Hamster Troubles

So I arrive home after one night away from my family for our BAUUC Women's retreat. A group of 26 women from church spent the night locked in and had a fun night of fellowship, food and activities. It was a great get away for a mommy of 3. Glenn comes to the door and actually helps me bring my things in, I took all of my scrapbooking stuff to get a page or two done.
He tells me that around 4 PM he let Akorren take the new little hamster we have 'Pumpkin' out of the cage to be hand held by the kids, then while Akorren was walking into the study he drops her out his hands and she falls with a bump on the plastic floor mat we have under the computer area, she shakes for bit and then Akorren holds her for a while in his hands as she is still and calm, then she seems to come out of the haze and is put back in her cage to rest. Glenn said she was moving when she was put in her cage and 'looked alright'. I take a deep mommy breath, bite my tongue, and ready my mind for how I am to respond to Akorren when I walk through the door. I put my things inside, get the rest and settle back in putting stuff away and start to prepare dinner. Akorren starts talking to me about the hamster and gets teary-eyed about what happened. I react with understanding and some displeasure for him not following the rules we have of not walking around with her when she is being held.
I go over with him to take a look at her and when I see her awake I am glad, then she begins to move. Her left side looking twisted and awkward. Like her right side is trying to go one way and her left another and she sways like a drunk. Her head weaves side to side and I say to him, "...she looks alive right now from the fall but I do not know if she is normal/healthy." His eyes fill with more tears. My heart drops. I continue to talk to him about what happens when a baby is dropped and what goes on in the inside of the body. We talk about how accidents happen and that no matter what we love him and that he is a good kid. I also make it clear that we will not be sure until about a week or so if she will be alright. Akorren is now in daddy's arms sobbing, Glenn looks a little teary too. Glenn acknowledges and says sorry to Akorren for not sitting with him when he said the hamster could be taken out. (I am grateful for that as I was a miffed about the parent responsibility issue on this).
When Zhivanna returns Akorren goes up to her and explains what happened to the hamster and asks her not to be upset with him, she of course is more worried about Pumpkin and does not cry (surprisingly). Later in the evening Akorren ends up in my arms crying again about the event. We just take in the moment. After the kids go to bed and Glenn takes the dogs out for a walk I take sometime and clean out Pumpkin's cage. She is moving about but stumbles and falls over to the side from time to time, she used objects in her cage to lean on to steady herself, but she is able to eat and drink, she seems remarkably strong. I wonder if for her it is like a stroke, or minor brain damage where one part of the brain can no longer communicate to the other side, or did the fall break something inside her ears so that her equilibrium is off. I wonder at the science of it. Then my mind comes to the animal and dignity of life questions that arise as I ponder. Is this animal suffering, if so is it just, to put her out of misery? If she is not suffering and has the strength to live then can she live as she appears to be, just disabled? Glenn returns and we discuss some of our thoughts, he questions whether keeping her alive in a disabled situation is fair to both her and the children. I bring up the point that maybe this is the lesson we are to learn, is to care for animal who is disabled; the children will have to explain to their friends every time the other kids see her what happened and how they care for her and that she is the way she is because of an accident, that's how it is in life. Right now she looks good but we will not know more until later in the week. The last things that flow through my mind like in all mourning of a loss is the thought of "how in a matter of minutes one small event could change and effect so many lives". In my childhood I have deal with the death and life of many a hamster and know just what Akorren felt in dropping her. So in the end I hope we are meant to learn something from this to make us all better people. Pumpkin we love you! Pumpkin in her food dish eating when we got her 1/23/09 & running on the wheel.

Glenn's Space Station Light

Ran across this on You Tube and it shows Mike Fink, NASA Astronaut talking about the International Space Station Tour. This is recent footage from the mission Expediton 18 after STS-126 left. This is neat because Glenn made the light that they are using to film the video with. Now it is in HD in part because Glenn made a light that made it possible to film the footage with. Cool, eh? I think so I am so proud of my smart husband. I am sure you can to a search and find more ISS stuff if you want to see more.

Are You Sleeping?

