Eight Months Old...

... And officially stronger than me. 

Fall Baking...

... Has commenced! First up: Apple dumplings!

Halfway There!

I finished up week seven of my marathon training program with a 12 mile run and it's on to week 8! Race day is here in 2 short months!

Kindergarten Curriculum Night

What I learned from Kindergarten Curriculum Night:

1) Amelia's teacher talks too much. 

2) Amelia's teacher probably does not have my email address and probably needs it so I should probably get it to her 

3) Amelia, being the brown-noser that she is, is the class's first Star Student of the Week, making it very easy to find her classroom since her picture was on the door. 

4) My knees do not do well when forced to sit in a tiny kindergarten classroom chair for 45 minutes. 

Let's hope I get a little more out of Charlie's curriculum night, on Thursday. 

Busy Not-So-Holiday Weekend

Saturday involved grocery shopping and taking the kids to get equipped for flag football and soccer, which both start next Saturday. We also took them to see the movie Ant-Man, at Charlie's request. Charlie enjoyed it and Amelia fell fast asleep -- mental note, 6:50pm movie showings are past her bedtime... 

On Sunday I did an 11 mile run, took Amelia and Rebecca to the pool one last time before it closed for the season, and helped Heather load up two car loads full of stuff from her apartment to her new house, as they have to be out of the apartment by next Monday. 

Today I had a busy day at work, while Mike worked a half day from home and then took the kids and dog for a walk at the greenway after lunch where Charlie caught the below pictured baby snapping turtle:

After I got home Charlie's friend Lorenzo's mom called to see if he wanted to come over for a play date, so she picked him up and we collected him at six, on our way out to dinner for Mike's birthday (which is tomorrow but I have curriculum night at the kids' school so we won't be able to celebrate.) 

Busy busy!! 

Dogs And Ibuprofen Don't Mix

Just in case you were wondering, dogs and ibuprofen don't mix. 

On Sunday afternoon Jasper managed to get into a bottle of ibuprofen that was left out on the kitchen counter. We found him chewing on the empty bottle, with the pills scattered on the floor. Several of them had been chewed/licked but there wasn't any way to tell if/how many he might have eaten before he decided the bottle itself was more interesting. 

A quick Google search showed that ibuprofen is extremely toxic to dogs and that symptoms (vomiting) usually occur within an hour. I decided to wait and see how he was. 

He was totally fine that night and all day Monday, seeming like his usual self until Monday evening when he didn't eat dinner and began vomiting and having diarrhea. Not sure if this was from the ibuprofen exposure or possibly just Caroline's stomach bug that maybe had been passed to Jasper, I looked on the internet again and read that while symptoms usually occur within an hour they can be delayed by as much as one to two days and that 1 200mg ibuprofen can be fatal to a small or medium sized dog. 

With that information we decided it was best that Mike take him to the emergency veterinary clinic down the street. Once there they checked his blood work and kidneys which both came back fine so they guessed that he only ate enough to cause stomach upset and not the gastrointestinal bleeding that can cause death. 

To be on the safe side they sent him home with a bunch of pills to be taken for the next couple days, every eight hours. Jasper was sluggish on Tuesday but was back to his normal chipper self by Wednesday and today continues to seem 100% recovered. 

And the ibuprofen is now in a drawer in my bathroom instead of in the kitchen cabinet so it can't accidentally be left out again. 

"Off The Charts"!

Here is my big kindergartener who is off to a great start this year, "off the charts" for good behavior 2 days in a row now!