal and decided to start praying for God to bring him a special friend. We prayed and prayed. One day, he and I ended up just the two of us going into the pet store. While we were there, he started asking for a pet mouse. I figured, what harm could a little $3 mouse be? At any rate, when we went to look at the fancy mice, mom (that’d be me) realized that the mice were very fast and if one were to get loose, we’d never find it. Plus, it just didn’t seem to be a good choice for a pet. So, I wisely suggested that we look at all of our options. From there we went to the Teddy Bear hamsters, but they were biting that day. We then moved on to the Dwarf hamster. They were better and we were definitely considering one of them! Now, I’d heard long ago that Blue rats make good pets, so when he wanted to go look at the fancy mice again, I suggested that he try taking a look at the blue rat in the cage next to the mice. He decided to at least try one out, so the salesman went back and pulled out the blue rat that he had picked and brought it out for him to have a look at. Well, that little blue rat seemed to take an instant liking to my boy. He immediately climbed up onto his shoulder and started sniffing him out as if to say, “It’s about time you showed up to get me!”

I need to get a few items, so the salesman told the boy that he could hold the rat while I grabbed my items. As I was
coming back with them, he earnestly says to me, “Mom, maybe this is the special friend that God has picked out for me!” I knew in that instant that there was no way I was walking out of that store without that rat! And that, is the story of how Buster came to
be a part of our family!

Anyway, back up to Tuesday, it’s early and we’re getting ready to go take poor Buster
to the vet. Now, most people probably wouldn’t take a rat to the vet, but the boy is so attached to him and I couldn’t bear the thought of something awful happening to Buster without my doing anything about it. So, we put Buster in the little critter cage and head out the door! He wasn’t happy about being in that little cage as he’s no longer a little baby rat, but a larger, fatter, rat. My son talked soothingly to Buster all the way to the vet. It worked, because pretty soon, Buster calmed down and actually seemed to enjoy the last five minutes of the ride!

I have to say, the veterinarian’s office was quite comical. You would have laughed at the “Oh, poor Buster” comments that were going on in that office! It was quite comical, but oh how he appreciated the concern shown for his beloved pet. Once we were taken back, the vet came in. Now, she is so young, she looks like a teenager, but we’d taken our bird to her once before and just loved her personality. She came in and started asking him questions about his pet; all the while trying to soothe poor Buster who only
wanted the boy and was not about to let her hold him! She explained the possible causes of Busters rash to us and that she was going to take him back and test him for mites. She said she didn’t think it was mites, but instead a viral infection that rats sometimes get which makes them itch like crazy. She told us she would clip Buster’s toenails and probably shave the area where the rash was at its worst so that we could put some medicine on it. Then she left the room with Buster.

At this point, the boy broke down into tears. He was so concerned that the shaving would hurt his dear pet. What type of clippers would they use? What if it cut him? What if it made him bleed? And….what if they shaved all of his hair off and Nathan started laughing at him? Ok, now being the wonderful mom that I am, I promptly stifled my laughter and calmed my poor son down Moments later, the vet returned with a squealing Buster. That rat sure was happy to see his boy! The good news was that the rat didn’t have mites, but the bad news was he did have the viral infection that makes him itch like crazy. The even better news was that he was not shaved completely bald as the boy had imagined, but instead just shaved around his stomach, neck and shoulders. The vet gave us the cream for the rash and told us that we were to rub it on the rash twice per day until the rash was gone and if it was still there in three weeks then to come back, but that it should work itself out within a few weeks.

Once we were home, we had the task of spreading the sticky goo onto the rash. The boy tried hard to hold his furry friend while I had the job of rubbing the ointment in. The first time Buster wasn’t going for it, but by the evening dose he’d apparently given in and decided he’d just hold still for the ordeal!

You’d think the above story was enough for one day, but no, life was not about to calm down for me yet! As it turned out, I’d
spend the next couple of hours trying to help my mother-in-law get my sick nephew who is visiting her from New Zealand, into a doctor. Shouldn’t seem so hard, but when the mom is in another country and can’t just hand over a notarized letter of permission to
treat, things get a little complicated! In the end, he finally did get to be seen by our family doctor and turns out he not only had a double ear infection, but bronchitis to go with it!

