Baseball, Father's Day, Quarantine, and Loss

We hit the ground running when we returned from our RV trip with Judah's first baseball game ever first thing in the morning the day after we returned.  He asked me so sweetly in May, "When will I get to play baseball?"  I told him I'd try to find an easy going summer league.  I got him signed up for i9 coach-pitch baseball league.  This is perfect for young kids in a big family because it is only one day a week.  They combine practice and a game into one day.  Judah, being number 5 in our family, hasn't ever been on a sports team before.  He takes piano and he's done PE classes with our homeschool co-op, but he didn't express a ton of interest in sports until recently.  Bob asked to play soccer, but when I double checked with him about actually playing on a team without his brothers he backed out in a hurry.  We are looking into doing First Tee again in the fall, and Bob will be more happy with that since the boys can all do it at the same time.

Anyway, Judah did great and hit a "home-run" which only means that the other team was too slow to get his ball, but he didn't care about those details.  He couldn't believe his first hit was a home-run!

The next day was Father's Day and Brian got a book, an Aggie bleacher chair for all the kids' basketball games, and a bunch of home-made cards.  We went to my sister's to swim and eat dinner.

Even a pop-up dragon card!

Hannah and Isaac felt bad on Sunday so they stayed home from the festivities.  Then there was a phone call from our friends in Arizona that two of their relatives that were visiting while we were there had tested positive for COVID-19.  I got tested because I had a stomach ache for several days plus the exposure.  Brian didn't get tested because he's been vaccinated.  We decided to wait on the kids because I was negative.  By Tuesday, Hannah was still feeling bad and we called her doctor.  She sent us to an urgent care on Wednesday and the doc there said at first look that she probably didn't have COVID-19 and not to worry.  There's lots of other things it could be.  Three minutes later she returned with a, "Well, boy, was I wrong!"  At those words, I was dialing Brian because he was at that very moment dropping Genna off at her strength and conditioning camp at school.  He turned around and went to pick her up, and that was the beginning of our quarantine.  Hannah felt better on Thursday finally and we began our count down for our quarantine.  Brian didn't have to quarantine because he is vaccinated and so he was our errand boy.  I was sick in the middle of the night for one hour and so I tested myself again with a home rapid test and was still negative.  Either those tests are false negatives for me or I am naturally immune.  In hindsight, Drew had a 24 hour bug before Father's Day and it was very likely COVID-19.  Genna felt terrible the day of the Grand Canyon and lost her sense of smell, but we dismissed her feeling bad to dehydration or overheating and dismissed the loss of smell because it wasn't taste too, plus she was stuffy.  This is a sneaky virus.  Anyway, we are all better now and to our knowledge we managed not to spread it despite the lack of clarity in the beginning.

This picture was taken before our trip.  I was taking a shower when I heard this knock and tiny voice asking if he could read to me.  How can I say no to that even though my shower is one of the few times I get quiet in the day?  So Bob laid down, butt in the air, and began to read to me through the crack under the door.  Once I was dressed, I opened the door and Trinity and I found this sight.  I grabbed my phone and snapped a picture.  I was very glad I did because this turned out to be one of the last pictures of our beloved cat.

We knew the time was drawing near before our trip, but we got a cat sitter with detailed instructions on what to do if her situation got worse.  We were just hoping she made it until we got back without any new problems and she did.  However, once we were back she was moving around a lot less and seemed not to be going to the bathroom at all.  She wasn't eating much and Hannah started hand feeding her.  I brought her water bowl to her and she drank like she hadn't drank for a long time.  At this point we knew it was time to put her down.  Unfortunately, that decision was made as we were dealing with our COVID-19 positive Hannah and beginning our quarantine.  So, we all said our good-byes as he took her alone to a fellow vet who has a clinic nearby.

The children wanted to bury her in the backyard with a funeral like we did with Hyacinth, the parakeet.  I chose a few Bible readings.  Brian was a bit saddened by the fact that no one decorated her box like with Cinthy's.  And so he took it upon himself to print out a couple pictures and had Genevieve hand-letter her name for her box.

Brian dug a hole in the backyard and we had our funeral.  Many of us shared memories of her life after the Bible readings.  Things like how in her younger days she always appeared during our family prayer time and would plop right down in the middle to get pet, how she pooped on my side of the bed when she was a kitten immediately after I sprayed her with a water bottle for climbing on the Christmas tree, how she got stuck inside the basement wall as a kitten, and even how difficult it had been to fly with her over to Germany and back each time.  Bobby started sobbing uncontrollably during the funeral and pretty much couldn't say a word until after we went upstairs and I read him a story to get his mind off of it.  There were many tears, some of them from my dear, typically very stoic, husband.  She was with us such a long time, in 7 different houses and through 2 oversees moves.

