MIA

When you don't see a post from me for a few days don't panic I'm going to be MIA. I will post again when I get a chance.

Moms and Dads

There's a reason God made women to be moms and not men. Today I took Kaitlyn to base so we could check the mail then go to the community center where she could play while I worked out. I asked her if she wanted to play before we left the house and told her she could slide. I went to the post office first figuring I should get it out of the way. While taking Kaitlyn out of her car seat she is saying "slide, slide" at which I reminded her we were going to check the mail first. She kept up her chanting, "slide, slide... slide, slide". After checking our mailbox I started taking back to the car. She was determined she was going to slide. On a side note you can see the park from the post office. Before I got Kaitlyn into the car she went limp on me. The child wanted to slide and of course mommy had either forgotten that is what she promised or mommy is a liar. Either way she wasn't pulling out any stops. She started to cry, but quickly suppressed it. I kept trying to reassure her she was going to slide. It didn't matter her lips were quivering and you could tell she was fighting to regain control. When I told Neal about this tonight his response was, "I would have taken her for five minutes". Of course he would. His daughter is in the middle of learning an important lesson in controlling her emotions and he would ruin it by giving her what she wants or thinks she wants. I backed the car out of the space and started to the end of the parking lot; Kaitlyn kept her eyes glued on the park the whole time, her lip still quivering. As I took a left (park to right) headed for the community center she didn't cry. She started looking around at everything around us and didn't saying anything about "play" or "slide" again. I kept trying to tell her we were going to play, but she didn't understand. The place she wanted to go was behind us. A minute later we were getting out of the car at the community center. Kaitlyn had a good 40-45 minutes of playing while I beat my body on the treadmill and stationary bike. If I had taken her to the other park even for 5 minutes she wouldn't have lasted so long at the community center. That is why I'm Kaitlyn's mommy and not Neal.

Done!

Here's the finished product. Kaitlyn wasn't to happy about having them on. I think she's tired and cranky. Don't you love her Tinkerbell panties over her diaper? Hehehe... It's really warm today and when we were putting her down for a nap I could foresee her diaper coming off with only a dress on. To save her the trouble we took the dress off her and slipped the panties over her diaper. She has been running around like this for the last couple hours.

Anyway, back to the leg warmers or leggings, whatever you want to call them. They were easy to make and would have only been easier if I didn't have to go look at something Kaitlyn had about four times, change a diaper, dig Hot Wheels out from under the sewing machine and so forth.

The only tall funky socks sold at the BX were Mud brand. If I wanted them in white I had to take the ones that said "spoiled rotten", "boy crazy" and so on. I decided for $6 a pair I would just stick with the black and polka dotted ones.

Here's a random picture from today.

Kaitlyn dumped out her cloth diapers (mulitple times) so she could get into the basket.

=(

I have the wrong kind of socks. Tomorrow (maybe tonight) I will have to hit up the BX (Base Exchange) for socks. For those still scratching their heads wondering what I'm talking about it's these...

These actually sell at Target for $12

For those who want some, but really don't sew there are a crazy amount available on Etsy in every imaginable pattern and print and lower priced then Target. Here's one pair I found that look close to the one I posted from Target.

These are sold by Knotty Baby Wear for $8 with FREE shipping. You sure can't get that from Target. You don't have to waste gas money to get these either. She also has a 2 for $10 deal.

Monkey Legs sells these for $9. Her shipping is a low $2.50 for 1-10 pairs of leggings. She offers 2 for $16 specials. They look like they are from the same pattern I found.

You can find these on Etsy too. Or make your own using some of the very same fun socks these people did.

Leggings

I found a tutorial online for baby leggings. I've looked at them several times online, but in the end decided I didn't want to spend $10-12 on a pair. This lady uses a $1.96 pair of socks from Walmart and 10 minutes of her time to make a set of leggings. I'm going to try it with a pair of my crazy socks and if they turn out well then I will go buy some socks in white and a few other colors so Kaitlyn's legs will be covered. I may not need knit tights after all. I'm hopeful these will work out.

