The change in Charlie is so drastic, it makes me wonder how long he wasn’t feeling good. He’s like a kitten again. It’s great to watch him running around and playing and being active. It’s been a while since he was like that.
It’s so good to see my Charlie back to himself. He makes me giggle.
Just thought you guys would want to know since many of you prayed for him while he was sick.
I watch a little one four days of the week. I refer to him as Little A here online. No matter what mood he’s in, he always gives me hugs.
It’s so fun watching my kids interact with him. Seeing how they will become a bit more gentle around him and their arguments have less yelling as they have seen him get upset when they do that around him.
His smiles brighten my day on those days that he’s here. He loves having his picture taken and will point to my camera to ask me to get it out and take pictures of him. He makes me slow down and think about different things… the more important things of this life. Like eating and napping. He also reminds me of how awesome some things are. Take snow for example. I’m not a cold weather person in the first place, especially after the blizzard and being stuck inside for three days. Yesterday, it was snowing these big, huge flakes and my reaction was, “Ugh… more snow.” When he looked out the window and saw it, he clapped and smiled, pointed out the window and started Ooohing. Then today, as we were getting him into the van so I could take Jeremy to the train station, he played with some of the snow that was on the side of the van. You could see the awe in his face as he looked at it and touched it.
I need to slow down sometimes and look at the world the way he does. See the wonders that God made. It’s not always easy when it feels like the schedule is full, but it can be done. It needs to be done.
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Genesis 1:1
“God saw all that He had made, and it was very good.” Genesis 1:31a
Jeremy and I have been talking for a while about getting a new laptop for me because I have been editing my photos on the desktop and it hasn’t been all that reliable lately. In fact, we haven’t been able to even get onto the desktop for a few weeks. The little laptop that I had been using for internet usage and other small things wasn’t capable of doing the jobs I needed for my photography.
Last Saturday, we headed out to the Apple Store (where I immediately had a panic attack… way too many people for my comfort level) and got a Macbook for me. I know… I pull away from most of the internet, but still go get a new laptop. I downloaded a trial version of Aperture to try it out for my photo editing. So far, I’m liking it. I had a bunch of photos I took for a friend at her daughter’s birthday party and I hated that it took me so long to get the photos done and up. Now I can make her a disc with the pictures also. I found that it will upload to Flickr and FB for me without me having to get on the actual sites. That helps me to keep from the temptation of staying on FB once my pictures are uploaded.
Anyway, I thought I’d share that.
I love writing on my blog. I’m thinking that with less time on FB, I may write more on here. It gets pulled over to FB anyway. I mean really… look at this… I’ve written something two days in a row so far. I haven’t done that in a very long time.
I have to say… this Tennessee gal wasn’t sure what to expect for a Chicago Blizzard. It was an interesting experience, but not one I’d like to repeat because, well… I’m not a cold weather person anyway.
In my yard, we got 3.5 to 4 feet of snow. I’m not exactly sure because I didn’t go out in it myself. The kids loved it. They went out and dug the snow out from under the swing set and put it all in front of the swings and went swinging and jumping into the snow. They also made snow forts and had snowball fights. I gave them Wednesday off of school because the snow was too distracting. They had to do their schoolwork on Thursday and Friday. They weren’t happy about that and grumbled about how homeschoolers don’t get snow days as much as other schools.
As for the rest, I’ve been having a lot of nightmares and panic attacks and times of self-doubt. If you follow my twitter (which is pulled over to my Facebook) than I’m sure you’ve noticed some of this. Two weeks ago, I remembered a friend of mine, Crystal, who deleted her FB account because of anxiety attacks and depression and I decided I was going to follow her example. No, I’m not deleting my account, but I’m very much limiting the amount of time I’m on. If you see a picture posted on there, I can easily do that from my phone and I like making sure Little A’s mom, Grammie, and Aunt know how he’s doing while here. Also, I like sharing photos of my kids with my parents, sister, and other family and good friends. I will probably be on to upload pics from my good camera every once in a while also. This is why I’m not deleting my account. I’ve also pulled away from chat. I am needing more personal contact, but I don’t know how I can do that. I am not cutting out texting, but I would prefer that I get phone calls instead. Being able to hear a friend’s voice, to talk with them and laugh… it is so much better. Unfortunately, I’m always afraid to call my friends. I don’t want to disturb them if they are busy. I don’t want to be a distraction in their life. Silly, right? That’s how I feel. I have no one to hang out with here in Chicago, so I feel stuck where I am. There are times I go out and find myself surrounded by people, but still feel lonely. It can be people I know, good people, but I still feel totally alone.