Ah, but still, the day wore on! I finally had a moment to settle down with a cup of hot tea and the computer. My youngest daughter came over and dramatically informed me that she needed a shower as she was hot. She made sure to keep her hand over her forehead for dramatic affect…she does tend to be a bit dramatic. I told her that was fine, she could take a shower if she needed to and proceeded to open up my email. Moments later, our oldest daughter came downstairs to inform me that drama queen was crying in the shower. Apparently she’d somehow managed to get a head full of silly putty and washing her hair wasn’t taking it out. Hmmmm….now I knew why she was covering her head so dramatically!

I headed upstairs to see what kind of damage she’d done to herself this time. I found her dripping wet in the shower with beige silly putty smeared into her hair at the front and forehead. Apparently she’d fallen asleep with silly putty in her hands and when she woke up she went to rub her face and promptly smeared the silly putty straight up her forehead and into her hair! What a sight! Of course, being the drama queen that she is, the world as she knew it was coming to an end! What would Daddy say when he came home and found out that mommy had to cut off all of her hair? Aunt Tracie would be so mad at her when she saw her at Thanksgiving with her hair all gone! On and on it went…oh the terrible things that would happen to my poor hairless child!

So, again…what’s a mom to do? I patiently pulled strand after strand as gently as I could with my fingernails, pulling the silly putty out piece by piece. Once I’d gotten out as much as I could, I called in her sissy to hold the shower hose while I washed the rest of it out. The shampoo didn’t do much good, so I got the bright idea to use conditioner instead. That seemed to loosen it up enough that I could pull the rest out and eventually get a comb through it. We were finally able to get it all out without cutting a single strand, although her head was quite red from the pulling. I will say that she didn’t cry one bit as I was pulling out the silly putty. As far as she knows, Daddy has no idea what happened (although he did get quite a laugh out of it!).

And so, by the time I was done with the silly putty, it was time to get dinner, take our middle son to his youth group and then get ourselves over to our small group. After small group was over, the hosts decided to give us a tour of their home. What a beautiful, yet very different home. It’s a 4000 sq. ft. house that sits on 1.5 acres of land, with twists and turns about it. We ended up staying a little longer because one of their Pomeranians got lost in the house somewhere and we had to spend some time searching for it! (Hey…if I can take a rat to the vet, I guess I can search for a missing dog, too!) We finally found the little fellow who’d gotten himself
locked into one of the rooms that we were in earlier and then we finished our tour. By the time we got home it was 9:30 pm.

Alas, but it still wasn’t over….middle son had apparently gotten home later than usual and so was still up doing homework and since mom was home she was now expected to help him through the rest of it…which she did, once again, as patiently as
she could.

And finally, at 10:30 pm, I was able to work my way upstairs to my bed to find not only the drama queen, but rat boy and dear hubs sound asleep, with no room for me to lie. At that point, I just gave up, pushed them all over as far as I could, crawled
into bed and fell promptly asleep. I guess it was a good thing I’d had several lessons of patience today!

You call this NORMAL?

My kids want a dog; they want one bad….so what’s a mom to do?

A few days after Christmas we decided to take a look at the local shelter for a small, allergy free dog. It looked like we’d found the right one. B-Boo (that’d be the teen daughter) had found a picture of an ugly rat dog and had decided that he was the one for her! So, I called the shelter and sure enough; they still had ugly rat dog, so we headed off to the shelter.

Well, as luck would have it, ugly rat dog (otherwise known as Joey) was on his way out the door with his new owner just as we were walking in. B-boo was mighty upset! Again, just as luck would have it, grandma (visiting for the holidays) had made a call on the way to find out about a poodle pup, so we immediately drove over there lest someone should take him, too!

