Heartbroken...

It's with a very heavy heart that I write this blog.  Last night we had to make the decision that every pet owner dreads.  We had to put Roxie to sleep.

She was with me for 12 years and gave me unconditional love.  I bought her as a dog for Fritze who didn't handle my divorce really well.  I can't believe it's been that long ago because I can't remember my life without Roxie in it.  She's been there thru it all and always loved me no matter what.

For those of you who don't know, she's been battling Congestive Heart Failure.  The Vet was great with her and amazed that she responded as well as she did to the medications we had to give her.  In the end, she was on 7 pills a day.  It was crazy because I had to get one of those 7 day pill dividers that has the am/pm dividers on it just to keep up with what we had to give her.

I am truly blessed with Tommy.  It was very expensive in the end to keep her comfortable and he never once complained or told me it was too expensive.  She got on his nerves a lot, but he grew to love her too over the last 10 years.  He always used to laugh at him carrying a hot pink leash with a little wimpy dog on the end of it.

She wasn't the best kids dog and she hated other dogs but she had the best personality.  Roxie never once entertained the notion that she was a dog and not a human.  She was a snob, she was jealous, she was the queen bee, but she was always my sweet, sweet girl.

I will always love you Roxie Ann Mize.

Go Texan Day...

It was Go Texan Day at school today. I bought Erin a prairie skirt and vest complete with conchos. It's too cute. We also got a pair of pink cowboy boots. She loves them. We were afraid that she wasn't going to wear the outfit, but in the end she did.

It was touch and go that morning. She was a little whinny and then didn't want to get dressed at all. I finally got her to stay still long enough to get dressed and she cried about putting on the skirt. She wanted to wear a Minnie shirt (as usual). I told her if she could put the outfit on and let me take pictures we could put Minnie on after it. She reluctantly agreed.

Once we were dressed she cried when it was time to take the pictures. I snapped a couple and she wanted to look at them. I told her she needed to stop crying. She climbed in her Minnie Mouse car and wanted her picture taken then too. So, we snapped some with her hair in the breeze. She then wanted to pose for the camera again in front of the wall.

Here's what we got. I just love my little cowgirl!

Ouch!

My brief running career is just about over. I have severe shin splints and have been sidelined for at least 3 weeks. I bought the good shoes it just appears that I tried to do too much too soon and ended up with hurt legs to show for it.

I went to the doctor today because I was afraid I had stress fractures because of how badly my shins were hurting. Turns out it's just a soft tissue (muscle) injury and will resolve it's self with deep tissue massage and therapy. So I have 4 therapy sessions.

My first one was today and it was painful. The exercises weren't too bad, it was the massage that he did on my legs. I thought I was going to come up off the table. Once the initial pain subsided, it felt better. I left there with pink tape on my shins and was told to leave it on for 4 days! It's hot pink!

Erin and Roxie are jealous of the pink tape. Erin calls it a "ding dang" which is what she calls a bandaid. It's too cute.

Crushed...

Erin has her first crush. Tommy is not happy.

There's a little boy in her class that she just started talking about over the weekend. We started our new class on Monday and all she could talk about was going to see Ethan.

So, Tommy checked him out on Monday morning and reported back to me. He's a little blonde boy just as cute as can be. Tommy said Erin pointed him out right away.

When I went to pick her up they told me she didn't take a nap. The teachers and I talked a little bit and it seems that when it was nap time they put her by Ethan. Ms. Hope said they both talked the whole time to each other. I told them about her crush on him and was assured that they would be separated from here on out so they could rest at nap time. Imagine that, a kid of mine likes to talk to boys! Go figure!

Great Neighborhood...

I've said it before, but I'll say it again. I love our street.

The little girls on our street love Erin to bits. They come over almost everyday when we get home and ask if Erin can play.

Today we were outside when one of the girls came over. 3 hours later I had to send her home so Erin could eat supper! They played so good together and so hard. I think Erin will crash when she finally settles down.

Erin and Emily played on her bike, wrote on the sidewalk and played on our swingset for hours. Emma was there too but had to leave to go with her dad, so it was mainly just Emily and Erin. Emily is almost 9 and she is so super good with Erin.

I just love our street and the neighborhood girls. (And don't think I haven't already figured out that they'll be perfect babysitting age in a few years!)

Bring a Friend...

It was Bring a Friend day at the Little Gym on Saturday.

Erin asked her BFF from school, Avery. They were so excited when they saw each other. The both started running and hugging. It was great.

From there they went inside and never listened to a word Miss Ashley said. They were too busy running around the whole gym, literally. The ran everywhere they went on Saturday. Avery had a great time and I think her parents are talking about joining us on Saturdays. It was funny because her Grandma came too and Gram and Pawpaw usually come to watch Erin.

