And now for something completely unrelated to baby: About those chicks...

I can't remember if I wrote about them or not, but way back when, like maybe early October, I ended up with this:

 Which unfortunately broke my iron clad agreement with my husband about no more animals for a while. This may have been before or after I went out and brought home a new cat. (I must stress, Tooleo is a barn cat like 75% of the time, and he only gets to come into the mud porch, so he's not technically a pet but a hard working farm animal - he even caught a field mouse tonight). It didn't help that the only place for them to live was in an aquarium. On my kitchen table. Cause that's the most sensible place to keep live poultry. Especially with a baby in the house. Then the noisy little buggers moved upstairs. And they were noisy.

You may or may not be able to tell, but that's Binx in the lower left hand corner, having a nervous break down about the chicks in her house. Did I mention this dog is slightly neurotic? Then they outgrew that container, and graduated to full on rubbermaid container, filled with  paper pellets from the dear departed rabbit:

 Birds of a feather

Flock together.

So yes. Nugget and Frenchy were very cute. They're slightly less cute now that they're not so fuzzy, but they're both still very sweet chickens. They actually enjoy being picked up and petted, and seem to have slightly more sense in them than the others. Way more personality. They now live with the other chickens, in their temporary coop. Which may or may not be located in the garage for the winter. Just this winter though. Swears.

Now! What did we learn?

• Clear out the eggs from under your broody hens. Yes they peck you when you do it, but you'll regret it if you don't. You don't have to do it every day, but you probably should do it more often than once a month. Just a suggestion.
• Two chicks can be raised from eggs. It's a lot of work and possibly not worth it for just two, but at least you'll find out that it can indeed be done. 
• Everyone will think you're crazy. This will not come as a surprise to anyone, just a confirmation of the fact. It does however, get annoying when they keep repeating it out loud.
• If the eggs under the broody hens just disappear all on their own, don't kid yourself. They hatched and something got them. That's life, deal with it.
• When introducing new chickens to an existing flock, the roosters will definitely pick on the most different looking young chicken. Probably pull all her tail feathers out. It's very mean and bloody and horrible, and you really will need to protect her and keep her away from the rest. 
• Chickens can survive having their tail feathers pulled out. They need a lot of cuddles and tlc to get over it. It's sad, but made much more doable if the chicken likes cuddles.
• Don't keep two roosters just because you're attached to them. You're an idiot. They'll take turns picking on the runty chicken to show off to one another. Also, they're noisy.
• Roosters should be stewed and not heard. If not, you end up with chicks living in an aquarium in your kitchen. This is not an advisable situation.

In closing: I have now successfully hand raised chicks that were incubated by a broody hen. Kids, don't try this at home unless you have a lot of time on your hands, or a commercial poultry operation. Who am I kidding, those people don't even do it themselves, they outsource their chicks till they get their feathers.

So my baby is growing up. He no longer needs me to come downstairs when he's crying to turn on his crib music. He does it all for himself:

No mom, I'm not sitting too close to the tv, it's too close to me!

So how did this happen? My little squirmy puddle bottom of a baby has figured out how to do something, which to me, seems fairly complex a train of thought for one so little. He has to decide: Hey, I'm bored, I'd like to listen to my music and watch my fish swim! Then he has to maneuver his little body into a position close to the apparatus, that, though inside his crib, isn't really positioned in a way that would invite random turning on, it actually takes elevation and aim. In the semi dark. While still not possessing the motor skills of someone able to, shall we say, motor. Then he rolls back to where he can see it, and happily watches it play.

Beware, world. The thought processes have become more complex. This could mean doom to my sanity. Could.

Peek a Boo!!

So, Christmas is over, the New Year has been rung in, and we survived. Which is to say I didn't kill anyone or anything, which is apt to happen this time of year. Every year. Things went smoothly, gifts were given, and gratefully received, and my darling hubby got me a fantastic surprise of a new lens for my canon. Yay for portrait lenses. And also, this happened:

Yeah, we're there already.

So how ya been?

Ok. Here it is. The big wrap up of the past couple of months. As you know, we had a baby. Alex. Hi Alex! Alex has Spina Bifida. Oh well, not much can be done about that, and that's a reality that we've become comfortable with. This fact is made much more digestible by how absolutely amazing Alex is. Legs kick. Feet flex. Toes wiggle. His brain and spinal cord is healthy, developing normally at this point, and will hopefully continue to do so. He's awesome. Yes, spending two and a half months in the hospital with two spinal surgeries, plenty of IV's and antibiotics, feeling unbelievably lonely and just alone (these are two very separate things I've learned), worried over C driving back and forth and not falling asleep and dying, etc: SUCKED. At the same time, I'm so very aware of how lucky we were to be able to have the IWK to go to, the amazing people who work there, and the support of my family and all back home who made it possible for us to actually survive this intact.