So, I need contact. If you have time and know my number, call me. Talking. Laughing. They help.
I wasn’t sure whether or not to post this, but I am not just a happy, giggly, bouncy person. I have a lot more to me and so I’m going to let you all in a bit deeper.
I’ve been struggling a lot with so many different things. I feel like I’m unable to do much more than watch babies and change diapers. I may have a few other talents and abilities, but what good are they if I’m not able to use them.
This will be my last year of homeschooling. I can’t do it anymore. I shouldn’t have been doing it as long as I have. I don’t want to hear from anyone what a good job I’ve done so far because I know what my kids can and can’t do and they are behind on many things because of my inadequacy as a teacher. This was a very hard decision to make, especially for Jeremy, but we want our children to have the best and… well, frankly, I’m not that. I’ve had a very rough time dealing with this and I feel like it’s yet another thing I’ve failed at.
The things I like to do… Singing and photography, I’m unsure of where to go with those things. I mean, I’m just a wife and mom. I didn’t even finish college and no, for those wondering, I’m not going back to college. How do I go anywhere with my singing when that’s all I do? I don’t play any of my instruments well enough to do so for outside my family or friends and I don’t write music. All I do is sing… As for photography, I’m not someone who likes to go do posing people and stuff like that. I like to catch life and nature as it happens. Where do I go with that? With the advance of digital photography and DSL cameras being more available to more people, there are a lot more people taking pictures these days, I feel like that passion is no longer something special.
Anyway, I guess I just needed to open up and say what I was feeling.
This is one of those posts that I’m not even sure I’ll keep up… I guess we’ll see.
I appreciate all the prayers and encouragement given while Charlie was in the animal hospital. I was really worried about him.
When I took him in on Monday morning, I didn’t expect him to make it very long. Everyone at the vet’s office said he looked bad and though they told me they’d do their best, they also didn’t disguise the fact that they also didn’t expect him to live through it.
I called to see how he was and if I could visit on Tuesday. They told me he was doing so well, sitting up and purring and he’d probably be happy to see me. I came in between Little A leaving and when I had to go pick up Jeremy from the train station. I walked in and he perked up immediately. He got so excited and stood up and started walking around the cage. He had his catheter and IV in and a cone on his head. He couldn’t rub his head on me, but he headbutted me a lot. It was sweet. It was hard to leave him. I closed the cage and he sat down with his head against the bars watching me walk away. It hurt, but I knew it was the best.
They said they would be taking out his catheter on Wednesday morning and then see how he did without it. They thought he’d be able to come home on Wednesday afternoon or Thursday morning. I waited all day on Wednesday for the phone call and it didn’t come. I started getting worried when I still didn’t get a call on Thursday morning. I was ready to call them when they finally called around 2pm. They’d had to watch him for a bit longer than they had previously expected, but once they were sure he was eating enough and able to urinate okay, they gave me a call. I picked him up that afternoon, just after Little A left.
When I got him home, he went around and greeted all the kids, getting petted by each of them before he jumped up onto my lap. He sat there for an hour and a half, purring and rubbing his head on my hand if I stopped petting him. After I had to get up, he sat down on a cushion on the back of the couch where I like to sit, so he’d be behind my head when I sat back down. We had to start a new feeding routine that night also. Charlie is on special medicated food for his bladder, so we needed to separate the two cats so they could eat their own food. Neither of them were used to the fact that they couldn’t eat together.
On Friday, other than the times I had to go out of the house, Charlie stayed nearby me. He sat on my lap almost everytime I sat down. I noticed that if I got up and moved to another room, he’d follow. Last night, a friend came over and Charlie got really nervous. He wouldn’t let her touch him and he had these huge eyes, showing he was scared.
Today, he seems to be doing even better, though still a bit clingy. He and Mittens are still getting used to their new feeding routine, but you can tell they are figuring it out.
It is good to have my baby back home.
This weekend, my sweet puppy-cat got sick. He seemed fine on Friday, but wouldn’t eat on Saturday morning and started puking. He crawled under the table and layed there for a few hours. Throughout the day, he changed his place of refuge a few times… under my bed, in the shoe closet, in James’ closet, and finally he hid under Noelle’s bed late that night.
