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The ups and downs of life

 I can't believe it is the first day of March. If the year keeps going by this fast, Christmas will be here again when I wake up tomorrow. In one month I will have a two year old. Hard to believe.
A couple of weeks ago, we had a dog who was "sick as a dog" in our house. Houdini started acting strange on a Friday morning--meaning he didn't eat his dog treat. I thought this odd so kept watching him through the day. As the weekend went on, he wouldn't eat and got worse and worse until finally he couldn't even walk up the stairs. We thought maybe he got into some poison, although I still can't figure where or what the poison would have been. We dosed him with activated charcoal but that didn't seem to help much. Finally, we ended up going to the emergency vet since he couldn't even walk up the stairs (and of course this happened on a Sunday). The vet did a bunch of tests that cost a lot of money and determined nothing. Houdini had a fever so they ended up giving him antibiotics. It took him about a week, but he is back to normal it seems. Hopefully whatever was bugging him will remain a mystery and never come back.

We went to Scottish Rite for a hand appointment last Thursday. Two good things came out of this. One was that we finally got them to understand about what kind of hand splints were were wanting them to give us. We now have the number of the PT who does the splints for the hand clinic. The other GREAT news is that Maddy has full extension in both elbows. Last time she went, she was getting really close but not quite there. Improvements in any area are always a great encouragement to me. They keep up hope that continued prayer and therapy will help her achieve the most that she possibly can.

 Other not so great news is that Maddy is getting some teeth in and has been a big grump. Yesterday I thought I was going to lose my mind with all the clingy-ness, fussy-ness, and whiny-ness. In fact, it was so bad, that going to a boring training session was a relief. I finally figured out that teething was the problem and Motrin has been our friend since yesterday.

 March is going to be an incredibly busy month for us. I have the CCTE (Conference of something Teachers of English or something like that) conference this weekend. I'll be reading a paper I wrote a couple of semesters ago and chairing a panel. The conference is in Stephenville so I'll be staying in the luxurious Stephenville Super 8 motel for a night. I was going to stay two night but they were booked for Friday night because of the conference. My stuff is on Friday so I don't much care that it didn't work out to be there on Saturday, though I paid $20 for a lunch I will now not be eating. Oh well. The ups and downs as I said.
 Aaron will be in Kenya for the entire spring break. Our church is adopting a village through a program called 410 bridge. Aaron and 5 other people are going to visit four different villages around Nairobi and pick one for our church to work with. They will stay at a hotel in Nairobi each night and drive out to a different village during the day. The last day they will go on a safari. So pray for him and the team. I know he is excited about going back to Kenya.
End of March is Miss Maddy Mae's birthday. We'll probably do a quiet family birthday the weekend before her actual birthday. I'm still trying to decide what to get her. I have to really think about it because I start just wanting to buy everything in sight.
April 1st, Aaron's birthday, we are headed to York. I have to say I've been getting excited about this one. I haven't been back to York in 8 years! We'll get to hang out, go to songfest, and who knows what else. Surprisingly, it is a shorter drive to go to York that Colorado Springs. Only 8 hours. 8 hours sounds like a reasonable trip to me after all the 16 hour 1000 mile drives we've done in the past 3 1/2 years.
Besides all this I'm getting excited for March Madness! Planting a Garden! Planting Trees! Spring Break! Possible visits from Embry relatives! Birthdays! Beautiful Temperatures! Spring is definitely in the air.

Comments

bee said…
Holly, your blogs always make me laugh. Maddy has some GREAT pics here. Love that little girl and the big blue eyes and the charming smile.
March 1, 2011 at 9:29 PM
Chrissy Cross said…
Maddy is such a pumpkin!!
March 2, 2011 at 1:54 PM
Brittany said…
Poor Houdini!! I wonder what in the world was wrong with him. I bet that was hard to watch. Glad he's feeling better. That's way cool that you get to go to Kenya, Aaron. I would like to speak for the whole family in saying that we would much appreciate a blog when you get back : )
brittany
March 3, 2011 at 12:29 AM
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