Doggone it!

Poor Ellie and Elvis. Ever since the human baby came along, they don't get near as much attention. Well that all changed on Sunday when poor Ellie had major trouble with her eye. I spent about 9 hours in vets offices over the course of 24 hours.

I noticed Saturday night that her eye was weeping, cloudy and she wasn't opening it all the way. It didn't look horrible, so I put some eye lubricant stuff in it and figured I would watch it until I could take her to the vet on Monday. On Sunday morning we came back from church and it looked even worse. Then she started crying and shaking because a piece of hair had gotten in it. I could tell she was in a lot of pain so I rushed her to the emergency vet clinic. They told me that it was really bad and sent me to a clinic off of I-10 where they had an opthomologist on call. They confirmed that she had a severe eye ulcer. They did a phone consultation with the opthomologist who determined that it was stable enough to come in on Monday morning.

We went in yesterday and the opthomologist said that right now the eye is holding, but the framework that is keeping the inner eye from coming out of the ulcer is very fragile.. However, with time, mediciation and crating Ellie, it will hopefully heal on it's own without surgery.
So for right now, we are going to see if it will heal. If not, we will do the surgery. Either way, her vision is going to be pretty bad in that eye. Poor punkin.She is on plenty of antibiotics and pain medicine. She HATES having the drops put in her eyes and I have to fight her 6 times a day to do it. I think they burn and itch. She also has to wear the E collar at all times (aka the lampshade) and that drives her nuts. I would post pictures, but it's pretty nasty and will make your own eyes water.

My fur babies will still always be my babies even if they are much lower on the totem pole.
Off to go buy Ellie some yummy treats!

Harper's vocabulary is rapidly growing and she's just started to say No, although she's been expressing no for a while now with wild shaking of the head, pushing and temper tantrums.
So now I don't know if her ability to express the word is good or not...we shall see.

Harper thinks she is so big and wants to do everything herself now. She wanted the water bottle instead of her sippy, and was throwing a bloody fit because I wouldn't give in to her insistent demands. So to save my poor ear drums and try to get her to eat something, I gave in. Feel free to leave comments with parenting advice on this one.


All we ended up with was a wet shirt, wet food and a happy baby :)

Potty opportunity....

Life is hard when your diaper won't stay up and mom and dad use that to their potty advantage. Colin spent a hard day cleaning and organizing the garage and Harper was running around in there having a great time. Soon her pants started sinking lower and lower, and there was lots of baby crack showing. Soon the diaper started falling off too. (I don't know who the defective diaper changer was, but it wasn't me!)

So we seized the potty opportunity and sat Harper on her princess potty seat. Daddy instructed Harper on the proper throne procedure regarding stance and toilet paper procedures and providing the necessary reading material.

And I know you're on the edge of your seat with anticipation, but nothing happened despite our valiant efforts which included lots of clapping, excitement and signing "Potty" in American Sign Language.

But 10 minutes later, while waiting for the bath to fill, the bath mat got a nice little sprinking.

A Disclaimer

Before I post anymore, I want to make a disclaimer about my grammer, spelling and general crappy writing.
In fact, I think I need to make a disclaimer about the above disclaimer because I'm not making any sense.

See..I told you. Plus I'm sure this thing will be full of typos. I tend to type faster than my brain works...and I don't type THAT fast, so that'll tell you something.

My first post!

Wow, I feel a little intimidated making my first post on my blog. Will it be witty or funny enough to catch your attention?? ooooh, the pressure. Wait, I have to remind myself that I will probably be the only one ever reading this blog.

So it is early January and we are the midst of trying to recover from Christmas. For us, that means getting the tree finally taken down (hasn't quite happened yet!), figuring out a place to put all the crap and getting all of us back onto a schedule. Especially Harper who is partying until at least 10:00 pm every night.

Colin is still working evenings at Willowbrook and has Thur/Fri off. The schedule is chaotic but somehow we manage. I think it is a testament to our marriage that we can pull off working full-time on opposite schedules with a 16 month old and not bicker like cats and dogs, much less get divorced.

We are really stoked to have scheduled a cruise with our new great pals, Daniel and Rebecca. In the midst of a weary January, it is great to have something to look forward to. We are going on a 4 night cruise on Carnival and cruising to Cozumel, Mexico. Harper and their little girl, Rachel, will be spending quality time with their respective grandparents.
Now for the great rush to whip ourselves into swimsuit shape in 11 weeks. If I don't, they may not want to hang out with us anymore. LOL

Anyway, without further ado, I will use this blog to post pictures and keep updated with my family and friends.

Welcome!