Visits to Blacksburg and Beyond

I am so behind on blogging that I still have some pictures from Labor Day weekend to post. We made a short trip, that Sunday, to Giles to visit family and then returned to the lake for the rest of the weekend. Ma-maw was about to have her gall-bladder taken out that week and we wanted to visit her before the surgery. Callie was able to finally meet her second cousin Meredith. Meredith has been out of town the other times we have visited. They hit it off beautifully and were able to spend even more time together two weekends ago when we took Callie up for her first football game (Tech vs. Nebraska). Meredith graciously gave up her bedroom for us to stay in and she and Callie got to hang out together at the house and at the tailgate. Grampy also got to spend a lot of quality time with Callie as you can see from the pictures! Callie had a very exciting day. She loved every part of the tailgating and game experience. She and I left with Grampy after half-time to watch the rest of the game at Ma-maws. Callie was looking tired and I didn't want her great experience to turn sour by staying too long. She did stay long enough to get on the jumbo-tron at that stadium. She didn't make it onto TV, but I guess we wouldn't want her to become a star just yet, anyway!

Watching TV with Meredith (Baby Einstein)

At the game with Mommy (the photographer), Daddy and Great-Uncle Don.

Grampy time!

Climbing her first tree, something Grampy is anxious to do with her!

Laughing it up at the tailgate!

Michelle and Marty (the other cute and cuddly one at the tailgate!)

Meeting Meredith for the first time.

She still thinks Hunter is a riot!

Charming everyone around her, like usual!

Goodbye to Summer

These pictures are a few weeks old now but I wanted to make sure I posted them. We went to the lake for Labor Day weekend to enjoy the last few swims and boat rides of the season.

View of our place from the water.

Notice there is more than one sleeping baby on the boat!

I thought this one looked nice in black and white.

Splashing! Her favorite thing!

Nana and Papa bought her some new toys!

Our Ollie is Back!

Good news on Oliver! He had his feeding tube taken out on Monday and he is doing great! He even went through the cat door yesterday! I was so thrilled that I almost cried watching him. I thought we would have to keep a litter box in the bathroom for the rest of his life. But he managed much easier than before his surgery because he is a little thinner now and fits without as much resistance. I soon moved the other box back to the garage and bleached the bathroom floor. I moved his food back in there too, but I put it down on the floor since he still hasn't regained all of his leaping ability and can't get up onto the desk we use for kitty feedings. He now moves around much faster and steadier. He can almost run to the kitchen for mushy food time without stumbling. He has an enormous appetite now and that is without taking the appetite stimulant we had been giving him. He is still mostly deaf and we are thinking that may never change, but he is adapting to it. At least he won't have to hear the vacuum or hair dryer anymore! He is even getting along with Poe. Yesterday they exchanged headbutts and the encounter didn't end with a fur-flying hissing match. It is so great to have our fat boy back. I can't believe it really. I was pretty sure that we were going to have to say good-bye to our "first-born". Hopefully we will have him for another 10 years. Thank you to everyone who was praying for this important member of our family.

This picture was taken shortly after he first came home from the hospital. The red bandage is hiding his feeding tube. This was when he jumped into the tub on his own, a sight we thought we would never get to see again.

If you click to enlarge this picture you should be able to see his third eye-lids better. They now fully open which is a sign that he is less disoriented.

Five Months Old!

Callie turned five months this week! She is looking like an older baby now and is acting like one. She loves to fake cough for attention--little diva, and she has been trying to put her knees under her when she is laying on her stomach. She did the sweetest thing yesterday. I was laying next to her on our bed, trying to get her to take a nap with me. I closed my eyes to encourage her to close hers and within a few seconds I felt little baby fingers trying to pry my eyelids open. I opened my eyes and she smiled and then moved her hands down to play with my chin. I decided to test her and see if she had touched my eyes on purpose. I closed them again, and sure enough, those delicate, slobbery fingers were back up at my eyes. I will never forget it! She is such a sweetheart and a goofball all in one cute package. She is going nuts in her jumper now and wants to jump everywhere else as a result. If you stand her up on your lap she will start jumping. I tried to put her pajamas on her tonight and she stood up and started hopping on her changing table when I was trying to raise her up to a sitting position to put her arms in the holes. She is such a strong baby. She also rolled all the way over today, starting and ending on her back. She only did it once, but she had such a proud and surprised look on her face when it happened.