No Pictures

Well, grrr... I forgot to take a picture of the baby. In the end I didn't wrap him. I wasn't really sure if I should or how to do it. I finally opted to carry him in the building like a baby. Few people had arrived yet so I handed him to "Nana" for practice. She works with Neal by the way which is how we know her daughter. I had wrapped up the the other two items. Did any of you know Hallmark makes adhesive wrapping paper??? I didn't! I bought it by mistake. I'm not crazy about the stuff. They send it with some sticky tabs (tape) which didn't stick well. Before leaving the house I pulled out some regular tape and re-secured one of the ends. It was interesting paper. I felt I should be putting it in my cabinets and not on a present though. I had to laugh when they kept setting the baby up with the smaller present in his lap. He looked older then his 0-3 month outfit. I did take the longer drive this morning to the other base and bought a blanket to wrap him up in. I'm glad I did. With all the moving around he did without being swaddled he may have grown longer legs (diapers moving down the leg to much).

I'm sooooo glad I gave up my pipe dream of making a small diaper cake. I started forming two layers and learned I needed more diapers. I began to plan what other items I would need to "decorate" the cake like toys, paci's and so forth. Well... a lady walked in with a really big nice diaper cake. Now that I say that the girl received a lot of nice things. Stateside it is common to go to a baby shower where you get a ton of big, small, needed, and nice items, but overseas that just doesn't happen. Someone may buy you an outfit or a couple other random items, but she was given a big gift basket full of hand picked baby items, several bags full of 4+ baby outfits with socks, hats, and diapers. I was amazed how much people really wanted to bless her. The 19 year old girl graduated from high school a year ago. Getting pregnant was a big oops that she has decided to see to completion. When I first learned she was pregnant I wasn't sure what she would do; abortion, adoption, keep it. I asked Neal if she was going to keep the baby. Her mom stepped up and said I will financially take care of you and the baby while you continue to get your education. Fast forward to today where her family (mom and sis) are fully behind her and highly anticipating this little guys arrival. The father situation is a bit confusing to me. He doesn't want anything to do with the mom, but then I hear he is in the name planning and now the baby might have his last name. I keep telling the girl if he wants nothing to do with the baby not to tag it with his name. I'm hoping she pursues child support if for nothing else to have current info on the father so if the baby wants to meet him one day he can. On a random note, I knew he was a black guy, but I didn't know he was so dark. My goodness the baby could come out any color. Mind you I'm not trying to be racist. I've just been picturing this tan baby with kinky hair since she got pregnant. Her "tan" baby may just be almost black as night.

Baby Shower

I made a couple things for a baby shower we are going to tomorrow. Well, today really seeing how it's after midnight. By the way I finished them earlier, but I'm posting them now because Neal just got off the computer. Yes, you have seen this fabric before. I used it to make Kaitlyn a dress recently. I didn't have any "boy" fabric so I thought this blue and orange would have to do. The blue is actually darker then it looks in these pictures.
I took this picture pre-Velcro. I used iron on Velcro to keep there from being ugly stitches on the top side. I also put fusible fleece between the two longer pieces of fabric. I figured if it is used for a changing pad while the wipes and diapers are out being used then the pad should be a bit more comfortable then two pieces of fabric. You can find this diaper clutch pattern on Blessed Roots blog. I've made three of them so far and they are super easy. I have stolen her idea on how to sew seams when you must flip the project inside out; it really helps in pulling the raw seams in.
I didn't know this picture was blurry until I had already wrapped it. I've made three of these over the last month. Over Kaitlyn's first year of life we used a lot of tissues. I found flattened and falling apart tissue wrappers in my purse and diaper bag all the time. I figured a tissue case would keep my tissues cleaner and together longer. Our noses are fine right now so I have yet to carry mine around. The one thing I changed was instead of putting ribbon on top of a raw edge to camouflage it I actually wrap it around the raw edge. In the tissue case above I just used bias tape. I contemplated which color ribbon to use and saw the white bias tape sitting there and thought why not. As for sewing the ends I sewed it on the right side first with a 1/8" seam then flipped it inside out and sewed 1/4" seams. I wanted to case to hold up and not have strings hanging from it. Another thing I changed was the dimensions. The tutorial says to cut a 7"wide x 6" long piece of fabric. I found the 7" to be to baggy on the sides of the case and 6" to short for how I sewed it. The case above was cut 6.5" wide x 6.25" long and fits the tissues great. The instructions in the tutorial say to buy a certain kind of tissues. I bought the standard travel tissues and after putting them into the case I used a seam ripper to make a slit in the top of the package.