Turns out there was a poodle mix girl pup that we immediately fell in love with! We’d gone to look at the boy pup, but for the next 30 minutes he was nowhere to be found. (That should have been a sign!) Anyway, we’re about to leave when the boy pup comes out of hiding. He’s almost a twin to the girl pup and J (our youngest son) fell in love with him. It was plain to see that a decision was not going to be made, so grandma chipped in some dough and away we went with not one, but two 3 month old pups!

 

Life’s been interesting. For instance, we’ve since found out that Joey (named after the ugly rat dog) is a whimp. He’s a sweetheart…but he’s a wimp. We’ve since been trying to *man him up* (a favorite saying in our family.) This is taking effort, but we are seeing improvements. Roxy, is a pain in the patooky! Seriously…she is so ornery! She will put anything in her mouth and run with it, no matter how big it is!

And how come’s mom’s always have to be right…even when you’re all grown up? I mean, really! When do I get to be right? Last week I was talking to my mom on the phone telling her how wimpy Joey is. Well, she used to raise poodles and so proceeds to tell me about how they used to be hunting dogs. I, of course, am laughing hysterically in my head at the site of Joey being a hunting dog! At any rate, I’d left the dogs outside in the backyard by themselves for the first time while I’d ran B-Boo to school. I was gone what…EIGHT MINUTES? I walked straight to the back yard, still listening to mom go on about how they are hunting dogs, and discover, MUCH TO MY HORROR, that my dogs were indeed hunting dogs! They’d managed to catch, kill, and eat a bird, spreading bird guts all over my back porch, in the little time I’d been gone! UGH! Those innocents had blood all over their faces, in between their toes, etc.

I vaguely remember my mother’s laughter as I promptly told her she was right, hung up the phone, and went to clean up the mess.

Fast forward a couple of days and we head off to the vet to get their rabies shots. Joey seems to be losing his hair, so we decide to have that checked out, too. The vet takes them back one at a time to give them their shots and take a skin sample of Joey. I just laughed when he told me that Joey made a lot more noise than Roxy…yeah, I know..wimpy dog. At any rate, Joey seems to be healthy so we take the dogs home.

No sooner than we get home, Joey starts going nuts. The dog is running around,literally rolling like an alligator catching prey! We’ve never seen anything like it! He stops long enough to start scooting his bottom along the yard, then starts the roll all over again. I call the vet to let him know that yeah, on second thought, Joey does itch. The nurse promptly tells me to bring him in; he’s having an allergic reaction to the rabies shot! Oh great! You call this normal?

Now, for those of you who know me, you’ll know this is just hysterical. I already have two children with severe food allergies….now I have an allergic dog to add to it!

Anyway, after a couple doses of benadryl and a few hours with the vet, Joey was able to come home. You’ll be happy to know he’s just fine now!

Whatever in the Whole Wide World

should I write about? (BTW…"Whatever in the whole wide world is something I say a lot). Anyway, there are so many choices! I could write about our crazy pets and what happens when you let your bunny loose in the backyard with two new puppies! I could write about my latest cooking experience. Hey, it's not easy to find a recipe for a delicious banana bread that does not contain eggs, dairy, wheat, gluten, soy or nuts! I could write about the wonderful party that my family threw for my 40th birthday…and how I'll be eating chocolate for the next 40 years!

What about how much fun it is being a parent of teenagers! Now there's something I could write about forever! I mean, will it ever end? We finally got one to adulthood only to have four more coming up! And what were we thinking, really? I mean, we have not one, but TWO teenagers right now! I honestly haven't' figured out which is worse, boys or girls, so God is having a field day showing me!

And then it happened! I was sitting here, minding my own business at 10:22 pm, thinking I've finally come to the end of my day when the unthinkable happens. It's calm, it's peaceful. Children are asleep, the hubs is quiet downstairs and the eldest daughter and I are finally done with her report on our new President's speech. She's off to the shower and I'm sunk into the pillow ready to type away. Yes? No! Because in that next moment, she lets out a blood curdling scream that could wake the dead! I rush into the bathroom to find her out of the shower screaming about some giant BLACK spider that is going to eat her in the shower! Amazingly, her father hears nothing, so I guess I am the one to be the spider killer of the night!

