As They Grow Up

<-- Loki coming home

We have now had Loki for a month! I found a post on SwapShop about these puggle puppies...I took a look and fell in love! Matt and I have been thinking about getting a puppy this summer for a while (at least since last year if not sooner) and I knew there were puppies on SwapShop all the time! :) I kept peeking, while knowing Matt and I would have to discuss and agree. When I found Loki, we talked over a yellow lab and a golden retriever, found some black labs and golden retrievers. We didn't hear back about the retrievers by our "deadline" (I really wanted Loki!) so ... I called his breeder to go visit ... we brought the moula ... and we took him home.

Matt's main concern was that Loki was going to be too small. When we got there, he was a little 7 and a bit week old puppy, but we met mom and dad who were both a fair size (not compared to a lab, but beagle), and Loki said hi to Matt right away. :D

Well, story goes we took him home! :) He is a smart little guy who has now doubled his weight, gotten his second shots, and learned basic commands. He sits, stays, comes, and we're working on biting and down. ;)

Here's a couple pics and updates to come!

I've had it with my kid being ganged up on! Monkey has had at least one bully every year he's been in school, and this year it has gotten to the point of several kids ganging up on him. He's been telling me that four boys have been choking him, and punching him, and when he went to tell the teacher, they would block him and threaten him that they'd hurt him even worse if he told. AND bribing him! He said that one offered him a bakugan for not telling, another some other toy, and that's just ridiculous! He was to the point of not wanting to tell me because I wanted to know details to tell him principal.

Well, I can't just stand by, so I called his principal on Wednesday after work, and she called each of the four boys into her office. We thought the problem was solved, but on Thursday, five other boys were on him!

The story was that Monkey was digging a moat for their fort, when they decided they didn't want him to. One kicked snow in his face, and when Monkey went to tell the teacher, they all chased him and tried to jump on him. The first one missed, but the second one got him so they all dog piled on top of him. When they finally got off and Monkey was getting up, they took turns punching him in the back! Finally he got to the teacher and they had to stand on the wall. Hardly a severe enough punishment.

I marched him into the Principal's office to tell her what had happened and Matt got a call yesterday that they each had it marked on their permanent records, and had consequences at school. I hope this is the end of it and that things don't get worse because I'm standing up for my kid!

I got to meet a whole bunch of new people last night at the London Ontario Pagans Coffee Social! Dona decided to have an open house to discuss what we could do to get more people out, and tada! A little entertainment, and a little freedom to discuss what they want and the people will come! We even ran out of coffee for what Donna announced is the first time! :) Yay! Definitely had a great time and got to see some friends I hadn't seen for a while!

What a lucky kid! From us, he got a bullet bill (Super Mario) t-shirt, a new gui top, and tickets to Medieval Times (details to follow). From Aunt Fiona and Uncle Andrew he got three bionicles. From Uncle Mike and Aunt Ni-cool he got a ninja motorcycle and King Kong cartoon show. From Grandma and Grandpa Ross he got Mario at the Olympics for Wii. From Grandpa and Grandma Susan he got a trip bowling and a bit of money. Finally, from Nanny and Papa, he got a IOU for some heeleys and new snowpants and a card with some moula from Uncle Drew! Uncle Jason and Aunt Amanda sent him a gift (the lego set right?) with the Christmas bundle too! What a lucky kid!

And the details for Medieval Times!...

I picked Monkey up at 1pm from school on Friday, Feb 5 so we could get in the car and head off to Nanny and Papa's (I had a delightful class that morning by the way!). We got off on schedule and Kanga settled in nicely! As soon as daddy arrived, we were off to Toronto! We took the 403 for the first time, and it was a rather simple drive!

Once we found our parking, we realized we were only a few metres from the entrance! Score! Walked right in, no lines as we were nice and early. ;) We got our yellow knight passes for table 4 and in to the castle we went!

We got Monkey a foam sword and shield right off the bat, and paid for his birthday knighting. That meant that he got a little ceremony, his picture, and his name announced with his birthday in the event! Pretty cool for $20! That was all done by about 6:30 though, and the show wasn't until 7. We wandered around, and went through the dungeon of torture. Not really a Monkey appropriate show!

Time passed quickly enough though, and before we knew it, we were listening to the master of ceremonies introduce the story, and in we went! Yellow got to go first! :) We were seated in the second row, and right at the centre back of the auditorium. I thought it was great! Soon we were being served our soup, and we bought Monkey a yellow flag to cheer for our knight.

We ate tomato soup, roasted chicken (1/2), a rib, 1/2 a roasted potato, and a slice of garlic bread. It was all eaten with our hands and we loved it! For dessert we had an apple pastry, and Monkey's had a candle in it. The show was great, and our knight was very skilled. I won't tell you the story though, you can go see for yourselves! ;)

After the show, and all through it, Monkey kept saying "This is the best birthday ever!" He loved it! Hooray! Once the show was over, Monkey bought a t-shirt and a dvd. He also got the yellow knight to sign his flag. All the characters were standing around the bar to chat and sign things. It was cool!

We headed out and on to Fiona's around 10, and had a nice visit before heading off to bed. In the morning, Andrew and Fiona made us a huge birthday breakfast and had cupcakes too. Monkey thought it was great! After wards, they took us all to Zellers for Monkey to choose a birthday gift (the 3 bionicles mentioned above), and then it was off to Nanny and Papa's to have a birthday lunch and get Kanga!