Trinity was a tiny kitten when almost 16 years ago she was brought into Brian's stray clinic in upstate New York with her front leg dangling and no nerve feeling left at all.  He did his first non-standard, major surgery on her one Friday afternoon and brought her home for the weekend to watch her as she recovered.  Hannah and Brian fell instantly in love and she was ours from then on.  We had two dogs, one toddler and a baby on the way so I was less than enthusiastic about keeping her, but over the years she has been a wonderful cat.  She was running around without her leg within a day of her arriving at our house after her surgery and she has been an excellent three-legged cat.  We miss her.

Trinity

 Trinity had been losing weight for a couple of months, but she is fifteen years old and had still been eating so we didn't worry too much about it.  After our move, however, she started eating less and less until it was nothing, and not much to show in the litter box.  Drew had just been switched onto the cat daily chore and just thought his job was the easiest.  There was no mess to scoop, no messes to sweep up, and the food didn't even need replacing.  It took us quite a few days to figure out she wasn't eating and it wasn't that Drew was just really on top of replacing her food and and scooping her messes.  By the time we noticed it, she was just skin, bones, and fur.  She was still moving around, but could no longer jump onto the beds.  Brian, ever the pathologist, thought she probably had cancer in her gut and this was the end for her.  As a last ditch effort, we got her canned cat food to see if we could get her to eat.  Brian anticipated that he would have to spoon feed her since she wasn't acting hungry.  He was really wrong about that because she devoured half of the can, so fast that we took it away and locked her in the bathroom, assuming that it was going to come right back up.  She kept it down and so after a while we gave her the other half and this went on and on for days, having many mini meals all day long.  It took another week before she began leaving presents in the litter box again.  Drew couldn't be happier.  :)

Her behavior changed as she began to eat.  She wouldn't leave my closet other than to go to the master bathroom and eat.  Now every time I go into my bathroom, she runs in and meows at me until I feed her.  I have been able to get her to eat soggy hard food in between times when I open a new can of wet food.  In the last two weeks, she has gained a lot of weight back and some of her strength has returned, but she is still confining herself to my closet and bathroom.  I call her the energizer cat, because she just keeps going ad going.  I'm still feeding her three or four times a day.

The only thing we can figure is that her mouth was hurting in some way and the hard food was too painful to eat so she was starving to death.

This was the day we got her the wet food.  She probably weighed half her usual 8 lbs if I had to guess.

And here are some throw back photos of Hannah and Trinity back in the kitten days.  I had a lot more time to take pictures back in those days.  :)  All these pictures were taken before or just soon after Genevieve was born, and all of them are in our home in upstate New York.

  

And can I just say the proverbial, "Where has the time gone?"  Although I love spending time with Hannah as a "grown" teen, I miss these days of chubby legs and sweet innocence too.

Moving is loud and exhausting!

On July 30th, we closed on our new house, just a few minutes down the road from our rental.  We love our new house!  It is right down the road from the pool and playground.  We can see them from the front yard.  It's a quieter neighborhood because it is a younger neighborhood with new construction going on in parts.  We are in a "bend" cul-de-sac, what I call a half cul-de-sac which is good for bike riding and learning.  

Bobby was listening to a story on Audible in our bed, obviously exhausted from packing, while his daddy worked at his desk.  Taken before the moving day.

The day after we closed we moved all our mattresses and clothes over to the new house with the pets too.  We started sleeping over there and making multiple daily trips to the old house to load the borrowed horse trailer, the van, and the "new to us" SUV that we bought used.  (Oops, I forgot to mention that on here!  We'll have to revisit this topic later.)  Brian scheduled the movers to come 10 days after closing.  This was so he could work from home as needed and make the move slowly.  The plan was not to overdo it, but each time he finished his goal for the day, he added on new things he wanted to bring over.  The movers ended up bringing way less than we thought they would over.  It saved us money, but we were getting in 14,000 steps a day and fell onto our mattresses each night completely spent.

Bob found the noise cancelling headphones and started wearing them around the house.  Was our moving too loud?

Everyone was dying to get our couch!  Isaac finally finished my fairy garden that he started at the beginning of the summer, and just in time for our new front garden.  This "garden" needs a lot of work, but it's just too hot right now.  I already bought tulip and hyacinth (for Genna, in memory of her bird) bulbs to plant with her after we weed it and fix it up in October.

