Life, now with extra teeth
So, we adopted our new puppy, Jade, on Saturday. Sunday night she had us at the emergency vet; she'd been a little bit quieter on Sunday afternoon, but I chalked that up to exhaustion after spending Sat cheerfully exploring us and our home. But then, around dinnertime, she suddenly started vomiting. She'd do this two or three times in succession, lie down for awhile (thankfully, we just HAPPENED to be outdoors when this started, and we barricaded her in the kitchen after that), then get up and repeat. At the point she'd barfed about 8 times in 40 mins, I started getting worried about dehydration, given how tiny she is. Off to the emergency vet we went; thankfully, it's only about 10 mins from here, possibly even closer than our usual vet.
Unfortunately, it also appears to be one of the only 24/7 emergency vets in the area; the place was hopping when we arrived, a little after 7pm. Jade had barfed once more in the car on the way over (in her crate - but she wasn't bringing up very much by this point) but stopped once we got there, which was good because we were there for FIVE HOURS. And by "we" I mean Two and I - since Jade is nominally "his" puppy, he'd wanted to come; Will was exhausted from rototilling our garden and MiniPlu had homework to finish, so they'd stayed home. I had only managed to get most of dinner (homemade clam chowder) made before hightailing it out of there. Nobody had imagined how long this would take, so neither Two nor I had eaten before leaving. It was nearly 11p before we even got seen at all. Also, it was a little chilly in the waiting area and downright freezing in the examination room, so, yeah, we were really tired, frustrated, cold and starving.
Jade tested negative for parvo, and if you've ever had a dog, you'll know this was GOOD news, and was one of the nightmare situations I'd been envisioning. She conveniently had a single round of diarrhea while being examined, so they were able to test her stool for parasites - also negative. No fever. Bloodwork showed a slightly "off" white cell count but they said that could be a stress response and not necessarily an infection of some kind, so that was inconclusive. In the end, since she had, halfway through our wait, started to bounce back so that we were sometimes having trouble keeping her corralled on our laps (since she doesn't yet have full immunity from innoculations yet, we're not supposed to put her down on the floor in high-traffic dog areas, especially where sick animals might have been), we decided to let her get under-skin fluids to counter any possible dehydration, and some injected anti-nausea meds, and call it a night.
We quickly inhaled dinner once we got home after midnight before collapsing in bed. I felt so bad for Two, who had to go to school the next day on three hours' less sleep, but he managed.
Jade's digestion still seems a smidgen off, but she's otherwise been completely normal since then, and she's also been STARVING. (In fact, she inhaled most of Nala's dinner last night before we could stop her, gah.) We learned at the emergency vet (and her regular vet intake appt, which was last night) that she's a whole 5 lbs/2.25kg. She doesn't feel nearly that big, honestly, so we were rather surprised. (At our regular vet, she clocked in at "5 lb 6oz" but I have a feeling the extra 6oz is really the weight of her leash. :P)
So, anyway, aside from that, we're slowly working out how to live with a tiny puppy in our lives. It's seriously like having a toddler again, with the same inability to leave her unsupervised for a minute, and everything must be calculated so that people's disappearances are staggered whenever possible (ie if someone's in the shower, is someone else available to watch Jade?). We leashed her down in the basement with us yesterday morning so he could be on the bike while I ran on the treadmill, but this morning we just had her loose in the basement while I did my shoulder PT. This meant that as soon as I lay down on the mat to do my stretches, Jade bounded over to snuggle and chew my hair. And my shirt. And my hands. And then she decided the basement was boring and bounded up the stairs, so I had to get her back and barricade the steps to keep her in. You can imagine how much of a workout I managed. :-P
She's got incredible persistence and some very clear witching hours, one of which is in the evening, near the kids' bedtime. In those times, she has to be watched even more closely so she doesn't find old crap in the corners of the kitchen (despite sweeping) to eat, or chew on the coffee table legs, or try to rip up Nala's bed, or hide behind the sofa to do her business, or scamper upstairs to do who-knows-what. We've bought quite a few chew toys for her, but when she's in full mischief mode, do you think she wants to play with those? Of course not!
The first day she was with us, she mastered going up the back porch stairs, but that was all. By the next day she could do up OR down stairs, indoors or out, but only if you were going that way, too. Now she'll wander at random, if the spirit so moves her. We gave away all but one of our baby gates YEARS ago. I will freely admit our house is cluttered; we've tried very hard to keep floor stuff to a minimum with a puppy on the loose, but she still manages to find the smallest things to run off with. She also seems to have an affinity for paper, with some near-misses in the "Teacher, the dog ate my homework, really!" department.