In other important news, Ollie is home and he is doing much better. He is eating on his own and is walking steadier than he was. He still seems deaf and he still has his feeding tube in place, but hopefully he will get that out soon and will start to recover some of his hearing and the rest of his balance. I will write more on him later and will also post pictures from Callie's Labor day weekend trip to the lake and Blacksburg.

Here are some pictures for Callie's five month birthday. The first picture is of me at four and a half months. Mom saved the blue dress so I put Callie in it to prove that she does look like me a little! I couldn't button the dress around her neck and she was in a very goofy mood so I never got her to pose quite as still as I did in my picture. I guess she got that stubbornness from her daddy!

Me at 4 1/2 months





...and then there's Callie Mae!

So, as you can see, she spent most of our photo shoot trying eat the dress or the blanket or showing everyone that Mommy didn't bother to put any bloomers on her for the pictures! She MIGHT get a little of that silliness from me...

Feeding Fiascos

It has been a rough few days since the last post. Ollie's condition has deteriorated more everyday. There were two trips back to the vet, before today, to get fluid injections, different meds, special food, etc. Nothing seemed to work to ease his vertigo-like condition or to encourage him to eat. We have been force feeding him baby rice cereal through a syringe twice a day and it is an all out fight every time. He just refuses to swallow and he is so strong that Matt has to wrestle him in place and pry his mouth open while I hold his front legs and and try to get the syringe far enough in his mouth to get the food in. When we took him back to the vet yesterday, we found out that his lack of eating had taken its toll on his liver. They gave us several feeding options to try and told us that if he still refused to eat, he would have to come back today for a feeding tube. They also found out that he had a bowel blockage and that even his kidneys were be effected by this situation. Nothing worked last night except that the medicine they gave him for the blockage took effect and we had quite a mess to deal with. (When I say "we", I mostly mean Matt. I have too weak of a stomach for most of the messy stuff.) Anyway, the phone rang at 9:30 tonight and when I saw it was Acredale Animal Hospital, I just knew it was bad news. But it was actually good news. The feeding tube procedure went well, he is on all kinds of drip meds, he seems to be less dizzy and has some fight back (which means he is being a pill but that is a good sign for a cat who is being messed with so much.) That is a very simple summation of the 20 minute phone conversation that Matt had with the vet. There are four vets at the animal hospital and three of them are working tirelessly to figure this all out. In fact, Dr. Evans, the one who did the surgery on Wednesday, told Matt tonight that he was losing sleep over this and that he could assure Matt that his concern for Ollie was only slightly less than ours. They are going to keep him until at least Thursday, probably longer, and they are not going to return him until the liver is in good shape, his ear problem seems to be improving and he is eating on his own. They also cleaned him up which we are so thankful for! I don't think I need to describe why, you can just assume the smelliest scenario.

I know this post is long already, but there is more news involving rice cereal and forced-feedings. Callie had her first adventure with semi-solids the other night. It didn't go very well either, but we aren't too worried about it. I tried feeding her two nights before bed but she doesn't seem ready to swallow it yet. She didn't cry or even get cranky, but she didn't enjoy it very much and I don't think anything made it to her belly. It is still early yet to be feeding her solids anyway, so we will try again in a few weeks. I was just hoping that it would help her to sleep longer at night and not be so hungry all the time. But she is a growing girl and I won't have this time back so I am going to try and enjoy all those middle of the night feedings and neck-kinking naps in the rocker. I am getting very good at sleeping sitting up. Here are some pictures of Callie's eating adventure and of her in her jumper. Unfortunately, I don't have any Michael Jordan type action shots of her jumping in it. When the camera comes out, she prefers to pose and look pretty.