He found rocks on our early summer walks and glued them onto the bottom of a half gallon carton with a door cut out.  He painted the rock to go with it.

My budding entomologist has found several geckos and anoles to occupy himself with in our new backyard.  This one he caught for me in the house and lost part of it's tail in the struggle.  Then he tried to take it outside only to have it run up his arm and "disappear."  He came back in saying maybe it was on his neck somewhere.  I found it on his back hanging out.  Drew was quite weirded out by the moving tail left behind in the house.  :)

The unpacker's throne!  Judah had the honor of mashing down the packing paper.

The first Saturday that we were in the house with furniture we started back up with Saturday chores.  My littlest vacuumer had lost his spunk and needed some help finishing this room because he wanted the nice carpet lines and couldn't keep them straight.  

The Story of How we Acquired Luna

Meet Luna!  She's a miniature (only 8 lbs) wire-haired dachshound who is probably about 2 years old.  She's got a lot of pep in her step.  She's house-trained and crate-crate trained.  She sweet as can be with  kids and LOVES (a little too much) other animals.  She was found nameless, collarless, and micro-chipless in a neighborhood by a big dog lover friend of ours through the kids' charter school.  All neighborhood apps and Facebook pages have turned up no owner.

I rarely check Facebook, but I happen to be looking on the school page for something specific and saw this post about this sweet dog.  I showed the post to Brian, expecting to be shot down, and told him just to think about it because we obviously can't have a bird or any other prey for Trinity and if we wait until we have land and are settled, the girls will already be out of the house.  He gave me half a dozen reasons why we shouldn't get a dog, and I said, "Just think about it."  

The next day, I get a text while homeschooling that showed me another puppy for sale that had been neutered, house-trained, etc in the neighborhood.  I was shocked because I thought he'd never give in, and here he was bringing it up to me.  I immediately asked him if we could just go meet these dogs, and he agreed as long as we didn't tell the kids about it yet.  

Turned out the puppy was $300 to adopt and Brian nixed that one, so we only went to see this stray dog.  Brian picked her up and immediately fell in love with her...more so than I did.  He was all about doing it, and I was the one saying, oh no, what if this is a huge mistake and too much for me to take on.  

The kids met her for the first time before we brought her home.

She's a huge fan of riding in the car, so she usually goes with us for drop off and pick up.

Overall, she's a very good dog.  We definitely have some things to work on, but she is already sitting very well, and I taught her to ring a bell on the back door when she needs to go out in less than a day.  I am somewhat regretting this because she is a very curious and busy little lady, often asking to go in and out and in and out way more than is necessary.  Her biggest issue is barking at people or animals, and she has made marked improvement with that already in just two weeks.

This is from after Drew's camp out, he came home, showered and crashed with her on the couch.

Trinity came down once the first day when we got her and hissed at Luna who just wanted to be friends and has refused to come downstairs ever since.  We tried forcing the issue, leaving her litter and food in the pantry where they already were, but after one peed on bean bag, I quickly moved the litter box up to our bathroom.  I tried still to leave the food, but when she hadn't still ventured down to eat in three days, I caved and moved it all upstairs.  We currently have a gate at the bottom of the stairs.  Luna gets the run of the downstairs except when we are gone or at night when she goes in her crate.  Trinity can come down whenever she feels like it, but two weeks and she still hasn't.

Naming her was fun.  I wanted a literary name that had a religious tie in.  Hyacinth was from a book and also a saint name.  Trinity wasn't from a book, but has the religious theme while still making light of her three leg situation.  Mr. Bubbles was named after a character in a book. So we had the following list...

1. Merrylegs, nickname Merry (from Black Beauty and has tie in to Mother Mary)
2. Ladybug, nickname Lady (from Lady and the Tramp and has tie in to Our Lady, plus ladybug is our family's favorite word in German, Mariankefer, translating directly as "Mary Beetle")
3. Hildegard, nickname Hildie (no literary character, just a German saint name for a German dog for a family that has lived in Germany) *Brian really pushed for this one, but not many others really liked it.
4. Luna (from HP and has tie in to Mary because she is often referred to as being like the moon and reflecting the son's glory, plus it's a Spanish word and we got her in San Antonio)

We did many votes, even trying out some different weights to the adults votes and still it always came out against Hildie.  So Brian relented and her name is Luna, with nicknames Lulu, Lou, Luna Love, Loonie Bird, Loon.  She's learning it.

Dog beds are expensive, so I made her a quick one for the time being out of spare fabric and old socks.  It was such a quick project.  I am going to have to make her a nicer one with her name on it when I find the time.

"Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?...

...Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care."  Matthew 10:29

This is a hard story for me to write.  It is still very raw and fresh in my mind, even though it's been almost a month now since it happened.  I feel partly responsible.  I am and always have been an animal lover, and specifically had a special place in my heart for birds.  This all started when I worked at Petco and spent as much time in the small animal and bird section as I could get away with, learning as much as I could about birds.  I had a parakeet when I was in high school all the way through college, and she got a tumor while Brian and I were engaged and died while I was working for an avian vet at Texas A&M Vet School.  He did an autopsy on her for me.  I also had two Quaker Parrots (AKA Monk Parakeets) at different times.  One died while still being hand fed (very young) and the other got really possessive of me when I got pregnant with Hannah and started attacking Brian, so I found her a new home.  All this is just reminiscing and to explain how much I love birds.  It's not the real reason for this post.

Hyacinth, from the beginning was one of the most scared, flighty parakeets I've ever known.  She had two weeks in the pet store before we brought her home so that one of the employees could work with her and get her finger trained.  I was out of practice with bird training and thought this might help Genna a lot with her first bird.  She didn't eat, or even move, for two whole days once she came home with us.  Once she got settled we began taking her out of the cage which was always an issue.  She never wanted to come out so it took many tries to get her to stay on the finger while it left the cage.  When she was out of the cage, she was constantly getting spooked and flying off the finger or shoulder to the ground (clipped wings).   A few weeks in and she started biting Genna and the rest of the kids, but never me.  I thought maybe the kids were reinforcing the biting by pulling away and letting her "win" in a sense.  So I tried to handle her more and see if that would help, but it made it worse.  She bonded to me and just bit everyone else all the more.  A couple of times she would start chirping if she heard my voice but couldn't see me.  The chirping was noticeable since it was so rare to begin with.  When I saw it wasn't helping in her training, I stopped handling her altogether except on rare occasions when Genna needed specific help.  Since I love birds so, it was a big disappointment to me that I had to back off so much.  Things got mildly better, but not as much as we were hoping.  I began to think this is just the way it's going to be for her.

Her big cage was in our school room up on a very high small table so the cat couldn't get to her.  Plus when no one was around we kept the door shut.  She was so quiet that, Trinity, our cat didn't even notice her for over a month.  We had a small perch and small cage for the kitchen island and Cinthy stayed there during the days of summer when we were all around and in the main area all day.  At night she slept in the big cage in the school room.  Trinity normally stays upstairs except when she comes down to eat or drink in the laundry room.  If ever she came down we made sure that the bird was put away in her cage.

A couple days before school started I came downstairs to find the two littlest boys already awake and playing in the school room.  They had left the door open, but Hyacinth was still covered up from the night.  Trinity was crouched on the ground at the foot of her tall table watching the bird cage like a predator.  I immediately shooed her out of the room and closed the door.  Trinity leaned up against the door and sat by it all morning.  I told everyone to be extra alert and careful with the bird today because Trinity appeared to be stalking her suddenly. 

That night while the rest of the family was giggling and wrestling in my bedroom, Genevieve came running upstairs, hysterical.  I couldn't even understand what she was trying to tell us, but Brian immediately was up and running down the stairs.  What we found was a bleeding Hyacinth flopping around in her cage and gasping for each breath.  I picked her up with her special cloth that we used with her and wrapped her up a little and held her as she died, telling her over and over how very sorry I was.

Genna told us she got her out of her small cage and as she turned to go towards the school room to put her in her night time cage she flew from her finger to the ground.  Immediately, Trinity came out from behind the couch and punched on her.  Somehow Genna was able to get her off and she picked her up and put her in the cage while she came to find us.  We never heard the commotion because the boys were being very loud, tickling and wrestling.  It breaks my heart that Genna had to see that.  I feel so utterly responsible for Cinthy's tragic death.  I truly thought Trinity was too old and three-legged to do her any harm.  I thought we cold keep them separate.  I thought we could protect Cinthy.  I was so wrong.  My sweet Genevieve's dream of having a bird came to a bitter end. 

Isaac and Genevieve were the most upset and emotional of the children, but the others were very sensitive to the event.  Hannah was so kind to her sister and tried to make her feel better after our makeshift funeral.  Genna beautifully decorated a box for her after holding her and saying her goodbyes. 