Jade does NOT like being crated when the humans go to sleep; she has an incredible howl for such a tiny puppy. No teensy little whimpers for her! Even if it's super late at night or I need a nap and I'm trying to sleep, I have a hard time not laughing at the incredible sounds of anguish and reproach she manages to produce. Thankfully, she doesn't carry on for more than 10 mins; hopefully she'll outgrow this habit eventually. My niece's chihuahua was always spoiled and taken out of her crate when she howled, so, of course, she's learned to keep it up until she's "rescued". I am determined that Jade will do better. It works fairly well that I tend to go to bed late; it means she only gets us up once in the night, so far. (Theoretically, puppies can hold it for as many hours as months of age. She's supposedly about 10 weeks old, which means she should be able to hold it for 2+ hours, but when she's awake, that's pretty wishful thinking. So far it's more like 60-90 mins, max, or you're looking to clean up a puddle on your carpet. When crated, she can do at least 3 hours, thankfully.
Good thing she's adorable. :P Oh, and for those of you who wondered about her name - this being the first dog of my adulthood that we've changed a given name for (Cassie and Nala both came with those names, and they stuck): Two, whose name will soon start with a "J" wanted a "J" name for the puppy. He suggested "Jade" and we all agreed it was a name we liked, so there you have it. Of course, most of us have still struggled to use the right name for the right dog, and not call Jade "Nala" or "Cassie" or call Nala "Cassie" or ... whatever. Jade looks a lot LIKE Cassie did, which is what Will wanted, but it only lends to the confusion.
In non-puppy news - MiniPlu found out yesterday when her National Jr Honor Society induction ceremony would be: next Wed evening. And I'm gone ALL day as a chaperone for the 5th grade field trip to the Bronx Zoo, which I committed to MONTHS ago. MiniPlu was really upset that I might not be able to go, especially as kids are limited to two guests in the first place, and complained bitterly that she worked her butt off to get into NJHS, but, noooo, I had to go on a "stupid" field trip to a zoo. I don't blame her for being disappointed, but there really isn't anything I can do about it, either. The only ray of hope is that - theoretically - the field trip will be back by 5:30-6pm and the NJHS induction starts at 6:30pm. So, if there aren't any traffic issues, I might be able to run home, throw on nicer clothes (dressing up is required for ceremony, at least for the kids, so I assume showing up in my zoo clothes would be frowned upon :P), and rush back out again. I have no idea what I'd do with Two, though - I need to have some sort of contingency plan for him, so he doesn't have to hang out at home alone for however-long the ceremony lasts. Assuming we get home in time at all, sigh.
We also have learned that our district is extending the school day by 15 mins next year, for all grade levels. For the middle-schoolers, it means starting 10 mins sooner and going 5 mins later. For MiniPlu, who already hates getting up early, this was terrible news, indeed. Supposedly, 15 mins/day extra (and the superintendent made it clear that this would be 15 extra minutes of instruction, not lunch :-P) will add up to 6 extra days of schooling, although you'd think it would be more than that. (I've done the math and, yes, it does work out, but it still doesn't feel like a lot of benefit.)
And on the subject of school: Two's spelling test. Every 10 days or so they have a test on a list of words. Two's group gets about 10-12 words at a time, but I'm not clear whether everyone gets the same or whether the regular and advanced kids get more words. At first I thought so, but now I'm not as sure. Anyway, about a week ago they had a "bubble" test - multiple choice where the spelling word would be listed alongside three misspelled versions, and kids would have to fill in the bubble corresponding to the correct spelling. They had TWELVE lists of words to review, knowing that half of the words would be on the test (but, obviously, not knowing WHICH words in advance). I tried reviewing with Two by making my own bubble tests, but he did poorly. I tried doing more active spelling, like a regular test, but he had forgotten pretty much every word from prior tests, except the handful of "easy" words (keep in mind they had things like "multiplication" and "disability" and "educated" which, for a kid with a learning disability, including a complete inability to break down syllables on his own, are TOUGH). So, yeah, not only did he fight with me about every practice session, but it was like trying to learn everything over from scratch. Eventually, I had to admit defeat. He would do however well he'd do, and there really wasn't any way to cram more into his head in the time allotted for study. I did email his writing teacher so she'd know that it wasn't like he'd completely blown it off, if he did poorly.
