Big Burps

Burp...burp. He's up to 8 oz in his bottle now. Slept ALL THE WAY THROUGH THE NIGHT last night. WOW!!!! It only took one night of screaming to get him to sleep all night. Good job, Joey! Now mom and dad can be functional all day for you. :)

He's the best baby in the world....so far. :)

Da Bearsss

Joey was all suited up for the big Super Bowl game last night. He was cheering loud for the Bears. Ah well. I suppose it was time for Peyton Manning to win something big. He deserves it. We were really cheering for both teams. We have friends that are former Bears players (Tom Thayer, Jim McMahon) as well as a guy named Lil' Z who helps Tom Thayer (who is now the voice of the Bears) on the field. So we were pulling pretty hard for them. But then there's Peyton Manning of the Colts, of which, all of Tennessee was pulling for him. He's kind of the "pride" of the state, i'm learning.

I don't know. I'm just up for a good game. I wasn't impressed with the Half Time show though. I'm not that big of a Prince fan. He's ok...and I know he's considered legendary, but he's another one of those artists that I just don't "get," along with U2 and the Rolling Stones. Maybe I'll get it someday....or maybe not.

Anyway....Joey's pretty darn cute, huh. ;)

Growing...

Joey is growing more and more each day. He had his two month check up the other day and he is about 12.5 lbs already! He was a big boy, and had 3 shots and an oral vaccine. Eeesh. Needless to say, he hasn't felt himself for the last few days. I think he is just now coming out of it.

Every day he becomes more and more active. I read to him every day, no matter if its from a kids book, or the newspaper. I talk to him all the time, and tell him what i'm doing, whether its "Now we are walking down the stairs" or "Here's the refrigerator." I introduce his stuffed animals to him everyday too. He seems to like elephants. He fixates on them whenever he's around anything having to do with elephants.

He is in his cooing stage now, and its a very neat time..... he talks all the time. :)

Joe is on the road alot these days, touring, as he's opening for Bob Seger. This is a great time for our little company, but its sad that he has to be gone in this growing time for Joey. We'd rather him be gone now, rather than later, because when Joey gets older, then he'll notice more when he's gone. But what is so sweet is......when Joe calls, Joey likes to talk to him, and is fully aware when its his daddy's voice coming across the phone. He could be awake, but quiet....but once I put Joe on speaker phone, Joey instantly becomes excited, flailing his little arms and cooing into the phone. I say "Joey, tell daddy Hi. Tell him you love him," and he instantly coos sweetly to Joe. Its the sweetest thing I've ever seen in my life!

Everyday, i am so thankful for our little family. Joe, Joey, Rudy, Happy..... I don't know where I would be without them all. There is nothing sweeter. Life is good. :)

Joey!

Our beautiful Joey was born NOvember 29th, 2006.

As you can guess, I've been a bit overwhelmed by new motherhood, that i'm a little bit behind on my blogging. Recently, i was blessed with a brand new laptop, which is going to be very helpful to me, as I can carry it around the house with me anytime i want, and be everywhere that Joey is. So I don't have to go all the way down to my office at midnight when i'm ready to crawl in bed, after Joey is sleeping, and I can finish up my "day," close my computer, and go to sleep. Can you say "blessing?"

ANYWAY...back to Joey.

Wow. He's amazing. Joseph Spero Azar III was born at 11:53am. He was 6 pounds, 14 ounces, and 21 inches long. Healthy and beautiful! The labor was quite short, in consideration of the average "labor" for first time pregnancies. In fact, the nurses and doctors were asking me if this was truly my first pregnancy/labor. I guess I was just blessed. I thank God it all went well. It wasn't easy, by any means. I got the hospital at 1:00am with some significant contractions, but nothing to cause major alarm...just enough to notify me that it was "time." So by 1:30am, i was hooked up to all the machines. I figured it wasn't time to order up an epidural, and that i'd wait for the contractions to get a little more intense. Next time, I'll know better!!! By 2am, I was howling. My luck, there were 14 other women on the floor pushing out babies that morning, so it took 2 and a 1/2 hours to get the epidural. Note to future mothers: DON'T TRY TO DO IT WITHOUT DRUGS.

So I finally received the pain killer at 4:30ish, and then all was right with the world. At 5am, they broke my water. We were a little nervous because at that point, they discovered JOey had already had a bowel movement, so the docs ordered up a neonatal team to be on standby for the delivery. I slept for a few hours, and by 8:30ish, i was pushing. I pushed on every contraction for the next few hours. (EXHAUSTING!!!!). Finally, 11:53am was the magic moment....and out he came. I'll never forget it.

