Lifesaver

Yesterday my hubby and I were having a mellow afternoon, just playing games and, relaxing in front of a fire.  A scream broke through the silence of our home from upstairs.  It was that kind of scream where you know that someone is hurt.

Hubby and I ran quickly up the stairs to see what was going on.  My son was screaming hanging onto the ladder of his bed, with the cat hanging off of him.

I guess what had happened is that the dog had scared the cat onto the top of my sons loft bed.  This happens quite often in our house, the dog goes running after the cat, the cat runs and hides from the dog up high- no big deal, well, usually.

My son decided that he would "rescue" the cat from the bed by taking her down the ladder (while the dog happened to be in the room still).  The cat was still freaked and clawed onto the first thing that she could reach, which happened to be my son.

So there they both are, hanging, clawing, crying.

We pull the cats claw out of my son's belly and look at his tummy, we give him hugs and kisses, and explain that there is no need to "rescue" the cat.  We explain the cat is perfectly capable of defending herself from the suicidal beagle.

We go back downstairs to continue in our relaxing afternoon.  My son is still sobbing in tears.  He keeps pulling up his shirt to look at his "massive gaping wound" that he has.

The melodrama doesn't stop there.  He looks over at my husband and between sobs says "Thank you Dad for saving my life."

And here it is, the horrific wound that caused all the drama.

Lucy's Birth

Lucy was born on Monday August 24th at 5:51pm.

Many have commented to me that they wanted to know how everything went, others I'm sure don't want all the gory details, so go ahead, feel free and turn away now.

We arrived at the hospital at 7:15am, my induction was scheduled for 7:30 but I was eager to get there. They immediately got me to my room and all set up. She checked me and my cervix was at 2cm. About 8:30 they started my pitocin drip. We sat there and just waited for the contractions to begin.

We told my nurse that I usually go fast (Myah - my first - was a 8 hour labor, Brett was 5 hours and Evie was 7) but all came within thirty minutes to an hour of my water breaking, so once I go I REALLY go. So about thirty minutes later the delivery team came in and set everything up early just so we were ready to go.

Mom and Ashley arrived at the hospital sometime that morning. The next time the nurse Amy (she was AWESOME by the way) checked me I was at a good 3-4cm. This was around 11:00am. She asked me about the epidural and I went ahead and said yes. The pain was not unbearable, but considering I went from 4cm to 10 with Evie in a matter of about 45 minutes, I didn't want to gamble going through pushing without an epidural.

They came in and gave me my epidural, then doc came in and broke my water. This was around noon.

We waited.

And waited...

And waited....

2pm I was STILL at 4cm, and contractions were all over the place. Nurse Amy helped me get things going by switching the position I was sitting in. We all start to take bets on the time she will be born and the weight of the baby. The nurse even gets her bet in.

About and hour later I was between 5-6cm. This lasted for a while. They upped the pitocin. During this time Aaron arrives at the hospital and we discuss them going to meet the kids at the house when they get off the bus. My cousin Treasure has Evie, so we don't need to worry about her for a while. A&A leave to go get the kids. The school calls Brett had missed the bus. So now we call A&A and have them go to the school and pick up Brett.

Myah calls a few minutes later from home (she has a house key) in a frantic panic that her brother got left at school. Daddy calms her down and lets her know we have it all under control.

During this time my contractions became regular and STRONGER. By stronger I mean pretty unbearable. I thought I had an epidural to avoid this? I found out later these are called "breakthrough" contractions meaning the pain is so intense they break through the epidural. Nice. Didn't know these existed.

The anesthesiologist comes in and gives me more epidural. By now I'm at a good 8cm. The kids get there and I get to give them hugs and kisses before I deliver Lucy. The doctor comes in and we send the kids out in the hall with Aunt Ashley and Uncle Aaron. Now I'm ready to push. I hit my epidural button one more time just to make sure I won't feel anything (I find out later this was QUITE unnecessary I was numb for HOURS into the night).

Lucy comes out without a hitch, two pushes later. She is gorgeous and totally healthy! Doc exclaims "she has more hair than her daddy!"

My ten hour labor. The longest of them all. Who would have guessed that? All things considered it went well, but it was definitely harder than any other one I had experienced. I am so glad though to have my little girl here with us. She is a total sweetie.

Oh, one last thing I forgot to mention. Jamin comes home to get the kids ready for bed that night and the dog (the suicidal one) is all bloody and scratched up again. Just couldn't be a Miser birth without a kid missing the bus and a doggie suicide attempt...

The Wedding Day

So this past weekend was my brother in law's wedding. Now, normally you expect wedding days to be a little bit complicated and have some issues, but nothing major usually happens.

Unless you are part of our family.

My morning started out with my sister in law, her kids, my kids, and our hubby's sitting around the breakfast area by our arcadia door. All of a sudden a duck flew into our back yard. What are the chances? One in a million if you are anyone else on the planet, but if you are the family that owns a beagle chances are pretty high that the duck will wind up in your yard.