I chose some Bible verses and Brian dug a hole in the backyard.  Isaac was too upset to come to the burial that night so he went to sleep crying.  Bobby and Judah went to bed as well before we went outside.  Afterwards, I came in and started cleaning up all the blood in her cage and I just went ahead and cleaned all her stuff and put everything in the attic, because we obviously cannot have another bird and seeing all her stuff everywhere was painful even for me.  I'll admit I cried my eyes out while doing this.  I was desperately sad that my children were hurting.  I was sad that I had failed to protect this little on in my care.  

I didn't sleep well that night, and it is still a very painful memory for us all.

Catching Up

We sometimes have the older kids write and apology note when they have done something wrong depending on the severity and the frequency of the offense.  This may be the funniest letter I have seen yet.

Bobby has always been a pretty easy child, minus his first month of life when he had trouble breastfeeding and sleeping longer then 15 minutes at a time during the day.  However, he has never been a good eater.  He often will say at dinner, "I don't care if I don't get dessert, can I just go play and eat this for breakfast?"  

But he loves to gives hugs and kisses, so we'll keep him!

Drew has lost three teeth in the last month.  His other top front tooth is loose too.  He's not going to have any teeth to chew with at this rate. 

Genevieve is the cat's favorite.  She sometimes will follow her around and wait outside the bathroom door when she is in there.  Genna is asking for a parakeet for her birthday.  I'm thinking Trinity (the cat) isn't going to like being replaced by something so tasty that we won't let her eat.  She met all her dad's requirements for getting a small bird, so we'll see I guess.

I planned a mini (one night) reunion with my girlfriends from college.  Out of the twelve of us, ten were able to make it.  It was so much fun to see them all and it was like no time had passed at all as far as our friendship was concerned, though we are all staring down the barrel of 40, so time definitely has been passing.

What a hit this art snack was!  I let the boys make mice out of hard boiled eggs and they ask all the time now when we can make art out of our food again.  The simple things.

The Big Day

A few more days passed with last minute activities, more good-byes to good friends, and one last trip to the Hutte in our old village.   Some people arrived on their horses and Genevieve got to ride one for a short walk around the Hutte.  She was very excited about that!

The morning of the big day, meaning the day we were to fly out of Germany to move back to the states, Brian took Drew, Isaac, and Genevieve to a bakery one last time.

The day was an eventful and wee bit stressful one, but nothing too major happened.  Little things like not having the cash for the cat on hand and me having to run to an ATM while Brian helped check in most of our 26 bags kept us moving and busy.  Right before going through security, we found a family bathroom and Brian and I tried to give the cat her anxiety medicine for the flight.  It was a pill, however, and getting a cat to swallow a pill is way more difficult than getting a dog to do it.  I've never done this before, and both Brian and I got bit trying to get it down her throat.  She's never actually drawn blood on anyone before so this was out of character.  She was highly stressed out before we even started, so it really wasn't her fault.  I remembered a syringe that was in her carrier, and Brian ended up breaking open the pill, dissolving it in water, and squirting it into her mouth while I held her.  It was an experience, but all was well after that with her.  It was a really long trip for her to be stuck in the carrier with no food, water, or litter box so she was rightly stressed for several days after.

As we were going through security, they pulled my purse out and I thought, "Oh no, what did I forget to take out of there?"  WHen they told me I had a knife in there, I was at first shocked, but I quickly remembered a few days before when Genevieve slipped her pocket knife into my purse before running off to play at the playground.  It happened to be her second pocket knife after losing the first on and just buying a new one a couple of months before at a German shop.  We took a picture of it before it was confiscated, and I sent it to my friends in Germany asking if one of them could stop by that shop and buy another one.  My heart was truly hurting for her.  She had no idea that they'd confiscate it.  I guess she hadn't been paying attention when the same thing happened to her dad previously.

Brian is taking the picture and was sitting next to Hannah.

Bobby wanted to sit with his sisters, so I sat across the aisle from them in case he changed his mind later which he did.  He's getting braver about sitting away from me lately, but it never lasts the whole length of any event.  He always changes his mind in the middle.  I switched with Genevieve when he did.

These two were on the other side of dad, across the aisle.

He did take a nap though before Genevieve and I switched places.

It was a looong day due to the time change we added six hours to our day, and it was after 9pm when we got to the hotel rooms in Baltimore, and after 10pm when we were all tucked in.  We'd had no dinner really, but the airplane gave us lots of food throughout the flight.  Most of us were okay and the little, pickier guys ate up my snacks for their dinner so we could just get to bed.

Our luggage

The whole process of getting our 26 bags, 2 booster seats, 1 car seat, and 1 freaked out cat in a carrier to and from the airport in a shuttle bus not much bigger than our van was exhausting.  BUT WE DID IT, and we are so thankful it is OVER!