Henry the Brave

This has been a hard year for our four-legged family members. We lost Stanley in August, thought we might lose Bones, but he ended up being ok, then lost Fred in December. Now we are praying for Henry to make it.

I noticed he had started being a little more reclusive than normal the last few months. I chalked it up to moodiness over Gabriel getting bigger and stepping on him occasionally, and perhaps to age (he turned 8 this month). Then I noticed he didn't seem to want to play with me at all, which is really unusual. Then about a month ago, I picked him up one day and realized he had lost weight. Alot of weight. Once again, I tried to rationalize that maybe he didn't like the new low-cal food I had started all the cats on.

I finally took him in Friday, and our vet found a huge lump where his right kidney should be. X-rays found something that is probably a tumor, and has gotten so large it's pushed his intestines over to his left side. He's lost almost 4 pounds since last September when he had his last checkup. (This would be like a human losing 30-40 pounds). I couldn't wrap my brain around what the vet was telling me. Other than being blind, Henry's always been the healthiest pet we've had. He keeps in shape, eats right, drinks lots of water. I always expected him to outlive all the other pets. I really couldn't think straight in the vet's office, I was so shocked and upset. And feeling very, very guilty about not bringing him in earlier.

Our vet rarely does organ removal, but he is willing to remove Henry's kidney for us. We could take him for an ultrasound to see if it looks like there's any spreading to other areas, but that will be at least $300-$500, and our vet has graciously said it isn't necessary for him to proceed with the surgery. I totally trust Dr. Norris, and have great faith in his abilities. I know he wouldn't have offered to do the surgery if he thought he wasn't qualified. And not that another vet wouldn't do his best, but having someone do the surgery who knows us and knows what an amazing animal Henry is just means SO much to Jav and I.

I know you aren't supposed to pick favorites, but I have to say that Henry and I have a really special bond. He's sitting in my lap right now, and it just seems like my lap was made to hold him. The minute I start petting him I relax and breath deeper. It's been that way since the day I first picked him up, almost like we knew each other in a past life. So this is hitting me really hard. I know he's strong, and all we can do is pray that once his kidney is removed that I'll have my strong, brave and amazing Henry back in my lap, healthy again.

Great motherhood quote

I read this in one of my Yoga Journal on-line articles. Diane Dillon, co-author of Mommy Mantras, says, "Mothering is very difficult and there is alot you can't control. But what you can control is how you think and how you respond." This is just so true.

If Gabriel wakes up from a nap early, I could be mad and resentful. Or, I can try to laugh it off and know we'll both sleep really well that night. If he wakes up crying at night (which he is doing several times a night due to molars coming in), I could be tense and worry about how much sleep I'm losing. Or, I can remember that he won't need me like this very much longer and realize how wonderful it is to hold him in the middle of the quiet night. This all occured to me on our trip to Fredericksburg, when I realized how much time I was spending chasing him around my uncle's house instead of sitting and relaxing. Last year, I probably would have been cranky and resentful about it. This year, it didn't bother me at all.

Once this realization set in, being a Mom has gotten so much easier.

Path Project - Phase One: Done!

We finished! And we love the way it's looking. AND we only spent about 75 bucks. Now to find the energy to start on Phase II, which is a little longer than the first Phase. Ugh!

Happy 10th Birthday Bonesy the Lionhearted!

Landscaping plans

Not only have we been super busy with our usual May activities this month, we also have taken on a mammoth project in our yard. I have big plans for our yard, and since I'm impulsive, I have a tendency to start working on the big plans without thinking through things sometimes. My idea started with a combination of things. The first was an article in Real Simple magazine about having a backyard campout. They featured a really cool Smith and Hawken firepit to roast hot dogs or make s'mores around. I couldn't get this idea out of my head. Then I realized that our dogs had made somewhat of a path going from one side of our backyard, all the way along the back of the house, to the other side. Dogs will do this. They like to run in the very same place to go bark at things or see out the cracks in the fence. I decided it would be really cool to expand on the path, widen it and border it and fill it in with stepping stones, and even cooler to have a circle in the middle where we could put chairs (adirondack, of course) around a firepit one day.

Lovely in theory. Hell to execute. (This should be my new motto for all my cockamamie ideas).

We decided to do this in stages, with the strip along the back porch first. The first few days of digging out monkey grass went really quickly because it had just rained buckets the few days before. By the end of the week the ground was like concrete and I was using the soaker hose to loosen everything up. I had read up on path-building, and after Jav helped me dig out some more of the dirt, we put landscape plastic down and I started to put the border up. This actually took a couple of weeks (working while Gabriel napped), and I finally got the hang of using paving sand to even out the bricks. It also helped to add some of the dirt back in and pack it against them to hold them in place. Now we are finally ready to fill in with more sand, stepping stones and gravel.

