Mr. Dewdy Pants

I was remiss in my last entry to mention what was going on with Dewey. He has had small red lesions on his belly for a long time and when the vet has looked at them and even tested them, he said they were nothing to worry about. Well, one of them recently started getting bigger and bigger and when it began to bleed a few weeks ago, we took him in. That happened on a Friday and the vet immediately said it need to be removed and biopsied to test for cancer. On Monday (two weeks ago this coming one), Dewey underwent surgery to have it removed and we had to wait seven days for the biopsy results. So this past Tuesday the vet called us to say that it was indeed cancer, specifically Hemangiosarcoma. The good news was that they don't think it has spread elsewhere although that's impossible to know for sure without testing all his major organs, etc. The vet said if it were his dog, he would wait it out. It will be a bad sign if another tumor grows where the old one was removed but if it doesn't, then he's most likely going to be okay. Basically what this is is a form of skin cancer and it makes sense because Dewey LOVES to lie out in the sun on the porch. Obviously we will be putting a stop to that now. I had no idea dogs could get skin cancer but there you have it. He got his stitches removed on Thursday and we've had to keep him in a t-shirt to keep him from licking the spot but other than that, he's getting back to normal. Hopefully he'll stay that way!

In other news, this morning we got an unpleasant surprise when we got in the van to leave for church. I opened the passenger door and saw several CD's from the glove compartment strewn on the seat. I knew I hadn't left them like that so I new something was up. I immediately looked on the floor for the GPS which I had unfortunately left on the floor after yard sale-ing yesterday. Sure enough, it was gone. We checked the house just to be sure it wasn't there and no luck. Thinking back we realized we hadn't locked the van doors when we had gotten home from Yully's house last night so we made ourselves a pretty easy target - - especially since the holder for the GPS was clearly visible attached to the windshield. When we got home from church we called the police and they sent someone out very quickly. The officer was very nice and sympathetic (sidebar: He saw my Bosocks licence plate so that brought up a conversation about him being a Red Sox fan and a friend of Jason Varitek's from middle school). He actually took one of the CD's from the seat and dusted it for finger prints. Duncan thought they might but I had scoffed that this was such a petty thing that I couldn't believe they would bother. But he did although he didn't think it was good enough to use, not to mention that it most likely was one of ours anyway. Obviously the chance of them finding the perpetrator and us getting our GPS back are extremely slim. The CD's that they were rifling through were actually sermons my mother had burned for us so I joked that maybe the person took one of those and would listen to it - - you know, sort of like the guy that robbed the women of $20 last week but prayed with her before he left. You never know, right?? If nothing else, at least we've used this as a teaching tool for Calleigh to talk to her about taking things that aren't yours and how it's a crime. When the police officer came to the door, it didn't phase her in the least. She went right up to him and started talking a mile a minute about the new shoes she had gotten at the yard sale and how they had lights on them that blinked and on and on the story went. She also declared that when we get a new GPS it should be green - - but then she changed her mind and said "No, a pink one would be good."

This week Aubree turned five months old. I had mentioned last time about taking the herbs again but that didn't last long. I haven't actually weighed her again but I kept forgetting to take the herbs and plus, Aubree stopped being fussy while nursing at the end of the day so I figure all is well. The big thing she's working on now is trying to sit up. She has some moments where she can keep herself up if her arms are just right on the floor in front of her but I still think we're a few weeks away from successfully mastering it on her own. I do think she's a little behind Calleigh with this accomplishment but that's perfectly okay. I'm sure she'll be compared to Calleigh her whole life, huh?? On Wednesday and Thursday of this week she took extra long naps in the afternoon and I started getting excited that this could develop into a pattern but I'm not sure that it has. She usually goes down for her first afternoon nap between 2:00 and 2:15. Most of the time it lasts for about 45 minutes, she'll be up for two hours, and then goes back down about 5ish for another 45 minute nap. Occasionally, when she goes down at 2:00, she'll sleep until 4:00 or 4:30 and that is when I get very excited. The good news is that she continues to go down for her naps and bedtime with very little fanfare and still sleeps wonderfully through the night so we continue to be blessed with that.




All is well with Calleigh. We have a few new things going on that I haven't mentioned. One is that I'm now giving her a bath in the mornings. I figured out that she loves to take a bath in my bathtub so in the mornings after my shower and while Aubree is taking her nap, Calleigh hops in my tub. She can play in there forever so while she does that, I clean the bathroom, fold laundry, or sometimes I just sit on the floor in there and go through the mail. So it works out well for both of us. She can climb into the tub by herself by standing on the little ledge on the inside of the tub. She's quite proud of herself with that and in fact, doing things "by myself" is a very popular phrase in general for her these days.

The other thing is that we're now having worship every morning after breakfast. We've always sung songs and read Bible stories but we never formally called it worship. Now we are and she's definitely enjoying it. I got a worship book for toddlers so we read that every morning, read the lesson, read stories from "Our Little Friend" that we got at Sabbath School, sing songs, particularly the theme song from Sabbath School for the month, and of course, go over the memory verse. The lesson is the same for the whole month so believe me, we know it pretty well by now. I think a felt board and felts will be at the top of Calleigh's Christmas list this year because that will add a whole other dimension to our worships.

This evening we went to a "CommunityFest" at a nearby church which turned out essentially to be a carnival. We weren't there long since there's not too much time between sunset and bedtime but Calleigh did get to jump around in a big inflatable bounce thingy and a clown made her a balloon shaped like a cat. They did have some rides for little kids but the lines were really long. We may go back tomorrow when it opens at noon to beat the the crowds.

Well, that's about it for now. For the last picture, here's Calleigh all ready to go to yard sales on Friday morning. I don't know who loves going to them more - me or her! The Woody Woodpecker is a freebie she scored from yard sale-ing on Sunday.