It's a puppy party!

About a year ago it became clear to be that I was going to have to adopt my children. Why, you ask? Well I came to the conclusion if I couldn't handle the stress of my Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Lexie being pregnant, clearly I'd have to be sedated and possibly institutionalized through my own pregnancy.

But my Lexie made it through with flying colors, giving birth by C-section to quadruplets on July 17 of last year. I was so relieved to see 4 healthy puppies, 2 girls and 2 boys. All had pallets, eyes, and legs and none of them were the dreaded 1 in a million "water puppies" I'd googled for weeks. I could breathe again.

The relief was short lived when I realized that occasionally dogs reject their puppies which my rotten little Lexie did for the first 24 hours. Puppies die, get smothered and occasionally get eaten by their mothers. I slept on an air mattress beside their whelping box for 2 weeks. I set an alarm for every 2 hours to make sure Lexie was feeding them (and not eating them). There was an incident involving the county fair when the puppies were about 8 days old that may or may not have led to me being taken home due to a thunderstorm and my fear of Lexie panicking, smothering, and eating her little bundles of joy. Like I said, I need psychiatric medicine.

This is when I came to the conclusion I may have to adopt a 2 year old. If newborn puppies stressed me out that much, clearly my own future children would be doomed. Ask Ally, Cooper, and Spencer. They all probably have scars where I poked them in their sleep for their first 6 months of life to make sure they were still breathing.

But magically, they all survived. They all found wonderful homes, they all thrived, and now they're all turning ONE!

So in honor of all my babies, we are having a first birthday party on Sunday! Now if you know me at all, this shouldn't be at all shocking. As I've said before on this blog, yes. I do throw my dogs birthday parties and I'm really not ashamed of it. With so many depressing things going on, why not have a party? Especially one that involves friends and puppies.

It actually looks like we are going to have an amazing turn out. I was expecting just the puppies and maybe a few friends. As of right now I've counted about 25 dog friends coming. I'm happy to know that I've raised some popular pups! Unfortunately we will be missing one puppy at the party.

Dietrich who now lives with my Dad in North Carolina won't be attending due to the fact that he has taken on the role as prodigal dog in my Dad's life. My dad called and said sincerely that he would just miss him too much, that if he could hand picked the perfect dog, it would have been Dietrich. So Dieters will be celebrating at home with his friends Bevin the Chihuahua, Spot the mutt, and Finnick and Gaby the Papillons.

So now everyone cross your fingers that it isn't 110 degrees, it doesn't rain, and most importantly, that my baby dog Sprinkles behaves herself. She has some jealousy issues with her sister Cera that usually end in Sprinkles trying to rip her throat out.

Terrible Palsy

The past few days I've submerged myself into CP blogs. The best idea? Probably not. But sometimes I think the best research that can be done is the kind you find through blogging. You get to see in a way first hand, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

I can see why so many people refer to this diagnosis as "terrible palsy". There are kids on all ends of the spectrum, all with varying ability levels and all struggling for their own "normal". On one hand these blogs make me so thankful that Cooper's CP is so mild. 90% of people who saw him on a good day would never know anything was wrong. I will admit, I've even tricked my mind into thinking "Wow, why am I worried? He's got it so easy! He can walk, talk, and play!"

And then he trips, or chokes on a drink, or tries desperately to tell me something I can't understand. He doesn't have it easy at all. Mild is in the eye of the beholder. Even at it's mildest he still struggles with so much more than his siblings and friends have too, and that in itself is enough to make the whole thing simply unfair. What makes this all even worse? I've never once heard this little boy complain about what he can't do. If he falls off of a kitchen stool because of balance (which happens about once a day) he gets right back up.

I normally try not to think about the things Cooper can't do or the things he's struggles with. There is so much that he CAN do that overshadows everything else. Unfortunately the past week has been a real challenge. When he falls, he falls hard. If there is an uneven surface, he does trip over it. Today at lunch he chocked on his Cars 2 Mater juice box 4 times which is pretty unusual for him (normally he chokes once or twice and then slows down). I'm not really sure what's going on. Maybe he's tired from traveling, maybe he's growing, maybe it's simply just a bad week. Whatever the deal is, it needs to end. Selfishly I'm enjoying the extra snuggle time, but I'm ready for him to be back to his happy-go-lucky "hiya" self.

So everyone please say a little prayer for my favorite "yellow" loving boy. He needs one this week.

Beach Blog

It's been a great week so far! Cooper finished his infusion and did amazing. We've been on the beach everyday. I don't blend in with the albino population anymore. Life is good. Here are a few beach stories for those of you who enjoy laughing at my suffering.

We caught sand fiddlers on the beach today along with periwinkles. Cooper called the periwinkles"buttons" but was deathly afraid of the sand fiddlers. He definitely doesn't like anything resembling a crab. The other day a crab washed by us in the surf and we showed him. He proceeded to sprint out of the water, run to our beach house steps, and look for Mommy. When we finally caught him he was saying "Hand boo boo! Crab bite hand!" In case you didn't know, NC has these amazing crabs that can become invisible, fly through the air and actually bite 2 year olds. It's rather scary.

Ally has been her usual self. All she wants to do is catch animals and cook them. Crabs, fish, sand fiddlers, sharks, you name it. She's obsessed with eating "baby lobsters" aka shrimp to the rest of the population. I'm guessing there's no chance I'll have a sister join Peta anytime soon.

Today she decided while relaxing in her favorite "rock rock" chair here that she was getting married... to a dog. Not just any dog but Dexter, our amazing dog trainer Becka's, old english sheep dog. Ally kind of worships Becka and Dexter. Apparently it only made since to marry a dog since she is going to be a lion vet. Shortly after this announcement (and cheating on Dexter with my sister's Papillon, Finnick) she decided to become a dog. She gave me the option of either letting her pee either A) on the beach or B) on a dog pad. She made it very clear that there were no other options.

It was really difficult to rationally explain to her why she couldn't become a dog when Cooper has recently become a nudist who enjoys doing interpretative art with his own urine. He's really quite talented.

Now i'll leave you with my current facebook status:

It's kind of funny that our beach rental doesn't allow dogs, but they have no problem with a 4 year old who forgets where she left her Popsicles, an almost 3 year old who has decided to become a nudist (that isn't potty trained) and a 10 month old who is, well a 10 month old... if they only knew...haha.