Really, truly, we're pretty damn lucky all around.

We had our first Spina Bifida Clinic in early October: what a loooong day. I'm glad I was able to convince those involved to go over the night before and spend the night at a hotel in order to make it for the next day. Plus I got to shop. Cause that's important. MRI, Ultrasound, X-ray, Uro-dynamics, Orthopedics, Neurosurgery...the list went on. Lots of consults, lots of tests. Lots of positives from the doctors reading the reports, one or two things to keep an eye on, and overall not too much to worry about. Still on the bright side, they don't want to see us for 6 months!! Usually I'm pretty sure it's an every 3 months for the first year +, then they slow down a bit. Yay for us!

So; while a little bit of reflux to his left kidney is something we'll need to take a low dose antibiotics for, we're doing very well.



We laugh
We smile
We sing
We get licked by the dog
We wail
We scream
We get woken up by the chicks that ridiculous me decided to try and save so they live in the house.




I realize that's something I have to work on. I'm working on it, really!

Not forgotten, just really really busy...

Apparently having a three month old will do that to you.

Seriously though, would you rather be looking at that face, or sitting in front of a computer. Even if he's kicking you in the arm so hard he leaves bruises...

9 days later...

    And we're still in the hospital. Alexanders' surgery went well, and the new incision line looks even neater and tidier than the last one! Unfortunately we're still here since he's sprung another leak. Maybe he'll become a plumber someday, fix his own leaks. Ha! I'm funny! Not so much? You'll have to forgive me, I've been in the hospital a lot lately. I know others have been here longer, but man. I don't get out much.

    Blood tests indicated that Alex had some inflammation and elevated white blood cell counts, so that indicated some infection, which Dr. W was able to find and clean up when he went in for surgery, right along his suture line internally. Not unheard of, and as the Dr. liked to say, it's not a step backwards, it's just a hiccup. The cultures that they took and grew in the lab indicated two different organisms were present, one was an e-coli (not surprising considering where the surgical site is) and the other was a ubiquitous skin bacteria, so they put him on two different iv antibiotics. Yay, another head iv! Good lord, how I hate IV's. I hate them on me, I hate them on him, I hate them in general. They obviously have their benefits, and he really needed those antibiotics to get in there and do their job, but they suck.

    Every time he gets a new one, in a different spot, I leave the room and let Charles take care of it. Call me chicken if you'd like, but I can't stand watching someone (however good and sweet they are, and they all are here) shave a bald spot on his already patchy head, poke and prod him, and stick another needle in him while he's screaming. Or tie off his tiny little arm in an effort to get it in his hand, or his foot. Now, to be honest, he's screaming because they're holding him down and not cuddling him, not because they're really hurting him. But I can't watch it. I can't watch when they put one in me either. There's just nothing I can do for him. Then he's tethered to a beeping machine that keeps sounding off alarms, tubes that twist and kink, and don't get me started on the constant vigilance required to keep little fingers from finding a loop in that tubing and pulling it out all on his own. He's very hard to maneuver and cuddle with all the cables as well.

   That being said, he's been off the iv for two days now! which makes my life sooooo much easier. It would only be easier if they'd send us home! Ha! Anyone? No? Okay.

Home again, then back again, jiggity jig.

It was great to get home, but Sunday evening we notice that Alexanders incision had started to leak a little bit, so back to the hospital we went, to the QEH this time. It was fine, and not unexpected, but man, it was really the last thing I wanted to see. I'm so glad that Charles was there when I changed that diaper. I had a small freak out, but he kept me under control, and we got shit together and off we went. They took us in VERY quickly (it will never happen again, and they had a full ER waiting room, pretty sure everyone there hated us) they admitted us, then they restarted his antibiotics. We stayed for two days in the Pediatrics ward, and they sent us over to IWK again in the ambulance. My first ambulance ride ever, but thankfully not very eventful, just long and more precautionary than anything else. 

So! That's where we are now, we're scheduled for more surgery today to see if the Doctor can fix the leak, and hopefully it will all go as well as the first one. If all goes well, hopefully we'll be heading home again in a week after recovery and more antibiotics. It's been a really long two weeks so far, but we're still doing well all things considered, and keeping spirits up. The staff here is wonderful and so good to us.