Busy, Busy

The babies are cute though. I think they might both be boys. One is white with brown tabby markings, and the other looks like it's going to be black or dark gray with tabby markings (mom is a brown tabby).

I worked this past Friday, although I had to leave early for a hair appointment. I also handed off my first "hired" cake decorating project - it was a bunch of butterflies and apple blossoms for cupcake toppers that I'd made for my friend Christine, who was hosting a baby shower. I'll post pictures once I get them.

Saturday we swung by Steve and Erin's place to drop off Jennifer's belated birthday present, then went and had lunch at Costco and did some shopping. Managed to spend less than $200 this time, which was an accomplishment. My brothers came over that evening to show off their fancy new iPads. I was ambivalent about them before, but once I saw them in person I kinda had to have one. So I checked the Sunday ad for Best Buy, saw that they were advertising them, and decided we'd go down there first thing Sunday morning to try to get one.

So we got up early on Sunday, but as soon as we were out of bed, Marc said, "Uh oh." We looked over, and Bandit was limping out of his bed. He was holding one leg up gingerly, and it turned out that he had all these little barbs or thorns stuck in his leg in various places. He must have gotten into something in the backyard the night before. While I was touching his leg, I must have hit a particularly tender spot, because he yelped and flinched and was showing teeth. But the very next second after he quickly limped back over to me and buried his head under my arm for comfort. It was seriously the cutest, most heartbreaking thing ever!

Marc and I jimmied a Gentle Leader into a makeshift muzzle, and I had Marc restrain Bandit with a blanket over his head to keep him calm. I managed to get one of the barbs out with a pair of tweezers, and when we let the dog go, he was walking around more normally. Thinking he was fine, we left to go to Best Buy.

It turned out to be pretty easy to get my iPad. We got there when they opened, and they had quite a few in stock. So we grabbed that, then went to the mall to get a few things for our Houston trip, had lunch, and then headed back home. When we got home, we discovered that Bandit was limping badly again (Marc later joked that he feigned being okay earlier so that I could go get my iPad).

I checked his leg again, and it turned out he still had a big splinter that had embedded itself under the skin near his wrist. I had Marc restrain him again (which is no small task), and I tried to get it with a pair of tweezers and a needle, but it was just too far in. We didn't know what to do at that point. It felt silly to call the vet for a splinter (if it was one of us, we'd just let our body take care of it), but he seemed like he was in so much discomfort. So I called, and they recommended that we bring him in, just because it might get infected.

The trip to the vet was less traumatic than I expected (although not fun, given that it was pouring rain at the time). We put a muzzle on him, and I held him while the vet checked him out, but he didn't struggle too much. She said the only way to get it out would be to knock him out and cut it out, but she hated to have to do that for a splinter, so she suggested that we just put him on antibiotics and hope that it would resolve on its own. She also prescribed some pain meds so that he wouldn't be uncomfortable.

We took the muzzle off, and Bandit actually squirmed over to the vet to get some pets and comforting, which is pretty out-of-the-norm behavior for him when it comes to new vets. He seemed to really like her though, which was nice, because that should make subsequent vet visits easier.

Of course, once we got home, he was only limping a little bit, and seemed to be doing okay. That's just the way it goes, right? By yesterday, he was pretty much back to his normal self.

This week we're pretty much busy getting ready for our trip to Houston (we fly out Friday morning). I'm also playing with my new iPad, which I love so far. I've also started stims (yay!), as my ultrasound and bloodwork Friday came back clear and I was given the go-ahead. My monitoring appointments (to check follicle growth) start tomorrow, and I'll have to go to a clinic in Houston to get checked on while I'm there. We ended up having to reschedule both our flights out and coming home because of all this, but luckily we were able to work it out so that we could still go to the wedding and spend some time with my family.

TV tonight: "LOST," "V," and "Glee!"