My labor nurse was amazing. Her name was Rebecca. I swear, she was an angel. She was so knowledgable about everything, and so soothing. Very sweet spirit. She kept Joe, mom and me very calm through the whole thing, and she was an amazing encourager. I couldn't have done it without her.

Here are a few photos of him while we were inthe hospital! We can't wait for you all to meet him in person! He's pretty cool.

31 weeks.....10 left and counting

Hey everyone....sorry its been a while. I can't keep promises anymore, obviously. :)

Back in June, we found out we are having a little baby boy.....little Joey III. After tossing around what we should "call" him, as there are 50 Joseph's in the Azar family, we landed on Joey. Easy enough, huh? We can't wait! As of right now, I've just entered my 31st week. I have about 10 more weeks to go. And this pregnancy has gone by so fast, I can't even begin to tell you! I'm anxious to start our new family, but I think the reason why it HAS gone by so fast is because i'm nervous about the birth, and when I'm nervous about something, that moment that is approaching, approaches more rapidly than I'd like. I have a feeling a c-section is in store as my pelvic structure just isn't made for birthin' babies, but who knows...the Lord may part me like the Red Sea. We'll see. No cameras in the delivery room, please. Only still shots afterwards. :) I'll cuss any visiting camera hounds.

I'm due November 30th, but who knows.....this birth may come sooner than planned, as Joey likes to kick me low. I don't know how i'm going to notice him "dropping" is he's already positioned so low. Everyday i'm watching for the signs of contractions.....as I have no idea what a contraction feels like, but our doctor said "Oh....you'll know!" That's scary!

The pregnancy has been easy up until recent. It has just felt like normal....maybe even a little better....but with a growing abdomen that seems to consistenly get in the way. I remember the first time I noticed my growing belly (you know, besides in the mirror) when I was at the grocery store back in May, and I was carrying a large package of toilet paper against my body, and it wouldn't fit flat on my stomach. Very awkward. But cool. I was ready. In the beginning I had the typical morning sickness pangs for about 8 weeks, and then after wards, all I felt was exhausted. Once the 2nd trimester started, I was on a roll. Pretty easy. Now i'm deep into the 3rd tri, and things are really starting to get tough, but I'm going for it (as if I have a choice!). Climbing up stairs is my main source of exercise and it winds me. I tried to take Rudy for a walk the other day, and (a) he got tired right away because he's chunky, and (b) I got tired right away because i'm "chunky." We were quite the pair, trying to make it up the path in the park. He stopped cold on me, and laid down. I had to carry him all the way down. I tried to tell him that his chunkiness was fat and he needed to walk it off, and mommy's "chunkiness" wasn't considered "fat" and that no matter how much I walked, it wasn't coming off....but that didnt' seem to motivate him. So I carried him down the hill (as if I had a choice....i really didn't. He wouldn't budge.) I should have taken Happy...he doesn't know that if he stops and lays down in protest that he would be the boss as i wouldn't be able to carry HIM!

Joe and I have been going to these birthing classes lately. Very interesting.

Work has been "the same" lately. Ups and downs....excitings, and let downs, but that comes with the what the brochure said. We keep plugging along with prayer and hope. Hopefully something will come out of it. I'm not worried.

I've been doing some work around the house....mostly painting. I've been covering the trim lately to make it look a little cleaner. We're changing our locks today and putting on new deadbolts. Its just "time" to do it, so we are.

The baby room is taking shape, but it still has a long way to go. We finally moved all the furniture down to the "old office" to make that a very cozy temporary guest room (until we turn it into a sitting room/pull-out-couch guest room). It looks good. The baby room is a pastel green. We haven't gotten the crib yet (had a spare crib but it wouldn't fit up the stairs and around the corner...so our permanent crib is on the way, and thank God its in pieces right now so we can put it together IN THE ROOM!! haha!) , or most of the big stuff. We only have a dresser and two little bookcases.We have a little toy chest and some toys. As soon as we get the bigger furniture we'll be ready to put it all together. Soon, i think! :)

Ahh...so we have Titans football tickets this year, but (a) they AGAIN aren't doing so good, and (b) I have to walk my butt allllll the way to the top of the stadium to see a game. I dont' mind that....its good exercise, but at this point, its a tough climb. I can make it though.