Two came home from the test saying that a lot of the misspellings were SO obvious, it was pretty easy to pick the correct version. The teacher then emailed to say he'd gotten a 78/100 on the test, and although he would have the chance to re-test if he wanted, she was pleased with his results.
And that just made me angry. Yes, standards have to be adjusted when dealing with kids like him; it's why he's managed to squeak out Bs in writing the past two quarters, despite having writing skills that could easily be bested by most second-graders. He HAS improved this year, but he's still so far behind, it's ridiculous. Anyway, it made me mad to think that getting a C+ was considered perfectly acceptable. For regular spelling tests, where we have at least a week to master those 10-12 words, we expect an A or, at worst, a high B. He actually does reliably well on those kinds of tests, because he memorizes the letter patterns. It's just that he doesn't retain that information long. So, yeah - given that we expect a decent grade on regular tests, it galled me to think that his teacher was pleased with a C+ just because of where he stands. Does that make sense? I don't consider a C+ good, not even for him. I've sometimes resigned myself to those Cs, but I *know* he can manage better when he puts his mind to it. (Frankly, I'm still ticked that he hasn't managed an A in math yet - and, again, his teacher is very pleased with his B work, sigh.) Two has been fighting me tooth and nail over a recent writing assignment; I'm trying to get him to get EVERY spelling and ending right (even when copying rough drafts that have been corrected by his teacher, he often makes these sorts of small mistakes). He's likely to lose points on organization or whatnot, so why not strive to get your best possible grade where SPAG is concerned? But he doesn't WANT to strive - he's learned that people have lower expectations, so he doesn't want to try for an A. He feels it's out of his league anyway, so he might as well do a sort-of good job and aim for a B.
This sort of "settling" attitude just has me so frustrated. No, he will not be able to write at MiniPlu's level of organization and vocabulary; I know this, and that's where *I'm* willing to settle. But I know he can do better than he's doing - but as long as nobody points out certain style or structure issues, then he assumes what he's doing is perfectly fine. Or as long as his teacher says, "You did well - you got a C+!" then why should he feel the need to do better next time? Just ... sigh.
On a mostly-different note: I finished my writing - submitted my H/D mpreg fest fic this afternoon. I'm not entirely satisfied with it, but it's not completely horrible, either, I don't think, and hopefully other participants will enjoy it.
D'you think someday I'll get more than 6 hours of sleep? I really cannot remember when I last managed this, sigh.
Unfortunately, it also appears to be one of the only 24/7 emergency vets in the area; the place was hopping when we arrived, a little after 7pm. Jade had barfed once more in the car on the way over (in her crate - but she wasn't bringing up very much by this point) but stopped once we got there, which was good because we were there for FIVE HOURS. And by "we" I mean Two and I - since Jade is nominally "his" puppy, he'd wanted to come; Will was exhausted from rototilling our garden and MiniPlu had homework to finish, so they'd stayed home. I had only managed to get most of dinner (homemade clam chowder) made before hightailing it out of there. Nobody had imagined how long this would take, so neither Two nor I had eaten before leaving. It was nearly 11p before we even got seen at all. Also, it was a little chilly in the waiting area and downright freezing in the examination room, so, yeah, we were really tired, frustrated, cold and starving.
Jade tested negative for parvo, and if you've ever had a dog, you'll know this was GOOD news, and was one of the nightmare situations I'd been envisioning. She conveniently had a single round of diarrhea while being examined, so they were able to test her stool for parasites - also negative. No fever. Bloodwork showed a slightly "off" white cell count but they said that could be a stress response and not necessarily an infection of some kind, so that was inconclusive. In the end, since she had, halfway through our wait, started to bounce back so that we were sometimes having trouble keeping her corralled on our laps (since she doesn't yet have full immunity from innoculations yet, we're not supposed to put her down on the floor in high-traffic dog areas, especially where sick animals might have been), we decided to let her get under-skin fluids to counter any possible dehydration, and some injected anti-nausea meds, and call it a night.
We quickly inhaled dinner once we got home after midnight before collapsing in bed. I felt so bad for Two, who had to go to school the next day on three hours' less sleep, but he managed.