This isn't all the baby gift only the handmade part. I also made a "baby". If I remember I'll get pictures of him tomorrow before we go to the shower. I bought the Carter's gown/sleep-n-play outfit that comes with a bib, booties, and a hat in 3m. I also got a Carter's onesie, size 1 diapers, teething toy, and pacifier clip. With the help of rubber bands I rolled and stuffed the sleeper with diapers. He has stuffed legs and arms made from rolled diapers. When I made a couple of these before I put socks for hands, but this outfit had the roll over sleeves to cover the baby's hands. Also the first time the sleepers had feet in them, but this one doesn't so I used the booties as feet having the top of a diaper fill it up. I left the sleeper on the hanger and wrapped diapers around it so the torso and head of the baby stay together. The first two times I used a white onesie for the face (unsnapped with that portion going down the neck opening of the sleeper, arms folded back under the hat), but only had a blue one this time. It's a bit weird with a blue face, but that's okay. I clipped the pacifier clip onto the bib and connected the teether toy to it. I didn't get a chance to go to one of the local bases to buy a baby blanket to swaddle him with so I'm not sure what I'll do. My other two I swaddled. I may just wrap this guy up somehow and give him without a blanket. Oh, the first two times I attached a note to him. Here is what it said...

(this one didn't know the gender)

This is Alex the welcome baby

When you take off his sleeper and undo some more snaps
Release a few rubber bands and take off his cap
You will find a couple onesies, a hat, and sleepers too
A few diapers, some booties, and blanket to boot.
Alex doesn’t mind sharing all he has brought
Just add a bow to her hair if it’s a girl you got.

(Knew they were having a boy)
This is Alex the welcome baby

When you take off his sleeper and undo some more snaps
Release a few rubber bands and take off his cap
You will find a couple onesies, a hat, and sleepers too
A few diapers, some booties, and blanket to boot.
Alex doesn’t mind sharing all he has brought
Just wash it right up and a layette you have got.

As you can see with both I changed them according to what was included with the baby.

Dee Dee Pleated Dress

The Dee Dee Pleated Dress ebook just became available on You Can Make This (YCMT). You can check out other patterns by Nanoo Designs on YCMT too or visit the author's blog for more links on where to buy her patterns.

I would just like to apologize in advance to all the authors I have patterns from. Kaitlyn never seems to photo well in your designs, but trust me it's all her. She used to be wonderful at having a quick smile when I put a camera before her, but now... well, it's all a game. Let's see how much I can run around and be "cute" before mom loses her patients and puts the camera away. Tonight I gave up. With that disclaimer please know these pictures do not show how nice the dress is, but what a stinker the one wearing it can be.

By the way, the dress looks big on her because I made it in a size 2 yet she is still in 18 months. Seeing how she has plenty of clothes for right now I'm trying to plan for when she outgrows them in a couple months. Seeing how we are firmly moving into fall around here she will mostly be wearing this dress with a long sleeve shirt and knit tights.

Wipe Out!

What happens after a good nap time of trashing your room? Beyond a mad mommy with a newly shortened temper you get a cranky baby. Grrr... She doesn't get this is why she must sleep. After cleaning up her mess then realizing she was really tired. I began to wonder what I should do to get her to sleep. She was being awful and begging for food all at the same time. I made her a peanut butter and apple sauce sandwich which seemed to tame the savage beast. As soon as it was gone she started going through the list of things she likes to eat as her way of saying she wants more. "Cheese, cheese... apple, apple... cracker... juice, juice... (now whiny) aaaapple". As I went for some juice I saw the bowl of corn in the fridge. She was fine eating it cold and I was good with getting her to stop asking for food. With the corn being in a plastic bowl I didn't want to heat it up unless she wouldn't eat it cold; at that point I would need to dump it into a different bowl. Anyway, she got really quite. I turned around to see this...