I almost had a heart attack when Jav came home saying that the gravel company he went to for a quote said it would take at least a half a ton of gravel to fill our 20 foot section of path. A HALF A TON. WTF? We are hoping now that we added dirt back in, and once we get the stepping stones set in, that it will not take that much. Regardless, we are spending way more than we thought it would cost and it is taking way more time than we originally figured. And this is just the beginning. We can't stop now or we'd have a section of path that goes nowhere in our backyard, and how goofy would that be? I guess I should've started at one end or the other in case we ran out of steam. But too late now!

At this point the monkey grass came up really easily.

By now the ground was like concrete again. Molly enjoyed this project because of all the earthworms she got to snack on.

My grandfather's wheelbarrow, that my Dad gave me a few months ago. I don't know what we would've done without it.

My trooper of a husband helping me even out the ground.

Almost through with the border, and it sat like this until yesterday when I finally finished it. I haven't downloaded that picture yet.

Fun at swim class!

We only have two more classes left in our swim class session. Bummer! I've absolutely loved every second of our class, even though Gabriel has had some rough days here and there. It's an amazing thing to watch your child mature, and I can't describe the feeling of pride I get watching him learn new things. He's finally kicking, and also has learned to walk himself along the side of the pool. His underwater count is stuck at 5 seconds, but on the jumps when I let go of him he's moving his arms and kicking with perfect form (according to Miss Andrea, our excellent instructor). His favorite thing to do is float on his back. He has a little trouble completely relaxing in class, but he's become an expert floater in the bathtub. We're hoping to take him swimming at least a couple of times this summer so we can keep working with him. But then we won't be getting back into a pool until next January. Until then I'll be singing our songs and working with him in the tub, and hopefully he'll be swimming like a fishie after the first couple of lessons next session.

New toy, but no time to play

Jav and I invested in our new computer last weekend. It's a MacBook Pro, and looks so inviting. Problem is we haven't had time to even open the box, let alone start the process of transferring data and learning how Macs work (this is our first one). But at least the air is brimming with all sorts of lovely technical possibilities, and alot more speed.

The merry, merry month of May

Our busiest month is, without a doubt, May. Forget the holidays. This month trumps them by a long shot. We have a ton of birthdays, our anniversary, and Mother's Day that all fall within the same week every year. This week I have our book club on Wednesday, anniversary dinner with my wonderful hubby on Thursday, Grace's birthday party on Saturday, then my Mom and Dad over for lunch Sunday, and dinner at my sister-in-law's for Jav's Mom early Sunday evening. Yikes!

Plus this year the following week is still pretty hectic. Gabriel and I are going to Fredericksburg with my Mom from the 14th to the 16th, the family's coming for lunch on the 17th, and we're supposed to go out with friends that same night. Double Yikes!

We are so blessed to have so much family and so many friends that live close, and I'm learning that instead of panicking when I look at the calendar, to look forward to each and every event. Yes, we'll be tired here and there, but we'll also have loads of fun and some great new memories to reminisce about.

So far it looks like things slow up a little towards the last week and weekend of the month, with nothing planned so far on Memorial Day weekend. The only thing I'm planning is yardwork and naps.

Blowing in the wind

What's the deal with the wind this year? I feel like I'm living on the beach, but without the added benefit of having the ocean within walking distance. It seems like I'm picking up small tree branches from the yard every other day. We have two wind chimes on our back porch, which I like the sound of very much. UNLESS it's blowing a gale force wind, and then they drive me crazy. They have spent more time laying on the patio table then hanging from their posts this year.

I used to have really bad anxiety attacks when it was really windy. I think it's because I have a very ingrained fear of fire, and because wind spreads fire, I also fear wind. When I was little we were driving to visit my grandfather in the hospital once, which was a little traumatic in itself. But we had been seeing this huge plume of smoke for miles while we were driving. Eventually we came to the source. A small house was completely enveloped in flames. That, coupled with the fact that the forest fire in Bambi completely freaked me out as a kid has led to this worry. When I used to get the panic attacks really bad, I was always driving somewhere or traveling sort of far away from my house, so I would worry that my house was on fire (with pets inside) while I was gone.

I still get them occasionally. These days, it's not just the wind that causes the anxiety attacks, it's all the stuff I worry about culminating into one big panic. Mostly environmental fears - running out of water one day, the temperature going up so high that no one can venture outside, overpopulation getting so bad that we have no wild animals left anywhere in the world. You know, little stuff like that. (hah). Stuff I have pretty much no control over at all. Hence the panic. Life can be tough sometimes when you are a control freak.