Jade's digestion still seems a smidgen off, but she's otherwise been completely normal since then, and she's also been STARVING. (In fact, she inhaled most of Nala's dinner last night before we could stop her, gah.) We learned at the emergency vet (and her regular vet intake appt, which was last night) that she's a whole 5 lbs/2.25kg. She doesn't feel nearly that big, honestly, so we were rather surprised. (At our regular vet, she clocked in at "5 lb 6oz" but I have a feeling the extra 6oz is really the weight of her leash. :P)
So, anyway, aside from that, we're slowly working out how to live with a tiny puppy in our lives. It's seriously like having a toddler again, with the same inability to leave her unsupervised for a minute, and everything must be calculated so that people's disappearances are staggered whenever possible (ie if someone's in the shower, is someone else available to watch Jade?). We leashed her down in the basement with us yesterday morning so he could be on the bike while I ran on the treadmill, but this morning we just had her loose in the basement while I did my shoulder PT. This meant that as soon as I lay down on the mat to do my stretches, Jade bounded over to snuggle and chew my hair. And my shirt. And my hands. And then she decided the basement was boring and bounded up the stairs, so I had to get her back and barricade the steps to keep her in. You can imagine how much of a workout I managed. :-P
She's got incredible persistence and some very clear witching hours, one of which is in the evening, near the kids' bedtime. In those times, she has to be watched even more closely so she doesn't find old crap in the corners of the kitchen (despite sweeping) to eat, or chew on the coffee table legs, or try to rip up Nala's bed, or hide behind the sofa to do her business, or scamper upstairs to do who-knows-what. We've bought quite a few chew toys for her, but when she's in full mischief mode, do you think she wants to play with those? Of course not!
The first day she was with us, she mastered going up the back porch stairs, but that was all. By the next day she could do up OR down stairs, indoors or out, but only if you were going that way, too. Now she'll wander at random, if the spirit so moves her. We gave away all but one of our baby gates YEARS ago. I will freely admit our house is cluttered; we've tried very hard to keep floor stuff to a minimum with a puppy on the loose, but she still manages to find the smallest things to run off with. She also seems to have an affinity for paper, with some near-misses in the "Teacher, the dog ate my homework, really!" department.
Jade does NOT like being crated when the humans go to sleep; she has an incredible howl for such a tiny puppy. No teensy little whimpers for her! Even if it's super late at night or I need a nap and I'm trying to sleep, I have a hard time not laughing at the incredible sounds of anguish and reproach she manages to produce. Thankfully, she doesn't carry on for more than 10 mins; hopefully she'll outgrow this habit eventually. My niece's chihuahua was always spoiled and taken out of her crate when she howled, so, of course, she's learned to keep it up until she's "rescued". I am determined that Jade will do better. It works fairly well that I tend to go to bed late; it means she only gets us up once in the night, so far. (Theoretically, puppies can hold it for as many hours as months of age. She's supposedly about 10 weeks old, which means she should be able to hold it for 2+ hours, but when she's awake, that's pretty wishful thinking. So far it's more like 60-90 mins, max, or you're looking to clean up a puddle on your carpet. When crated, she can do at least 3 hours, thankfully.
Good thing she's adorable. :P Oh, and for those of you who wondered about her name - this being the first dog of my adulthood that we've changed a given name for (Cassie and Nala both came with those names, and they stuck): Two, whose name will soon start with a "J" wanted a "J" name for the puppy. He suggested "Jade" and we all agreed it was a name we liked, so there you have it. Of course, most of us have still struggled to use the right name for the right dog, and not call Jade "Nala" or "Cassie" or call Nala "Cassie" or ... whatever. Jade looks a lot LIKE Cassie did, which is what Will wanted, but it only lends to the confusion.
In non-puppy news - MiniPlu found out yesterday when her National Jr Honor Society induction ceremony would be: next Wed evening. And I'm gone ALL day as a chaperone for the 5th grade field trip to the Bronx Zoo, which I committed to MONTHS ago. MiniPlu was really upset that I might not be able to go, especially as kids are limited to two guests in the first place, and complained bitterly that she worked her butt off to get into NJHS, but, noooo, I had to go on a "stupid" field trip to a zoo. I don't blame her for being disappointed, but there really isn't anything I can do about it, either. The only ray of hope is that - theoretically - the field trip will be back by 5:30-6pm and the NJHS induction starts at 6:30pm. So, if there aren't any traffic issues, I might be able to run home, throw on nicer clothes (dressing up is required for ceremony, at least for the kids, so I assume showing up in my zoo clothes would be frowned upon :P), and rush back out again. I have no idea what I'd do with Two, though - I need to have some sort of contingency plan for him, so he doesn't have to hang out at home alone for however-long the ceremony lasts. Assuming we get home in time at all, sigh.