This is what we like to see happen in her room during nap time.

Beat the child it will not die...

...or will it? Now would be a good time for mom and dad to visit. Someone else needs to take care of this child for a while. I've had it! Yesterday I walked into her room to find this...

And today, this...

I like to call these the after pictures.

I've never wanted to spank her more. It's not just that she made a mess, but she broke stuff too. There was a double picture frame of Neal's parents on the shelf that is now two separate frames. Thank goodness they have loops on the back to hang them from because they can no longer stand up. She knocked her big picture off the wall and busted part of the Plexiglas. I had to really work at getting it back together enough to hang on the wall.

And one other complaint now that I'm on a roll... Who in the world picked out that purple carpet?!!! All our upstairs carpet is this lovely purple color. Just so Blues Clues fans don't feel left out with all our crazy Barney carpet we have your carpet downstairs. That's right purple upstairs and blue down.

Great... now I have to feed my little room wrecker.

Growing Up

It's time we let Kaitlyn grow up a little. I was hoping we could pack up her crib and worry about this at our next house, but it looks like me must face it here. My plan had been when we PCS from here and FINALLY get our household goods back to put up her crib minus the front rail. Recently Kaitlyn has been throwing her leg over the railing when I put it down to get her out. I know she must know she could crawl out even when the railing is up. Today I walked in her room after her morning nap to find her on her belly (awake) with her feet up on the rail. Now tell me how do you get your feet up on a high rail while on your belly??? She did it. I decided that was it. It was time to take the rail off. I would rather her fall 18" from the mattress rather then over the rail. I figured it would be safer anyway.

At first she didn't even want to look at the crib. She would bury her face in my shoulder and cry after looking at it. I put a king size pillow and a step stool on the floor and she still didn't care to check out her bed.

It took our second trip upstairs for her to crawl on the bed. By the way, other then the railing missing this is how her bed normally looks; crowded with stuffed animals. There is a shelf just above her crib that she has started pulling stuffed animals off of when she is supposed to be napping. I come in to find a whole zoo in her bed.

Her first nap in the newly changed bed didn't happen. She cried, got out of bed, went through her closet and dresser, pulled out toys and several other things while she should have been sleeping. Just because she wasn't sleeping didn't mean she could come out of her room. She normally naps for 2 hours in the afternoon so I made her stay in her room for two hours. She eventually opened her door to discover the gate I put across the doorway.

Tonight didn't go much better. She wanted to go down at first, but by the time I made it downstairs she was bawling. Her room was dark so I figured she wouldn't be playing around. After a bit of crying we heard her hit the ground. She started screaming more. I went in for her and as soon as Neal came in she wanted him. After a bit of holding her he finally laid down on our bed with her and she passed out. Afterwards he put her back in her bed. Hopefully she will stay on it tonight. I did take her long narrow pillow that she used to sleep with and put it next to the edge of the bed. I'm hoping it will help a little in keeping her on the bed. Maybe I should be checking on her rather then typing here.

Yesterday

Yesterday was a trail. It started with me getting Kaitlyn ready then running upstairs to finished getting ready myself. I came down to find this...

Pens and highlighters all over the couch and my baby's top untied and around her waist with blue and orange highlighter on her belly. =(

I needed to mail a package and drive an hour to pick up some meds. After a bit of debating I decided to mail the package first. Neal called asking if we wanted to have lunch with him. His plan was to get sandwiches from the commissary and eat them at the park. He kept saying it was a nice day. He was adamant about doing it. I didn't think it was a good idea, but let him make the choice. We went to the park... Neal said the wind wasn't blowing; as if that made it being 61 and me in a tank top better. When the wind blows here it blows crazy hard. You could be trying to walk while one leg beats the other with each step. It's worse around the flight line. Anyway, we walk out to the park and it's windy. I'm grumpy because I'm cold and and my hair keeps flying in my face while I'm trying to eat. Kaitlyn's top was sleeveless too and she was cold. I put a sweatshirt jacket on her and all she wanted to do was play.

