Nail Biting Update

Not a single nibble during the whole quake-evacuate-preschool-adventure.

Yipeee!

I Neeeeeeeeeeeed This

Absolutely Need.

Tess Update

She's recovering nicely and starting to act like her old self again. I hope she learned her lesson. We had to rearrange the furniture so she has farther than a 3 foot leap onto the kitchen counter now. Do the Olympics accept dog applicants? Pole vaulting anyone?

She's starting to get regular food but because she got hand made food for a few days, she lifts her nose to her regular kibble now. I have to put cottage cheese on it for her to take interest...brat.

Because she had to have so much blood work and fluids, they had to shave both her arms. She looks silly and screws up my plan of having pictures done of us for Christmas cards. We should probably wait a few months till at least they aren't "naked".

I'm just glad to have her healthy.

Confession

So, since I was 4 years old, I have had a horrible habit. I've bitten my nails. My big cousin Justin showed me how one day and have been doing since. It has been my New Year's Resolution every year since I was 8. I have never been able to kick the habit. This year I decided not to make that resolution. I was just going to take a year off. Well, guess what....

2 weeks and 3 days since I've had a nibble. And when you consider that is including what happened in my previous post, I'm doing damn good!

This is the longest I've gone and easiest it's ever been.

Hopefully I won't ever need acrylics again.

worst.night.ever.

My beautiful, sweet, adoring, baby girl gave me the worst scare ever.

After having a leisure filled day of shopping and movie watching we came back home to find a few m&m's on the floor.

Weird.

I had a bag full of them on the counter since I was planning on using them for something I was baking...

Then I see the worst thing ever. 14oz of baking chocolate in a bag. All I found was the bag. No chocolate anywhere. I look around closer and I start seeing piles of puke everywhere. Frantic Mr. Bumblebee and I are looking at Tucker. He is the smaller of the two, and would be a lot worse if he got any chocolate than Tess. He seems fine. I run upstairs to check the lethal dosage of chocolate for a dog. Mr. Bumblebee calls upstairs to me that it's Tess and she's not doing well at all. She was drinking water but throwing it up as soon as it hit her stomach. She was full, she felt pregnant. Not good.

I jump into action mode and without a second going by I pull out my blackberry and call the E-Vet. Tell them I'm bringing her in and how much she ate. I get directions within moments and we are out the door.

I figured that Tucker must have not gotten any, since I'm sure Tess wouldn't let him eat any of it. She's just a piggy like that.

We grab her and run out the door. Fly into the car and scream down the street. The whole time she is throwing up all over me. I don't even care. I call my mom to tell her what is going on. She used to work in a Vet office and she lets me know that it's good that she is throwing it all up.

We get into the office and they are waiting for her, they rush her to the back and then I'm left to fill in details. I had them the wrapper and they ask to induce more vomiting. Go for it!

I tell Mr. Bumblebee to go back and grab Tuck in case he's gotten any. He leaves me alone at the office to grab my other baby.

I ask when I will talk to a doctor and she tells me

"As soon as they have her stabilized, they will come talk to you, but right now they still need to work on her."
Stabilize?

Really, it's this bad? I knew it was bad, I know what can happen but it was so surreal. Was this happening?

Surprisingly I hold it together. Mr. Bumblebee and Tucker show up. Tuck is just fine acting like a paranoid freak as he HATES the vet.

Finally a doctor comes in. She tells us Tess has had 2x the lethal dosage for a dog her size. The doctor says they've gotten her to throw up a lot so that is a good sign but that we aren't out of the woods. She could still slip into a coma, have a seizure or worse die.

Her heart rate is at 150bpm which is extremely high.

Mine is, at this point, right up there with her.

After waiting some more they say they are going to keep her overnight and do blood work to monitor her organs. They are also going to administer the charcoal and will know more tomorrow.

Send me home. Few tears were shed but again, not nearly as many as I thought I would.

I call my mom and give her an update and come spend time with Tucker.

I go into a cleaning frenzy and figure out how to keep her from ever getting onto the kitchen counter again. We have wonder dog on our hands and this is going to be no easy task.

I call again at midnight and they say she is resting and I can come again in the morning at 7am to see if we transfer her to another vet or she can come home.

We wake up and throw on clothes to get over there.

She's doing well! Took charcoal like a champ. Ready to go home but needs to be watched 24/7 for any signs of organ failure or coma. Feed her bland diet and keep in contact with regular vet.

Whew.

NOT!

Never did the doctor mention "Oh, P.S. she'll have running charcoal/tar poop pouring out of her uncontrollably for the next few hours so keep her off carpet."

Good Heavens almighty! What a joyous surprise that was.

So, after a full day of cleaning carpets and watching my baby like a hawk, she is acting a lot more like herself. The doctor said that she can experience the effects of a chocolate OD for up to four days after the incident.

Through this whole ordeal I was surprised with how Mr. Bumblebee stepped up to the plate. I knew just walking into the door of an E-Vet was going to be pricey but when talking to the vet about estimates and such, I began to get nervous. Right when I was going to say "How much?" Mr. Bumblebee stepped in and said "Whatever it costs, doesn't matter."