Erin slept like a rock when she took her nap on Saturday. It was a short nap, but a much needed one.

A Joy

I know I've said it before, but I can't tell you how much fun Erin is these days.

I think we're still in the terrible twos but things are getting better. Now when she pitches her fits you can somewhat reason with her.

She speaks in complete sentences and amazes us every day with words and things that she says. We laugh a lot. We've been working on our manners and she has no mam/yes mam down pat. She hears it enough because I use it with her all the time. The only problem is that she uses it with everyone. We're working on no sir/yes sir, but it's a slow process. It's very important to us that she uses sir and mam.

We're also obsessed with Barney. Everyone told me it would happen. She loves him. Tommy bought me an Apple TV for Christmas and I think Barney gets more play then anything I've watched so far. (Who has time to watch TV with a 2 1/2 year old!) We have about 20 episodes on the Apple but she only likes the same 3 over, and over, and over again. I have all the songs memorized and so does Erin.

Every night we're still surrounded by all our Minnies. Last night she was coughing a lot so I went in there to give her cough meds. I actually couldn't find her in the bed because she had covered herself up completely with Minnies.

Roxie is still hanging in there. She has an appt today to get her hair done. The groomer always puts the "earrings" on her now and Erin loves it!

Up and Away...Kinda...

Erin is moving up a class at school starting on Monday. They said she was advancing out of the class she was in and is getting bored. I can see that because she's been getting into trouble at school for the first time ever. Nothing major, just not listening to her teacher and acting out a little.

She'll be in Ms. Mary's class and we're very excited. Ms Mary loves, loves, loves Erin. Not that her other teachers didn't love her, but I think she is one of Ms. Mary's favorites. They'll still play with the other class and they do everything together, so she will still get to be with her besties, Avery and Grace.

We're excited about this class because they do the Lord's Prayer everyday. Luke is in that class now and can recite the Lord's Prayer all by himself and he won't be 3 until March!

Her teacher now told us to start talking to her about it. So, we'll break the news to her tonight that she's going to Ms. Mary's class to play with new friends next week. I don't think she will have a problem with the transition. But who knows.

Insult to Injury

After worrying about Erin all the rest of the week we got a report yesterday that she didn't have lunch!

Part of our daycare package is breakfast and snacks but we have to provide lunch. No biggie. I pack her lunch Monday thru Thursday. On Fridays the daycare has McAllister's Deli delivered in and we pay to have Erin's lunch included.

I pay usually a month at a time. I did that 2 weeks ago and we were supposed to have 4 weeks covered. Well.... Yesterday I was looking at Erin's daily report and it said "no lunch today, had to share with others". I was ticked. Tommy was beyond ticked. Of course, I didn't read this until almost 6:00 when the daycare closes. The director had gone for the day and the only person there was the part time help.

I'll have to call back on Monday to get this straightened out, but it made me super sad to think that Little E didn't have a lunch yesterday. Not to mention what the teachers must have thought of us as parents!

It's been a crazy week!

Very Strange and Scary

We had a scare with Erin this week and ended up in the ER on Wednesday night.

When we were coming home from school she was doing it while watching the DVD player in the truck. I saw her but thought she just had some hair in her eyes or something. We got home and she played and ate and everything was fine.

Part of our evening routine after out bath is to watch a video in Daddy's lap on his phone. I walked into the other room to get something and she started doing the weird twitchy thing again. Tommy yelled for me and I confirmed it was what she was doing in the car. We took the phone away and she stopped. We still didn't associate it to the video until we gave the phone back to her and she did it again. At that point, we decided to go to the ER because something weird was going on.

I was afraid she was having some sort of small seizure.

We were seen pretty quickly in the ER and the doctor had no idea what was wrong. She didn't think it was fully neurological because Erin didn't completely lose all control over everything. She was still able to hold the phone and respond to us. The ER doctor told us not to let her watch anymore videos/TV and see our pediatrician the next day.

We followed up with Dr. Elahee on Thursday and she watched the video I had taped. She too didn't think it was a seizure, but agreed something is/was going on. She wants us to keep a journal of if/when it happens again so we can see if it's only at certain times of the day or only when she watches the videos. She was watching a Barney episode we had seen before and she's held the DVD player and phone a 1000 times before this. It was/is just all so weird.

I finally made myself watch the video again right before I made this blog entry. It's been too much for me to look at. I feel so bad for her. I'm sending this out because I wanted people to think about Erin and pray for her if you can. The doctor's don't think there is an immediate need to send her to a Pediatric Neurologist, but if this continues they will so we can get an EEG. We just hope and pray that this was a one time occurrence.