Neal flipped out a bit much about me letting Kaitlyn climb up the play equipment and sliding on her own. I watched her and was confident she would stay away from the open climbing areas like where the monkey bars start and so forth.

Kaitlyn loved the biggest slide. She would crawl most of the way from the bottom until she reached the slide.

Once at the top of the slide she would stand up for a moment then finally pick a way to slide down. Many times it was feet first, on her belly.

I know what you're thinking, the day doesn't sound so bad. Well... After getting home from picking up the meds (issues at the clinic) I put Kaitlyn to bed. She didn't want to sleep. Go figure. The child missed one nap and was just in time for #2 and didn't want it. I left her in bed anyway knowing she would eventually fall asleep and wake up much more happy. Just before Neal came home I heard her start making noise. Him and I are chatting just after he walked in the door when I heard a thud. Neal asked what it was. In the calmest voice I told him to go see if Kaitlyn was still in her bed. Of course she wasn't. The crib rail was down (Oops) and my naked - yes, NAKED - child was in Neal's arms screaming when I made it up the stairs. Shortly after I put her down she took off her diaper and dress top. Her diaper was still dry, but her sheets were wet. She spent a good while crying about her fall. I'm wondering if she will think twice before doing it again??? We eventually got her diapered and downstairs. It seemed like no time had passed when Neal starts flipping out. Well, maybe he wasn't "flipping out" as much as forcefully saying "She just dropped her diaper after going poop." He just sat there while Kaitlyn had the diaper still attached around one ankle. I picked her up and he grabbed the diaper. We did one of our now famous bathroom runs were we put our dirty child in the tub for a good scrubbing.

Somehow we made it through the day only to have the dogs bark this morning waking us all up.

Sadie

Wednesday Sadie was given two thumbs up from the vet. She said she is healing nicely. Sadie can now take a bath however she just had one a week ago so I'm going to wait a little longer before she gets another. I sure don't want to dry her skin out. They warned me that Sadie's weight could jump, but so far she has lost weight. *clapping* Wednesday she was down about 2 lbs since all of this started.

Okay here is a tip for all you pet owners... Let me start by saying when I first took Sadie in, the vet we saw chastised me for this and said to stop. However, now knowing the problem the vet who did her surgery said "Great keep doing it." A while back I saw something on TV about how dogs who get dry food tend to not drink enough water. Dogs who get canned food are being more hydrated. Neal and I immediately started putting water in our dogs dry food right before giving it to them. I didn't want it to be soggy, the crunching is good for their teeth, but I did want it wet-ed down. On Wednesday the vet recommended I put Sadie on canned food because of the water intake. She said the extra water can keep the crystals from sticking together forming one big stone. Anyway, she was thrilled at the idea of putting water in their dry food before serving.

By the way, she was switched to C/D dog food and in a month will go on S/D dog food.

Warming Up

On the weekends when Neal is home and wanting to hug the bed for as long as possible I usually get Kaitlyn up and go downstairs. Some times she wakes up cold so I put her in bed with me. This past weekend I popped her in bed with Neal. As soon as she is warm or close to it she jumps up and starts playing with stuff on the headboard.

One Of Those Days

No Kaitlyn, that isn't a hat.

Nanoo Designs

I'm thinking about getting this pattern from Nanoo Designs. I'm not a big fan of the new trend of adding aprons to every dress, but it looks really good on this dress. The sunflower dress is super cute.
I also like this dress from Nanoo Designs and have considered getting this pattern for a Christmas dress.
Okay that's the end of my random pattern plug. I actually don't own any ebooks from this author, but I see potential in many of her designs. I like seeing what people add to personalize them and she gives you the perfect pallet to do so.

All Done!

I finished my skirt today. I would have finished yesterday, but life was marching on. Here's a couple pictures of it for you. Although it looks longer in the picture, it's only 21" long.As you can see it's reversable. Both fabrics were supposed to be dresses for Kaitlyn. She'll now have to wait for my next fabric order to get a couple new dresses.