On Sunday, he stayed under Noelle’s bed and other than moving around under there a few times, he didn’t leave. The bed is too low for me to get under or I would have crawled under. He didn’t eat. He didn’t drink. He didn’t do anything. I knew that I needed to get him to the vet the next day or he’d die from dehydration if not from whatever was making him sick.
This morning, he’d come out and was sitting next to the girls’ bedroom door. He meowed weakly at me as I kneeled down to check on him. He was panting and I called the Animal Hospital. There wasn’t a dr there yet, but there were the people who come in to take care of the animals in ICU and that are being boarded there. They answer the phone in case of emergancy and when I told them about Charlie, they said they’d page the dr and to bring him in right away.
I live only a mile from the hospital, so I got there before the Dr. The techs started checking Charlie out… found out he was way too cold and put heat on him. He looked so scared, but I could tell he liked the heat. The dr came in and told me that from his symptoms, it sounded like he had a urinary blockage and problems with his kidneys. My poor Charlie has had a bit of a problem with his kidneys all of his life, but this was way too hard on him. She told me what she would need to do to help him and though she was very comforting, she didn’t smooth over the fact that he was a very sick kitty and she didn’t expect him to make it. She said she’d call and let me know how he was in a couple hours. I went home and busied myself painting our bathroom to pass the time.
After four hours, I still hadn’t had a phone call. I called them asking for an update. An hour later, the dr called me back. She’d had a few other emergencies come in after Charlie, so she was a busy woman. She told me that they removed a big blockage from Charlie’s urinary tract and put a catheter in to help him and found a lot of bloody urine backed up behind the blockage. She said they almost lost him while they were working on him, but he came through and is doing better, even purring a bit when they pet his head. Now, it’s a waiting game. Still touch and go. They have him on IV to see if they can flush out more of the toxins, but they aren’t sure if his kidneys have been permanently damaged. If they have, it may be better to put him down.
Anyway, I was told that if he’s doing okay tomorrow, I can come visit him. If his kidneys are okay, he’ll hopefully be able to come home on Wednesday or Thursday.
He’ll be a teenager in a year. That will be 2 of my 5.
Yesterday was his birthday. I think he had a good day. We gave him his present in the morning, so he could enjoy it during the day. A digital camera. He took pictures and then uploaded them to the desktop and edited them. Hehehe… that’s my boy! He did some more of his photography today also. I love watching how he sees things from behind a camera.
He picked tacos for dinner. We ate until we were full, so we decided to wait to have the birthday dessert until today. Brownies with chocolate chips sprinkled on them and ice cream. Well, for James… soy ice cream, but he loves it.
Today, he impressed me. He was messing up more than usual while playing a game and said, “This is the last one because I’ll get too mad if I keep going.” and he stuck to it. In previous times, he’d keep trying and trying, but his frustration would make it harder and harder to play the game, which only made him angrier… until I made him turn it off. I was very proud of him for making this decision today and saving himself from all the frustration and anger.
It’s actually Christmas eve, but that’s ok. We’re down at Jeremy’s parents’ house.
Earlier today, my friend, Sarah, came over and we talked and laughed over mochas and lattes and then went for a walk out in the falling snow. It was good to get out with her and just giggle and talk.
Tomorrow will be Christmas. I’m sure I’ll be woken up early by excited kids. Later we’ll have a wonderful ham dinner. Unfortunately, we can’t stay too late tomorrow, so we’ll be heading home in the afternoon.
We’ll be opening presents at home also as we didn’t bring down what we bought for the kids. I think we’ll have our annual reading of the Christmas story just before then to remind the children why we are celebrating this wonderful holiday.
Today is my Noelle’s birthday. She woke up and I heard a small little voice saying, “It’s my Birthday.” Made me laugh. She was extra hyper all day long. She got a kit with a bunch of instruments, most of them rhythm, but it also had a wooden xylophone, a kazoo, a wooden recorder, and a harmonica. She also got a bunch of bath stuff to help make bathtime more fun. Bath salts, soap, bath bubbles, bath beads, fizzies, shower gel, and a cute little butterfly poof. It also had some nail polish and lip gloss. She loved both of them.
She’s been talking about her cake for days… weeks even. Chocolate cake, chocolate icing, with cookies making a face on top. I made just that for her. It was kind of funny looking, but she was pleased.
I was glad to make her day. She was adorable today.