Vet School "Family" Reunion

Over the weekend, we had the opportunity to travel to SW Idaho for a mini reunion with several of our classmates and their families. These people are most of the main crew Chadwick and I spent time with, both in and out of the classroom, for 4 years. How to describe this group? Wonderful friends, hard workers, devoted to family, strong testimony, upbeat, fun-loving....and the list goes on. I look up to each of these individuals more than they know!

Each family has had a new addition since graduation in 2008 and it was fun to meet the little girls. Yes, all of our families have girls, with another little lady on the way in September. Perhaps it was something in the vet school drinking fountains? Very few of our classmates in general had boy children.....

Here's to great friends! They make my world a better place.

She's Over!

Yesterday afternoon, Morgan rolled over for the first time from her back to her tummy! She's been rolling onto her sides for a while now, but this was a first! And she's been doing it all afternoon. The only problem is that when she gets tired of being face-down, she can't roll back. When you're almost 5 months and you want something, what do you do? Yep - holler. And if no one comes? Holler louder. =)

She's also been grabbing objects and bringing them to her mouth with great consistency and growing accuracy. It's so much fun to watch them grow! I swear she changes daily sometimes....

As an update from the last blog, the rock-eating dog is doing really well! He should be in for suture removal this week. Morgan has taken no more bottles easily, and we're holding off on cereal for a few weeks to give her tongue some time to mature.

Here's a video of my little Peanut rolling over! She's pretty proud of herself, not gonna lie.

Four Rocks, Two Bottles, and Oatmeal Cereal

Last week was quite eventful and full of numbers (just for you, Beth).

First, I started offering some oatmeal cereal to Morgan. I'm not sure how much of it is being swallowed - judging by the amount of cereal on her bib after our first experiment - but she seems to like it! She gets a kick out of sitting in her chair like a big girl. However, she does get distracted with the toys on the tray.....once she can sit up in her high chair, I'll switch her over. I was so excited about her first cereal that I set up the tri-pod and put the camera on that so I could feed her and take a picture at the same time. Nerd-much?

On Thursday at work I saw a patient, a 2-year-old Labradoodle with a great personality, for vomiting and not feeling well. His owner brought him in as soon as he started acting funny because he has a history of eating things he shouldn't - granddaughter's pink undies, socks, rocks, the basket muzzle his owner bought to prevent him from eating rocks....he had surgery 2 months ago to remove a sock and rock from his stomach. (Sounds a bit like Darwin, eh?) I had the techs take an x-ray to see what he had consumed, and he had eaten 4 rocks! His owner was devastated but elected to do surgery. My big dilemma - what to do with my little Morgan who still isn't drinking well from a bottle? Leave her with her grandparents? Send her out with Chadwick? Feed her at the hospital before surgery or show some tough love and let her and the bottle duke it out? I was quite stressed, but I am blessed with wonderful in-laws who were willing to keep her and offer her a bottle so I could proceed with surgery. And my baby girl took two bottles without fussing!! While she was drinking, I was sewing. I got home about 11 that night, fed her one last time, and we all went to bed. The dog was doing well Friday morning, I am happy to report.

Just for an experiment, I have inserted a video from my camera of Morgan eating her cereal. If it doesn't work, you won't see any more of these, but I have to try.

Living the Dream

Since the weather has turned warmer, we have started letting our cat, Cleo, outside in the backyard. Until this point, she has been an indoor-only feline. She has no claws on her front feet (it was either the claws or the cat that had to go; I was tired of her shredding my couch) but the ones on her back feet are intact. She was very cautious at first - she didn't like the feel of grass between her toes, she moved more slowly than an old woman, and she didn't stray far from the porch.

Now, she hollers at me in the afternoon to let her out where she roams all over the yard, snacks on blades of grass, pounces on low-flying insects, and has made it up two trees! In these photos, Cleo is in the low branches of the apple tree. She was extremely proud of herself for being such an accomplished outdoor cat!

The first tree she climbed was the pine tree - and not of her own will. She was out roaming when Darwin decided to play a game of tag. Cleo didn't stick around long enough to see if she was going to get eaten or tagged. She made it up 8 feet into the lowest branch on adreneline and back claws, where she remained until Chadwick scaled up the tree to rescue her. Needless to say, we don't let the two of them out in the yard together anymore.