My one suggestion for anyone wanting to make the skirt, which was supper easy to sew and understand the direction by the way, would be to measure where you want the top of the skirt to be. The directions for the skirt say to measure your high hip and shows (a drawing) what I understood to be a couple inches above the hip area (biggest point). Well... my skirt hangs on my hips because I should have measured higher..

Okay... I have to give up typing because Neal keeps talking to me so I can't think to type properly. Sorry if I repeat or do not fully explain something; you now know my handicap.

Twirl Skort

I never posted a picture of Kaitlyn in her twirl skort I made a couple months ago by Sew Sensible. Here she is Thursday. She did have yellow bows on her pigtails, but this picture was taken post nap. Her shirt says something like "Daddy's Little Girl".

Here's the bonus to it being a skort. She can pick the "yuck" off her feet and not show her panties (or diaper in her case).

I must admit the grass did feel gross. I never remember grass feeling soggy after a rain, but ours did this day. It almost felt like we were walking on slime to take these pictures.

Here's one more picture I'll leave you with. We took this last night.

She found the glasses yesterday that she got from Santa last Christmas. She thought they were so funny, which they are. She was streaking in her diaper hence the lovely drawn on outfit I "made" her.

New Project

I must show you this. I've pushed aside all my other projects to give this one a try. Yesterday YCMT sent out their news letter with this new ebook for sell. It's actually on sale until the 10th I believe. I didn't need to wait until the 15th because:

1. I've been wanting to try making a skirt, and


2. This is their first women's clothing sewing pattern

I bought it and pulled out some fabric to give it a try. I would have had it done last night if Kaitlyn wasn't so clingy. I'm going to try finishing it today.

Recently I finished a top from a Simplicity pattern. It was supposed to be an easy pattern, but I still got lost while trying to follow it. It made me appreciate all the free tutorials I've been finding online and You Can Make This with their great ebooks. I just wish they had more women's clothing.

I'm using fabric I bought to make Kaitlyn outfits so it won't be the most ideal skirt, but... whatever.

Kensey Spotlight

For all the dog lovers here's an old picture of Kensey. I haven't taken recent pictures of the dogs because they have been getting the full body shave. =( Actually I may have pictures of them mixed in with Kaitlyn's pictures; they wouldn't be of just them.

Kensey likes the camera, but he will not smile for it. I guess he has to look tough. I could be taking a picture of something cute Kaitlyn is doing and he will park himself right in the middle of the action and look at me just like the picture above.

Kensey isn't crazy about Kaitlyn. Actually I think he views her as a parasite that our lives must be free of. I guess my one hope is that he viewed Sadie the same one at one time and now they are always together.

What Surgery?

If you didn't know Sadie had surgery yesterday you wouldn't think anything was wrong with her. Yes she may hesitate before running to the back door to bark at the birds, but she still does it. The dogs, to Sadie's delight, keep our backyard free of birds. She gets more exercise chasing birds through our bushes and eventually out of our yard. Because the dogs are in the birds are out. Sadie has spent a good portion of the day looking out the backdoor at all the birds gathering. Honestly I haven't seen so many birds back there at once since we have lived here. There were five alone within 4 feet of our patio door and I could see more in our bushes and yard. I did get her to roll over earlier so I could check out her incision. I'm honestly impressed it doesn't look more like she was just cut open. I expected it to be more swollen and red. BTW, the pain meds work like a dream. When Neal's alarm first went off this morning (6am) I tan downstairs to give Sadie her first pain pill. The poor thing had peed at the end of her pen getting part of her bedding wet. I gave her a pill and then had to hand feed her some special dog food. Did I say before that she is on a special diet right now??? Well she is. UD I think they call it. It's a prescription canned food (you ever heard of having to have a prescription for food???) that is supposed to work for 4 out of 5 dogs who had stones. Well this morning I had to hold can food in my hand so she would eat it. She has been out several times today and is peeing well.