We have a Predators hockey pre-season game tonight. YAY! I'm excited. Hockey is my new favorite sport. Helps to have GREAT seats too. We don't mind spending a little money on our tickets (we have a partner to help with them too), because its our occasional "date" night. :)

A couple of weeks ago, one of my best friends, Addie, came to visit for the weekend. We had a GREAT time just spending quality time together...soemthing we REALLY haven't been able to do since about 5 years ago. I enjoyed it so much! She was a doll and helped me get registered at Target...somehow she knows all about the different baby stuff, as I am absolutely clueless (for the time being! ha!). I couldn't have done the registering by myself!!! I would have tried, but not done well, I promise! We also hit the Wild Horse Saloon to watch jeffrey Steele play. He's great. He's the hottest songwriter in town.....he played all the songs he's had cut on different artists around town, and man....if he didn't play 25 #1 hits in a row, I don't know.....he's doing really great! So that was a lot of fun. I welcome weekend visitors these days. :) Joe's gone an awful lot on the road and it gets lonely around here, even though I do have the boys here with me....but they are no fun because they mope around waiting for Joe to come home. At least all 3 of us can mope together, huh. In a about 2 weeks, my mom is heading to town for a weekend which will be great, and then the weekend after that, my dear friend Angela is coming to keep me company for that weekend. i can't wait! I'm excited. And its just starting to be "fall" here and its beautiful.......I love this time of year in Tennessee!

Well...i've touched on a lot of things in a nutshell on this post. I'll try to post more later (no promises though! haha!). I hope you all are well! Please keep in touch!

Doin' some work around the house

Since we found out about our new highly anticipated blessing, we've been making some plans to change around the layout of our home to make room for the baby. At first it was hardly imaginable how we were going to fit everything into our house, and still have a place for our guests to sleep, as we don't like to send anyone to a hotel when they come to be with us.

My mom came down from Iowa to see us in June and helped us brainstorm a way to make it all work. She's an absolute GENIUS. :) And we figured we needed to move fast.....I'm due in November, and that's literally right around the corner if you think about it. And Joe is going to be on the road A LOT working this new song with Steve, PLUS the new album in September...there is just simply no time between now and the time the baby is born to make these changes, unless we do it NOW. So "now" is the plan.

While mom was still here, we cleaned out the entire garage (a project that has been ongoing since before we got married, but constantly interrupted by life, as we all understand!). Mom helped us put the project into full motion. Once we cleaned it out, the next weekend, Joe moved about 1/2 of his weight room equipment into the garage for a mini-gym feel. It looks great. A little cramped, but hey, it will work, most definitely.

After that, the following weekend, we had the carpet throughout our whole house steam cleaned. Then Joe and I decided on a whim that if we are goign to move the office down to the first level from the second (of 3 levels), we just had to "do it" or forget about it. So that same weekend, we threw everything in a pile, and started taking apart the office furniture. The only way to get all the furniture downstairs was to disassemble, unfortunately. Wow...what a project. We disassembled fine, but the time that Joe almost lost his life during this whole process was moving our gigantic sized black industrial filing cabinet down the stairs. Ummm...i'm pregnant so I couldn't do anything except navigate. And Joe had too much pride to call Slava, our very eager-to-help and wonderful next door neighbor. Trust me, when the filing cabinet started sliding out of control on the wet stairs, aiming for the aluminum door with glass windows, surrounded by a brick entry way, all I could do was let out a blood curdling scream. I thought for sure we were going to have to stay in a hotel that night, for the lack of a front door...or camp out on the front lawn with a gun to ward off any intruders. But Joe did finally get ahold of the cabinet just in time, and was able to stop it from detroying the front of our home. After my scream, I yelled viciously at him for not calling Slava. Men and their pride....hmph! :)

Sooo..we moved all the "big" stuff down stairs, wired all the phones (which was so much fun...i've never done that before, and NOW I know how...kind of....) and moved all the electronics down. We werent' able to be a functional office by Monday, but we did most of our "work" by phone, as our computers weren't up and running yet. But by Tuesday we could at least check email. And since we missed Monday, we spent the resto f the week playing catch up,....which meant the "pile" of little office things were there all week, with Joe leaving town for 10 days (of which he returns from this trip in about 2 hours from now....) and ME to pull everything together.

With that said, I've been doing some work around the house since Joe's been out! I finished moving all the little things to the office, and organized/filed everything. Our office bathroom was compariable to your roadside Amaco station's bathroom....so I cleaned that baby up, and painted it...gave it a "girly" touch (what can i say?? ). Since I had completely cleared out the "old" office upstairs, I went out and got the paint to touch up the room, and spent an evening doing that. (Looks good too.....all that's left in that room is to clean the carpet where the furniture was).

Check out the pictures of the work....I really should have taken some "before" pictures so I could show the difference but I'm a moron and didn't do it.

We moved our doggy kennels down stairs with the office so that our boys could have a place to snuggle while they hang with us during the day. They didn't like this move at first...in fact Rudy was so upset, he got sick....but now they are LOVING all the room they have to play!

So what are we goig to put in our dining room, you might ask? Well....if we used it for an actual "dining" room, it just would be a waste of space, since we would never use it. The upstairs guest room is going to be the "baby" room, so we are going to get a "hide a way" couch and put it in the dining room to make it a "sitting room/guest bedroom." All our housing problems are solved!!! :)

Check out the pics......Joe's going to be a shocked man when he gets home! He knows I've done all this, but has no idea what to expect. :) I hope he likes it!