So Merlova still takes naps and I am still so glad that she sleeps for a period of time in the day. It gives me a break. But some days she is a bit of pill to get down. Today was one of those days. I put her to bed after she was acting fussy, fighting with her sister, not listening to directions or behaving very nice at all. She was showing all the typical tired signs of being sleepy, but today she had to do what ever she could to make sure she did not fall asleep. It took me a good 20 min of positive mommy coaxing then after that I went in to police/jailer mode of "you will not be permitted to leave your bed" threats or mommy will get you. Needless to say I heard lots of interesting noises upstairs while I was down doing household stuff. I was not going to check her until 35 min. went by, they did and finally it was all quite. So I went up to take a look and this is what I saw. Now before I put her down to nap her bed was neat and she was tossing and turning at the head of the bed where her pillow was. When I first walked in she was under the covers and you could not see her, I made sure to uncover her when I took this photo. To funny! She can drive me nuts sometimes but I totally love her. Hey Merlova, are you sleeping?

Yes, I'm Behind...What's your excuse?

I knew that when I started this blogging thing that at some point I would fall behind in keeping up with it so I guess it should not be so surprising. Part of me is not happy with this fact since, this has also been a way to parallel and make me keep up with the children's scrapbooks, so since it is a reflection of my real life I am needless to say... behind on my scrapbooks as well. Here are some of my excuses since I have fallen far behind: (listed from the most recent)

1. Zhivanna has been sick with the flu bug since last week. And a sick kid has a way of throwing a wrench into all of life. No working for me or ability to work-out since you can't take a child with a fever to the YMCA. So I have been being a good mommy-nurse but not good for much else.
2. Glenn & I had to throw an 'Alice in Wonderland' Tea Party B-day for Zhivanna on the 17th of January. So we got distracted with making her a costume, getting tea sets together, and working out the theme details and fun. So I got into a sewing mode, not writing mode for a while. (I will do back posts so you can see how cute it came out).
   
3. I had to write out all my tax bills, they are all due at the end of January. This is just usually a depressing thing to do so I always put it off to the last minute; that means last minute in getting the last of needed funds to pay them $$$ and then to organize and send out the checks. I prefer to write them out while drinking a nice glass of red.
4. Oh, yes and the Holiday season. Well I procrastinated on the Santa stuff for Christmas this year. Got it done in 3 days though. I had the family letters and photos ready to send out but that took away the other time I had to blog. Also with Christmas there was the church play, school events, a casual get together with friends and trying to make some home made gifts, so blogging just fell off that list of to do's.
5. Having 3 kids, substitute teaching 2 to 3 days a week, managing the house, working out 3 to 5 days a week, being the BOD secretary for the church and being me got in the way that month and I had to leave something out. I also think I was in the dumps for bit as well, so now that I am feeling better about me, I have to catch up on things.
   

Thanks for letting me get that off my chest. I can now back-blog and not feel so guilty. I have been able to do some more catching up with my scrapbooks at this time and am only about 5 months behind all 3 kids albums, yay! Merlova and mommy at Gilmore school for lunch with Akorren.

Two Dinosaurs?

Merlova is such a kick. Today while playing with play-doh with daddy she decided that she was a dinosaur and had to put the play-doh on her forehead. I thought it was more of a Klingon thing like Star Trek. Daddy of course had to be a dinosaur too, but since he was the "baby" one he had to use pink and she was the daddy one. What you don't see in the photos is her and daddy crawling around the kitchen floor chasing after mommy trying to get me! Here are my two SCARY dinosaurs.