She started out optimistic!

This picture sums it up--"no more, mommy, PLEASE!"

Update on the good and the bad

Things are happening fast around here lately. I actually don't have any pictures from the last week, that tells you how busy we are! But I need to mention that Callie is rolling over like its nothing now. She first did this when I was at the gallery last week. I put her on her play mat on her back and when I looked over she was on her tummy. She does this in the crib occasionally in her sleep and wakes up very mad about it. But when she is awake, she enjoys laying around on her stomach and playing with things. She is also moving forward in her walker now and jumps in her johnny jumper that hangs from the door molding. I will try to get a picture of this soon. She talks constantly, enjoying how her voice sounds different when she sticks her arm in her mouth or puts her mouth over my shoulder. Her sleeping is getting worse. She wakes up hungry much more than she did so I think tonight will be the first try with rice cereal. We are so proud of and thankful for our healthy, growing little stinker. She amazes us with something everyday.

The bad news around here is about our Oliver. He had ear surgery on Wednesday and he isn't doing well at all. He had tumors removed from his ears and they had to flush out a lot of dirt, wax and bacteria that had accumulated behind the tumors. The vet said his ears were in terrible shape and that one of his ear drums was completely gone, probably burst a while ago, and that the other was torn. He seemed to hear fine before the surgery but now he seems completely deaf. He is very confused, refuses to eat, and is unbalanced. When he does get up to wobble around, he wails. It is horrible to watch. Matt is calling the vet today to tell them he isn't eating. If a cat, especially an overweight one, goes more than 48 hours without eating, they can develop a very serious liver problem. We have tried all kinds of people and cat foods, both solids and liquids, and we can only get a very small amount in him through force. We are all very worried about out sweet fat cat. It just isn't the same around here without his little clip-clip paw sounds as he runs to the bathroom to beg for water out of the tap or his cute little gurgle sounds he makes when you call him for cream cheese treat time. I miss sharing my pillow with him at night and listening to him purr when I talk baby-talk to him. Please pray for our little furry boy. He is precious in God's sight too because he is one of His miraculous creations.

Here are some pictures that I had not had a chance to put on the blog. They are of Pa and Callie and Logan. Callie finally got to meet her second cousin Logan on the way home from the beach a few weeks ago. And Pa finally got to get his picture taken with both of his great-grandbabies!

Beach Album

Here are photos and commentary from our vacation to North Myrtle Beach. Callie is of course the focus of all photos! Enjoy!

Callie got to discover one of the best things about hotels --the naps! This was in the Marriot before the rest of the Spiers arrived and we switched to the condo.

We used the desk as a changing table. The big TV was right by her head. This is how she looked everytime we changed her. Talk about modern conveniences!

We played in the pool until everyone else arrived on Sunday. I think the pool was Callie's favorite. She really gets into splashing.

One of the vacation highlights for me was getting to sleep in every morning. Grampy was up and waiting for his buddy. They would start the day by treasure hunting on the beach.

Callie has a lot more dexterity now and loved to our grab water and beer bottles and even grabbed and spit up in Grammy's coffee cup one morning.

De-sanding Callie's bum with water bottles.

And speaking of messy bottoms, this situation had a stinky and slimy end. Callie had a craptastrophy that came out of her swimsuit and was all over Michelle's bare belly.

Michelle was brave enough to hold her again! Callie continued to stun us with her GI feats. She also put on a poop-show for all the customers in the Adidas outlet.

This picture was taken on the porch of Southern Suppers, Matt and Michelle's favorite seafood buffet restaurant and a Spiers-Epperley beach tradition for decades.

The beginning of Matt's self-induced food coma. He does the family proud and gets his money's worth every time.

Callie enjoyed the mirrored wall at the condo much more than I did. She could stand on her own when wedged into the couch cushions and she was very proud of herself! She was also sitting in tripod position by the end of the week and discovered her feet.