Visiting 3G & Great Grandpa

One of the very best reasons about living in the area that we do, is that my grandparents live a short drive away. Over the years of being here, we’ve spent a fair share of time visiting with them at their house; however, my most favorite visit was a few weeks ago. We packed Maggie’s bike and she rode up and down the driveway, after helping to set out cones with my Grandpa. Audrey, not one to be forgotten, got to be pulled up and down the driveway in the wagon, and she was delighted about it. She spent most of the time singing and humming and squeaking excited sounds. My grandpa pulled and walked with the girls until he was tired, and my grandma was able to watch everything by sitting on the tailgate of the Element.Eventually the sun went down and we headed inside for dinner, but it was a golden hour in more than one way. 3G and great grandpa visit maggie audrey sydney-2 3G and great grandpa visit maggie audrey sydney-3 3G and great grandpa visit maggie audrey sydney-4 3G and great grandpa visit maggie audrey sydney-5 3G and great grandpa visit maggie audrey sydney-6 3G and great grandpa visit maggie audrey sydney-7 3G and great grandpa visit maggie audrey sydney-8 3G and great grandpa visit maggie audrey sydney-9 3G and great grandpa visit maggie audrey sydney-10 3G and great grandpa visit maggie audrey sydney-11 3G and great grandpa visit maggie audrey sydney-12 3G and great grandpa visit maggie audrey sydney-13 3G and great grandpa visit maggie audrey sydney-14 3G and great grandpa visit maggie audrey sydney

Tubby Torpedo

Maggie & Sydney

Last night I put Maggie to bed and we spent a few minutes, like always, talking about our day before we started to read stories. Usually we’re hardly under the covers before Sydney is bursting through the door with her bone ready to ‘help’ by chewing loudly in the center of the bed. Sydney is visiting my mom and dad for a few days and it’s the times that we’re at home without her that I miss her the most. She is so tightly woven into the fabric of our lives.

I even got to hear our doorbell ring yesterday when our neighbors stopped by. I can tell somebody’s coming up the driveway by the way she barks and it took me a beat to realize that our doorbell actully has a nice ring to it. She is such a good, good dog. Never before has there been a dog so loyal to a family. 

That is all. 

mags & sydmaggie & sydney

 

syd and girls

 

maggie and sydney in the fort

 

 

Rollin’, Rollin’, Rollin’. . .and Teethin’!

Audrey Bell rolling-2

She is getting two teeth and rolls over from back to front and front to back with no problem. Four and a half months and my littlest girl is growing, growing, growing. Just this morning we were checking in on those two little teeth and Maggie got to feel them. After Maggie confirmed that the two teeth were indeed on their way, she got her head really close to Audrey’s and said, “Congratulations, Audrey!! You’re getting new teef!!!” 

I almost melted from how adorable it was. I have no idea where she has heard us use the word ‘congratulations’ but she found the exact perfect time to use it. 

Audrey Bell rolling

Last weekend Barry took Maggie and headed up to visit his parents and go to a BBQ at Tyler and Joey’s. I stayed home with Audrey with the intent of working on the photo book from Maggie’s second year. I am officially 99% of the way done with it, but I really didn’t get as much done as I had hoped. I was really committed to the idea of spending as much one-on-one time with Audrey while she was awake, since most of our days are splintered between Maggie’s needs and getting things done around the house. 

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Audrey took a few smaller naps during the day, and so we got some great time together and I absolutely loved it. I think it might have been the first time that I really realized how differeent Audrey’s infancy is from Maggie’s. Audrey has the constant entertainment of her big sister and our house is always full of noise and clatter, in comparison to Maggie’s and being our only child at the time, we practically pushed the mute button on our world if she dozed off.

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Syd has been a bit under the weather and we ended up taking her into the vet late last week after she was hardly responsive to us. It was fairly traumatic for Barry and me, as I think we both take Sydney’s presence in our lives for granted these days. For me, I really noticed when suddenly Syd wasn’t following us around and watching our every move. She is woven into the fabric of our  lives so tightly. It turns out that she pretty much threw her back out and was experiencing a ton of pain. So much pain that she couldn’t even move her neck to look at us. 

 

 

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The day that we made her vet appointment, I spent time feeling really sad. It was horrible to have to carry her outside to pee or even to the porch to be in the sun. She wasn’t even interested in eating cheese!! At one point she went and hid behind the woodpile…I was convinced that she was trying to get away from us so she could go and die. Never before have I been so nervous to take her to the vet. 

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When the time came to load her into the car, I had the girls all ready and went to go put her collar on and she hopped right up and ran outside to the car. Ummmm….what? She hadn’t been able to move the previous two days, but suddenly she could bust a move out to the car? Once we drove the 2 miles to the vet, she was back to feeling bad. Naturally, I think she ran out to the car purely on adrenaline. 

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Our vet is amazing and almost knew immediately what was going on. She kept Syd for a few hours, ran some tests, did an x-ray and gave her some drugs. When we left, Syd wasn’t even lifting her head and her muscles in her neck were having major spasms. I was heartbroken. Jump to a few hours later, when the drugs really kicked in and we went back to check in with the hope of bringing her home, and she was a totally different dog. 

She’s been pretty sleepy in the days since we’ve come home, due to the pain medication, but at least she is exhibiting behavior that is more normal. I also think that her neck and back feel much, much better because she’s at least looking at us again and following us everywhere we go!! 

maggie & audrey

I’m hoping to post with a bit more frequency because when I finally do sit down, my brain almost can’t handle it. I started this post at 9 o’clock this morning and now it is 11:45 p.m., so my hope is that if I do quick, little posts with more frequency, I won’t feel so scattered.