While she hides far enough behind me, I calmly creep to the shower, pull back the curtain and access the situation. Sure enough, there is a HUGE, BLACK SPIDER just sitting there waiting to be ambushed by said spider killer. (That'd be me, in case you didn't know!) I promptly say a prayer of quick thanks for my hubs who thought to install one of those shower heads hooked onto a hose while I grab it and aim it at the poor unsuspecting HUGE BLACK SPIDER! I quickly turn on the water as HOT as I can and let loose on the monster while my daughter questions my every move.

"Are you sure you're getting rid of it?"

"What if it comes back up?" (I'm thinking dear, that the scalding hot water alone would kill it, but I'll keep going just to keep you safe.)

After several minutes of a hot water flush, I turn off the faucet to wait and see if the thing will work it's way back up. Nothing, zilch, nada.

But said teenager wants to make sure it's gone…..so again with the hot water flush.

Finally, I think I've managed to convince her it's safe to shower, right? Sure, ok….but just in case…

I get to type up my first blog sitting on my bathroom floor with my laptop in my lap (now there's a funny) and listen to her take the fastest shower in her life!

And that, my dear readers, is what why we say,

"It's a Vivas Thing!"

The Case of the Missing Hamster

Monday, November 6, 2006

 

What a weekend!  Middle son’s hamster showed up missing on Sunday morning. He’d cleaned the cage on Saturday evening and forgot to lock it.  The little booger knows how to push the door open, which is why he has to keep it locked!


Here’s the story:

So we searched and searched and finally went to bed, telling our son the hamster was bound to show up in the
middle of the night by running across someone’s feet. Not so.

At 4 am, I was awakened by scratching noises. They’d gone on for a few moments I think, as I was between the land of gone and come back. As I drifted back to consciousness, I realized the sound was coming from the wooden TV table. About a second later, I realized it must be the hamster! I leaped up, turned on the vanity light so as to not awaken my slumbering husband….but the little critter had vanished. Bummer.

I decided to go back to bed and pray and try and get some sleep, all the while wondering how that little hamster got up all of those stairs and made it to the farthest room in the house! A bit later, I heard the scratching again. I crawled out of bed again, turned on the light, and …….don’t hold your breath….nothing.

I crawled back into bed, prayed some more, tried to doze. About 5:12 am, I heard it again…this time going through plastic…and I immediately freaked. You see, we have a poster of our oldest daughter that I still had not framed, wrapped in heavy plastic beside hubby’s desk in the room. I envisioned this hamster shredding away that poster; the very last poster of her competing in gymnastics….this was war! I jumped up onto the bed and pounced over hubby while yelling at him “WAKE UP! The hamster is in our room!”….made it to the light in a flash…and caught the little booger, standing up on his hind legs on the carpet at the end of our bed as if to say, “Oh Lord…she’s caught me and she doesn’t look happy!”

Hubby quickly shoved the door close so she wouldn’t escape! Then he went on one side and I on the other. He is now wide awake and yelling at me to catch the hamster….yeah right! The dern little critter was way to fast for me! As she
scampered between my legs and headed off to my closet, I grabbed my cell phone and called the hamster owner who was downstairs in his bed dreaming the night away.

I heard a groggy, “Hello?” to which I screamed into the phone,
“GET UP HERE NOW!!!”

1/10 of a second later he appeared in our room. (I didn’t know the boy could move that fast!) I yelled at him that his hamster was in our closet and he needed to get her out of there please. She was so wound up every time he caught her she’d jump out of his hands, so I ran downstairs and grabbed her ball, ran back upstairs, handed it to him and she jumped right in. He promptly took her back downstairs, put her in her cage and locked the door. He said the poor little thing was just guzzling down that water!

I gotta tell you; I asked the boy…what were you thinking when you ran upstairs? He said, he thought something horribly awful must have happened and he’d better get up there now. Poor kid…he’s probably traumatized for life. I still crack up every time I remember his look of sleep and surprise; I’ve been laughing ever since!