Of course the dog started howling at the duck. The duck laid down flat on the ground like it was dead. Finally we were taking bets on wether the duck was dead or just playing dead. I brought the beagle in the house and I went out to go poke the duck to see if it was alive. I got about 10 feet from it and it started flapping. Me, being scared of birds screamed and ran back into the house.

About half an hour later the duck was still in the yard, but I needed to let the dog out. So, there we are and all of a sudden WHACK. The duck hits the arcadia door with a HUGE thud. All the kids and girls scream, my sister in law dumps her coffee everywhere because of the fright.

So, this should have been an omen to me as to how my day was going to go.

Here is a short list of the other wacky events that happened that day:

My daughter took her diaper off like ten times today. She ended up peeing on the kitchen floor.

The dog (our beagle) was vomiting all over the house.

The family members that were decorating the church accidentally locked themselves out of the room that had all the tables in it for the wedding.

We forgot the sash to the brides dress at home and had to stall the wedding while I came back home to get the sash.

The AC in the sanctuary got turned off to avoid the candles from blowing out: caused PROFUSE sweating.

The dog (the beagle, of course) comes downstairs eating a dirty diaper.

My niece poops her pants.

My other dog (the normally well behaved one) jumps up and grabs a chicken leg out of my sister in law's hand and eats it.

Now for the icing on the cake, the part of the story you have all been waiting for.

My son floods the church during the reception. Yes, let me repeat that again, MY SON FLOODED THE CHURCH.

Let me tell you one of the worst possible noises in the world that someone can hear is the sound of GUSHING water where there should be NO gushing water.

Come to find out my son was in the handicap stall in the church. In that stall they have the toilet and a sink attached to the wall. In the next stall over is my nephew. I don't know what happens to my son when these two get together but trouble just seems to find them, and my son absolutely looses his mind. Typical boy, he decides to stand on the sink and peek over into the next stall to be funny and irritate his cousin.

This causes the pipe in the wall to break, the sink to fall off the wall and hundreds of gallons of water to begin gushing out of the pipe. I don't ever think I'll forget the look of terror on my pastors face while this event unfolded. I'm certain at this point we are going to have to find another church to start attending (ok not really, our pastor is a SUPER cool guy and we have an AWESOME church).

This is the point in time where I melt down. The shear embarrassment of the entire situation just broke me down. Luckily the water got shut off, and the men did an excellent job of cleaning up the water disaster, and a plumber came out and fixed the pipe before service tomorrow. It COULD have been much worse.

I swear to you that this is the complete truth about my day. I can't possibly make this stuff up. I have witnesses that can account that this is my "normal" life.

One day of drama in our household is equivalent of what some people only get in a lifetime.

Charlie Suicide Attempt #6

So, my beagle, Charlie had yet ANOTHER suicide attempt the other day.

If you haven't read about the other five you can get a recap here.

The hubby was painting the girls room and had the window slightly open to let out the fumes. He noticed the dog sniffing around the window area and closed it enough that he thought the dog couldn't get out of.

He was wrong.

About two minutes later our dog Charlie had jumped out the window and was walking around on the three foot landing outside our daughters window sniffing the gutters, inches away from a 9 foot decent to death.

My husband calmly called him over within arms reach, grabbed his collar and pulled him in, once again saving our dog from death.

Our Suicidal Dog

My husband and I have come to the conclusion that our dog must be suicidal. He has almost died on us a handful of times, and we keep saving him. Maybe we doomed him the minute we named him "Charlie" (after the character Charlie on Lost). We are his Desmond, no matter what we do, or how many times we try and save him, he is going to die.

It all started when we first adopted him. He dug a hole under the porch of his old home, and crawled under there to die. It took hours for him to come out so we could adopt him. We get him home to find out he has Parvo. After a week of this dog trying to die we nurse him back to health with Pedialyte and chicken broth, along with antibiotics.

A few months later, he decides to steal food from our larger alpha dog. She of course tries to bite his head off, leaving his eyeball bulging out of the socket. (That has been fixed, popped right back in at the vet's office that night). I still have nightmares about witnessing this horrific event.

About three days before we leave to Paris, he comes in the house bloody and swollen (the dog seriously looked MESSED up see photo to my left). We have no clue what he did to himself, but we nurse him back to health with antibiotics and aspirin. Our dog lives to see yet another day. We are still debating if he got his head caught under the fence or if the big dog attacked him again. We just can't be sure.

About a month ago he gets himself caught on my staircase in a noose. If I would have gone downstairs 30 seconds later I would have had a dead dog hanging from my stairs (talk about having to go to therapy after seeing something like that...). Anyhow, he noosed himself around the stairs and actually let go of his bowels and bladder he was that close to death. My stairs now have claw marks dug into the wood where he tried to claw his way up them to save himself.

Two weeks ago he somehow got a hold of an ant bait and ate all the poison out of it. Luckily he survived that one. The "counter" went back (zero days since last Charlie suicide attempt).

I have NO clue what it is with this dog. I guess we just keep trying to save his life and live out the doggie version of the movie "Final Destination". He cheated death but it keeps coming for him? Sounds like a feature film to me...