An Alice Tea Party

Today we celebrated Zhivanna's 5th B-day with a girls tea party (she invited only the girls). It was inspired by Zhivanna's current love of the Disney Alice In Wonderland movie. Glenn made her a Cheshire Cat for display to go in her room and I made her an Alice outfit complete with petticoat. I read parts of the Alice story to the girls (and Akorren) while we tasted the potion from the magic bottle, ate the special cookies that make you grow tall, and looked for the white rabbit hiding outside in the yard. We had a Mad Hatter tea party with fruits, mini-pizza's, tea (of course) or lemonade and decorated our own b-day cupcakes. The Alice In Wonderland music played in the background as the girls colored Alice images, while Zhivanna opened up her gifts and discovered a hand painted tea cup and pocket watch, we then ended the day off with a modified game of croquet. It was fun and we tried not to go to overboard with the theme, Zhivanna felt so special and like Alice; she did not want to get out of her dress the rest of the day. The planning and thought put into this has already got Akorren designing his party, which is in the summer in June. I keep reminding him that Merlova's b-day is next.
The Cheshire Cat, Ava/Zhi & Akorren, the girls at the tea party, time for tea, Merlova and the cupcake sprinkles...ooops!

More Tea Party Photos

Here are some more pictures from Zhivanna's Alice In Wonderland tea party b-day. She enjoyed her Mad Hatter mini-cake that I had to bake made from 6 small cakes cooked in her 'Easy Bake' oven (yeah, really easy it only took us 1 1/2 hours to do) but she loved it and wanted to have her cake made with her oven. Next is Zhivanna opening up her gifts while the other girls color in themed coloring pages. Zhivanna gets her very own pocket watch (like the white rabbit had) along with a special tea cup mommy painted for her with Alice inspired designs from the story. Finally Alice (Zhi) sets up for a game of croquet.

Zhivanna is 5

Today is Zhivanna's real b-day. She has her party this coming weekend on the 17th but today the family went to gymnastics, picked up chicken to eat from KFC and made an angel food cake for her. She got to be sung to, opened up some small gifts and had cake and ice cream. Akorren made her a card at school (so sweet) and bought her a big Bakugan toy, Merlova gave her some color wonder markers and paints. and the adults Papa, Lois, daddy and mommy gave her a card and money. She now thinks she is rich, we will have to see if we can keep her from spending it all at once. It was a nice little celebration for her, she will have the girls over for an Alice In Wonderland inspired tea party on Sat. Zhivanna in her Happy B-day hat, Sister & grandma Lois look on, Akorren admires Zhi's cash, the family together at with the cake

Growth Chart

Had to show off the cool growth chart that Glenn put together over the week. He had to make or build something over the winter break. He and I have been wanting a place to write down and chart the children's growth. Having it written down in a baby book is not a place we easily see. We wanted something visual, so crafty Glenn came up with this space inspired design. He specifically placed certain images at the heights they were so it could be fun for the 3 kids to say I'm as tall a the rocket, or satellite. We just write on the chart with a permanent paint pen. Zhivanna wanted us to check her hight to see if she grew over the week from her B-day to day the party was, funny girl. The 3 kids in front of the new chart.

Camera... Got One!

Okay we did not win the ebay one that closed on 01/03, but Glenn broke down and went and got one at the local pawn shop. It was in better condition then the previous one we had and it only needed a new strap. I even ordered a bigger battery for it. So it was nice to know we had one in hand. Now I know life has a way of playing funny tricks on you, you know... you all live this life thing... anyway...today I get a call from our sextant (the lady to cares for the church) and she calls to tell me that she found Glenn's camera in a drawer here at church. So it's here if we want to come and pick it up. Funny, yes Glenn and I knew if we bought another one the 1st one would come up. It only hurt a little to pay out an extra $150 this month especially when the taxes are due. Yeah, funny. Darn CAMERA! Well we can do two angled shots for Zhivanna's party on the 17th. Great.

Still No Camera!!!!

So we still can't find our Sony DCR-TRV350 digital video camera (looks like the one above but more banged up). We looked again all around the house, at church, put an advertisement in the church news bulletin, have asked all around to friends we think we might have left it with and still no luck. I am trying not to be mad or upset with Glenn on this one but, it was his responsibility! I do the pictures (or my dad does) and Glenn does the video. With Zhivanna's B-day coming soon I really don't want to miss out on having footage. It is bad enough that we have nothing of our Christmas but the photos. Glenn has been thinking on this as well so we put a bid in on a camera we figured if we could get one for under $150 that would be great and then when the ebay bidding close we could still get it here before Zhi's special day. So we are resolved to get one in the next few days, yay!