We have two dogs and live in an apartment. You may not understand it but we are a family, and I love it.

Tess and Tucker Published?

Every time I get to work with the Kindergarten class at the preschool I work at I have to find new ways of keeping the "older" kids occupied. I've gotten to telling the kids stories about Tess and Tucker. I tell them how loud Tucker snores, how sweet Tess is, and how naughty they can be sometimes. The kids ask me everyday to tell them stories about Tess and Tucker. A few days ago, I noticed the kids playing "Tess and Tucker". Half of them were Tess and the other half was Tucker. The "grownups" would walk them around the school and feed them. I thought it was really interesting and funny. It was flattering that my puppies have had so much influence on them. I was talking to a parent the other day who told me she had heard about the infamous pets and mentioned, "You should start a book series about them for children". I am not a writer. I don't know if I could even do it, but it got my wheels turning. The kids all know my love for dogs and so whenever they bring a book to school, they make sure it's a dog book and always ask me to read it. The parents come to me for dog advice and the whole school gets worried when I called in late one day because Tess was sick in the morning. Maybe I should go somewhere with this? At least see what it could be all about...

What do you think? Do "The Adventures of Tess and Tucker", have potential?

Water Babies

Thanks again everyone for the sweet comments. I can't tell you how good it makes me feel to read them and know that I have a support system out there. While I have only met a handful of you in RL, I hope I have the chance to thank each of you in person for your thoughts.

Well, it looks like we have another water baby on our hands.

We took the kids to the dog park this past weekend and Tuck found the pool first and was sloshing around in it. We knew he wasn't afraid of water but this sort of confirmed it for us. He would run around the park and then go full force into the pool.

After the dog park, we came home and crashed. Tess has been falling asleep with her tongue sticking out. I couldn't resist shooting this photo but she woke up right when I snapped it. But believe me, she sleeps with it out almost every night now.

Tucker is like a toddler right now. He is fighting sleep all the time if Mr. Bumblebee and I are still awake. Like he'll miss out on a party if he dozes off or something. It's cute because eventually he looses his battle.

At the end of the day when I'm walking around our teeny tiny apartment picking up dog toy after dog toy, I realize how lucky I am to have these guys around. They are just so much fun and so freakin' cute that I can't imagine my life without them now. Seriously, aren't they just too cute?

Hey, I Know That Dude...

So while we were walking around Michael's we found this interesting "cutter" that Mr. Bumblebee was interested in (the man loves tools.) We flipped over the box and low and behold, we recognized the girl on the back of the box:

(sorry it's fuzzy)

That would be my niece, who happens to share the same name as I do. Her family does photography on istockphoto and the models they use are usually family. This is not the first time this has happened but it's always fun nonetheless.

We got some interesting stares as we made a big deal about the box and our relative we had identified on it.

We've driven by billboards on freeways with pictures of her on it and sometimes just surfing the net I will come across a picture of her or bumblebee BIL.

Very Sad News

Very sad news during my break. Bumblebee family dog Riley passed away. He started to act very different and it was concluded that it was probably brain cancer and it was on the advice of the Vet that it was time. Riley lived a very long happy life for a dog and it was a bitter sweet ending. While we didn't want to see him in pain anymore, we were also very sad to say goodbye.

In loving memory for Riley Hunter:

Picture circa 2005

We will miss you.

Update

Hi all.

Oh my gosh! I can't believe how many concerns I got about my absence and to make sure I'm okay. It really meant a lot to me. What an amazing group of people that I "know" and how lucky I am to be apart of this, whatever it is. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart.

So regarding my health, well....there's not to much I'm ready to talk about. I will more than likely live. No worries there. It's just kind of strange that we are dealing with this. There are times where Mr. Bumblebee and I will just look at each other and give each other a look like "are we really dealing with this right now?" I refuse to allow something like this invade the happiness of my life. I am a happy-go-lucky person. I won’t let this interfere with it. We are not making it a big deal, we are keeping most of our families out of the loop about it because it’s just not worth talking about.

But lets get to the real reason you all read this blog: Tess and Tucker.

Tess has really mellowed out. While it’s nice to not have her running off the walls all the time, it’s sad that my little girl is growing up. She’s been really needy recently too. I can’t figure out why but I love how much she wants to be around me. If I’m sitting down, she’s in my lap resting. It’s cute and right now, it’s something I need.

Tucker is really improving. He is still shy around random people but now he will walk right up to our parents and even sit in their lap. I know it sounds trivial and not that big of a deal, but for Tuck it’s a huge deal. We all practically jumped out of our skin when he hopped into my mom’s lap. He’s really coming into his own unique personality. He even barked at me the other day to play with his toy. He's our little brute.

In other news, we hit our one year of marriage. We also hit the 7 years of dating mark as well. We wanted to go on a vacation but we are like ::this:: close to a house and so we decided to just save the cash and keep moving forward with operation Bumblebee house. Get us out of this apartment!!

I really am going to keep updating this blog more often so stay tuned. I’m going to work hard to keep growing it and hopefully with it.

Long time no blog...

I'm alive. I've been super busy with health issues, work, summer school, and vacation. A real update will be soon. Everyone here is doing well.