We also have learned that our district is extending the school day by 15 mins next year, for all grade levels. For the middle-schoolers, it means starting 10 mins sooner and going 5 mins later. For MiniPlu, who already hates getting up early, this was terrible news, indeed. Supposedly, 15 mins/day extra (and the superintendent made it clear that this would be 15 extra minutes of instruction, not lunch :-P) will add up to 6 extra days of schooling, although you'd think it would be more than that. (I've done the math and, yes, it does work out, but it still doesn't feel like a lot of benefit.)
And on the subject of school: Two's spelling test. Every 10 days or so they have a test on a list of words. Two's group gets about 10-12 words at a time, but I'm not clear whether everyone gets the same or whether the regular and advanced kids get more words. At first I thought so, but now I'm not as sure. Anyway, about a week ago they had a "bubble" test - multiple choice where the spelling word would be listed alongside three misspelled versions, and kids would have to fill in the bubble corresponding to the correct spelling. They had TWELVE lists of words to review, knowing that half of the words would be on the test (but, obviously, not knowing WHICH words in advance). I tried reviewing with Two by making my own bubble tests, but he did poorly. I tried doing more active spelling, like a regular test, but he had forgotten pretty much every word from prior tests, except the handful of "easy" words (keep in mind they had things like "multiplication" and "disability" and "educated" which, for a kid with a learning disability, including a complete inability to break down syllables on his own, are TOUGH). So, yeah, not only did he fight with me about every practice session, but it was like trying to learn everything over from scratch. Eventually, I had to admit defeat. He would do however well he'd do, and there really wasn't any way to cram more into his head in the time allotted for study. I did email his writing teacher so she'd know that it wasn't like he'd completely blown it off, if he did poorly.
Two came home from the test saying that a lot of the misspellings were SO obvious, it was pretty easy to pick the correct version. The teacher then emailed to say he'd gotten a 78/100 on the test, and although he would have the chance to re-test if he wanted, she was pleased with his results.
And that just made me angry. Yes, standards have to be adjusted when dealing with kids like him; it's why he's managed to squeak out Bs in writing the past two quarters, despite having writing skills that could easily be bested by most second-graders. He HAS improved this year, but he's still so far behind, it's ridiculous. Anyway, it made me mad to think that getting a C+ was considered perfectly acceptable. For regular spelling tests, where we have at least a week to master those 10-12 words, we expect an A or, at worst, a high B. He actually does reliably well on those kinds of tests, because he memorizes the letter patterns. It's just that he doesn't retain that information long. So, yeah - given that we expect a decent grade on regular tests, it galled me to think that his teacher was pleased with a C+ just because of where he stands. Does that make sense? I don't consider a C+ good, not even for him. I've sometimes resigned myself to those Cs, but I *know* he can manage better when he puts his mind to it. (Frankly, I'm still ticked that he hasn't managed an A in math yet - and, again, his teacher is very pleased with his B work, sigh.) Two has been fighting me tooth and nail over a recent writing assignment; I'm trying to get him to get EVERY spelling and ending right (even when copying rough drafts that have been corrected by his teacher, he often makes these sorts of small mistakes). He's likely to lose points on organization or whatnot, so why not strive to get your best possible grade where SPAG is concerned? But he doesn't WANT to strive - he's learned that people have lower expectations, so he doesn't want to try for an A. He feels it's out of his league anyway, so he might as well do a sort-of good job and aim for a B.
This sort of "settling" attitude just has me so frustrated. No, he will not be able to write at MiniPlu's level of organization and vocabulary; I know this, and that's where *I'm* willing to settle. But I know he can do better than he's doing - but as long as nobody points out certain style or structure issues, then he assumes what he's doing is perfectly fine. Or as long as his teacher says, "You did well - you got a C+!" then why should he feel the need to do better next time? Just ... sigh.
On a mostly-different note: I finished my writing - submitted my H/D mpreg fest fic this afternoon. I'm not entirely satisfied with it, but it's not completely horrible, either, I don't think, and hopefully other participants will enjoy it.
D'you think someday I'll get more than 6 hours of sleep? I really cannot remember when I last managed this, sigh.