Well... it looks like she is ready to crash for a while. I'm kind of glad. I've been worried about Kaitlyn hurting Sadie. A couple minutes ago Kaitlyn ran beside Sadie and fell down. She is now back on her bed where Kaitlyn can't get to her. I think Kensey is bored. He is such an inside dog and Sadie likes being outside, but they always want to be together. Guess who compromises??? Kensey of course. I know Neal would think that's about right the guy always doing what the woman wants. Hehe... Well I guess it is kind of true. There has been a couple times today when he will walk to the backdoor. I know he is begging for me to lock him out. If I just put him out he will want back in. If he is out and I put the baby gate across then he is fine with staying out.

BTW, the picture above was from when I was pregnant with Kaitlyn.

Sadie Update

Sadie made it through her surgery with flying colors. Before the surgery they did an x-ray on her and found she had a kidney stone over an inch big. Thank goodness we now know what was causing all her problems and it is taken care of. While they had her out to be spayed they took out the kidney stone, cut her nails, and cleaned her teeth. We didn't request the last two; they threw them in for free. I'm hoping the drugs they gave her are good enough to get her through the night because I'm not supposed to start her oral pain meds until tomorrow. She doesn't feel well enough to get around much. She has gone out to go potty a couple times. The last time we took her out she got cold so we put hot/warm wheat packs in her bed.

Sadie

It's time for me to explain what is going on with Sadie. Right now she is at the vet being spayed. If they haven't already taken her back for the surgery they should be soon. Sadie has been sick all summer and the three vets we have taken her to do not understand what is wrong. She has been on some kind of medication for almost the whole two months since we first took her to the vet. I'm honestly tired of shoving pills down her throat and I know she is too. Thankfully we have gone from three times a day to twice a day. He putting a pill down a dogs throat one less pill really does make a difference.

It all started with what appeared to be a UTI, but I really wasn't convinced that was really the problem. The British vet gave us pills for a UTI and sent us home. At the end of the 10 days she only seemed a little better. Within a week or two the frequent urination and blood returned. We took Sadie to the vet on base who again assumed Sadie had a bad UTI. She said it may have returned. I really wasn't sold on her diagnoses, but agreed to give Sadie the pills and return in a week. A week later everything was the same except she started to drip bloody urine for a couple minutes after going pee. At this point both American vets got together and talked about what the problem may be. They agreed with her being 5 and having never had a litter of pups that her uterus was at a high risk for an infection which could be the problem. So instead of staying on the mile long list to have her spayed we were moved to the front of the list for an "emergency" spay. They were so booked we still had to wait almost two weeks to have it done.

I know it was a different situation, but my mom took a dog in to have her spayed and she died so I'm a bit nervous. With mom's dog she was having a c-section that should have had a spay follow, but she didn't even make it to that. I keep picturing Wendy when the doctor knocked her out and she was like a little rag doll in his arms. Sadie would be a big rag doll, but knocked out just the same. I really hope this is what her problem was. She has been sick long enough. I just want to be done with the frequent urination and blood. I'm sure she wants to be done with the pain.

5 Years

Five years is a long time in today's society to be married. It seems people get married then a year or two later are already divorced and hooked up with someone else. Then again five years doesn't seem very long at all.

So what did we do for our fifth anniversary? I had wanted to ride our bikes to the base this morning then go to the bazaar on the other base. Afterwards I wanted to go to see Tops In Blue. However none of that happened. I know none of it was idea 5th anniversary stuff, but with Sadie not being well (more on that later) we couldn't go to Germany like I originally wanted. When I woke up this morning it was raining so riding our bikes was out. At some point I decided there wasn't a point in going to the bazaar seeing how they always have the same vendors which we have seen for the past four years. The only thing we were left with was going to Tops In Blue; Kaitlyn sort of decided this one for us. We went to the community center so Kaitlyn could play while we worked out. Afterwards we went to the commissary. When we were leaving we noticed we had an hour before the doors open for Tops In Blue and we still needed a shower. Sure we could have pushed getting ready and made it back in time, but it was obvious Kaitlyn was tired. The show was supposed to start at 7:30 yet she went to bed at 8PM. Maybe we can see Tops In Blue at a later date stateside.

So after a day of doing nothing more then working out and buying some fruit, I'm tired and going to bed.