From the updates, we knew that she had slept well, and all night! I wasn't concerned a bit! Then we found out that our poor little girl had been sick a couple times and needed her bed changed, and a bath to wash out her hair! Poor thing! Nanny didn't want to worry us, and she hadn't had a fever, so Nanny and Uncle Drew took care of her and made her feel better. Luckily she was over that bit of flu quickly! Still not very hungry for the next couple of days, but happy and not throwing up!

We had a light lunch as we got in a bit late, and then had burgers and fries for supper. Monkey was getting tired, and time was flying, so we headed out after a home made cake.

Yesterday (Feb 13) dad and Susan came to take us bowling. We went to Fleetway, which has an attached Dairy Queen, so we had lunch and then hit the lanes! We all did quite well and had a blast! Monkey broke a hundred for the first time, and yes we love the bumpers. ;)

So, I promised some pics of Kanga in her new mitts and of the fort we built! Here ya go. Monkey and Kanga in our rebuilt fort.

The Original Melting

Kanga crawling into the freshly rebuilt fort, and Kanga breaking the freshly rebuilt fort. Monkey wasn't too happy, but I had to laugh! She had watched Monkey and I crash through the melting fort and thought she should try it too! Clearly her new mitts were working! She had such a riot in the fort that day that I had to stay out with her a little extra! We went for a walk to the end of the sidewalk, and then I threw her in the snowbanks a few times. She thought that was the greatest!

We also now have an orange belt in the family. Monkey progressed through the 10 little dragon belts (red, yellow, orange, gold, purple, green, blue, brown, black, black 1st dan) and then joined the black dragon class at the yellow rank in September (skipped red and red advanced due to completing the little dragon program). He chose to take the summer off to try gymnastics, and then went right back to the karate training when school began.

Monkey has been doing very well at school since returning after winter holidays too. His communication book has had little but good comments! :)

And on to illness...Kanga yet again had a bout of bronchitis. Last weekend (January 15,16,17) she started to get a cough. When she gets a cough it tends to quickly get into her chest, and by Monday it sounded like it was going that way, so I took the morning off of volunteering to take her into the walk-in clinic. We were in and out fast enough, but the doctor wasn't very helpful. He asked what was wrong, and I said that she had a cough, and having had bronchitis two times since her birthday (late May early June and in September) I was concerned that it would quickly turn that way again. He said that bronchitis is over diagnosed, and that any chest congested cough is bronchitis. Okay, fine. He told me to just call it a chest cold and not call it bronchitis. Okay, fine. He told me my little girl was fine and not to worry about it. Uh, no.

Home we went, momma unhappy, baby still coughing and her inhaler not doing a whole lot as far as I could tell.

Tuesday I kept her home too, as she was still not better and we'd been up all night between her coughing and just being miserable. I got the vaporizer out at 2:30 and she felt well enough to fall asleep around 4:00. We got a whole 2 1/2 hours of sleep! Yay!

Tuesday night, listening to my poor baby, I decided that if we were up all night again I would be taking her back to the walk-in to get another doctor to take a look at her.

Indeed we were up all night once again, and I had the vaporizer going an hour before bed to make sure the air was moist, got her risers under her crib legs to get an angle so she could get to sleep, and alas! My poor baby couldn't sleep until about 5:30 when she was just too exhausted to keep her eyes open any longer!

Wednesday morning we dropped of Monkey and in we went to have Kanga looked at again. We got the doctor who did her follow-up in June (and prescribed the inhaler after the liquid Ventolin was a pain in the ...) and she was not impressed. She saw Kanga in the waiting room on Monday and assumed she'd been looked after. When she saw my baby she said who let you get so sick! I told her that I brought her in on Monday and the doctor had said she was fine. She looked at the chart and said she'd be speaking with him. Nice.

She then listened to me and my concerns, including that Matt had strep throat on the weekend and that the other doctor hadn't looked in her mouth. Poor Kanga's throat was red and tonsils swollen, her airway was very congested, and she told me that if Kanga started wheezing at all to get her straight to the emergency room... She prescribed her some antibiotic for her bronchitis, potential tonsillitis, and said that if there was an ear infection rather than bothering Kanga more by probing, the antibiotic would wipe that out too. As she hadn't had any fever, I doubt she had an ear infection, but she's all cleared out now!

Anyway, my baby was on antibiotic every 8hrs (so a dose at 2:30 with Monkey's potty break), Ventolin (her inhaler) every 4hrs, and Tylenol for her throat every 4hrs. I gave her Tylenol before we left (I'd given her Ventolin at 7:30 so it wasn't time yet) and we were off to Shoppers! I also needed to get her the bigger AeroChamber spacer as her baby one from a few months ago is too small!

A week later, and she is MUCH better. All that 1st doctor had to do was give her a script so she didn't get so bad. She has a history, we know what is going to happen, and yes, the A word (asthma) was brought up again. Matt doesn't think she has asthma, as he sees kids with the condition all the time, but we will find out either way and it doesn't matter one bit to me. It is a lot more controllable now then it used to be, so she won't be limited if she does have it, and it would seem that it is a seasonal when sick thing for her anyway!