Baby on Board!

(sheepishly....) ...sorry I haven't blogged in a while. Wow, i'm bad. But now.....as if we didn't have a million things to talk about already, we now have a BAAAAAAYYY BEEEEE to talk about!!

For those who did and didn't know, we are infact PREGO with a little baby boy....Joe 3. :) We are SOOO unbelievably excited, we can hardly stand it!

Its so late right now, but i wanted to get this news up (as if 20 weeks haven't gone by already, i just had to do it NOW, right?) check out our little one in the ultra sound photo. Iddn't he cute?? :) He's going to be a big one.... The doc says all the measurements are just right for a "standard baby size" of 20 weeks (which, i'm not sure what classifies as "standard" but hey, I'll take that as a "healthy" signal). Can you see his little profile?? :) weeeeeee!!!!

ROCK ON BLOGGERS!

My very first audioblog...check it out.....

The Little Angels

I told you all that we were going to introduce you to these two dangerous, yet extremely irresistable, creatures.

Meet....the little yorkie named Rudy....aka "Ba-Boo" or "Rubes"....

and

the bassett hound, Happy.....aka "Mr Crinkles", or "Happs."

Favorite pastimes: Sleeping, going on long trips, aggrevating each other, barking at ghosts,
barking at birds and deer in our back yard, tug-of-war competitions with the rubber chicken or stuffed duck, eating, sleeping more....

Favorite Snacks: Cheese, Cheese, more cheese. Rudy likes apples, cashews, bananas,
greenies, pretzels, peanuts, and sticky notes (yes..you read right....). Happy likes....well, anything that drops to the floors, especially cheese. Joe opens the fridge and they come running. ((Surprised??))

Favorite toys: Rubber chicken, squeeky balls (and everything else that squeeks, for that
matter), 2 stuffed ducks, armadillo, plastic water bottles, our socks, kittens,toy exotic birds that make noise.

Latest Guilty Pleasures: Katie's brand new leather boots.....Joe's Crocs.....Katie's green
garden shoes...joe's gloves.

Stay tuned for more stories about these two. They NEVER cease to entertain and amaze us. We wouldn't know where we would be without them. Honestly, these two helped bring Joe and I together.

Joe adopted Happy in the June of 2004, well before Joe and I fell in love. I adopted Rudy that following July. Thankfully, i was able to bring Rudy to work with me everyday, where Happy and Rudy grew up together and became the best of buddies...and ultimately, brothers. I hated to take Rudy back home with me at night because he would be so depressed that I took hiim away from his playmate. And Joe used to tell me that all Happy would do when we left, is mope around looking for something to do. Sometimes if I had to go out of town, or vice versa, we would babysit each other's dogs. Thank GOD that Joe and I got married ((among MANY reasons)) but also so that our boys could be together forever. :)

Happy's Vet trip...from Hell

I wish I had a camera crew following my every move today. This whole day would have had the whole world in laughter induced tears.

Today, I had to take my dog, Happy, to a dermatologist specialist at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. But, let me preface this whole day but telling you what led up to today, or why I had to take Happy to Knoxville.

Two weekends ago, the weekend Steve played for the Mississippi Rising Gala event to raise money for Hurricane Katrina victims, we boarded Rudy and Happy at our normal vet, Harpeth Valley Animal Hospital. When we came home on Monday, we picked up the boys, brought 'em, the usual. On Tuesday, we were playing with Happy, and we rolled him over on his back to tickle him, and noticed he had some unusual redness and scabbing on his chest, as if he had some itchiness and maybe some skin breakage. Nothing to worry...we figured, bassets are well known for their skin allergies and irritations. I took him to the vet on Wednesday morning.

The vet was puzzled, but agreed with us that it was more than likely an allergy, most likely brought on by hay fever, or grass...common allergy for dogs this time of year. Doc gave lil' Happy a cortizone shot, a milkbone, directions to take benadryl 3x a day, a small perscription of cephalexin, a pat on Happy's lil booty, and sent us out the door.

The next day, Thursday, Joe and brought the boys in to the vet again to board so that we could leave town the next morning on a canoe/camping trip for the weekend. Everything was fine. happy didn't really show any signs of improvement, and we figured it was too soon to tell.

Sunday night...time to pick up the pups. We picked them up same as usual. When we arrived home, I flipped Happy over to check on his chest, but when I did, I was shocked. His scabbing and redness had turned into ENORMOUS scabbed welts, not only on his chest but on his left front armpit and leg. And worse, we discovered scaly scabby areas on his ears that looked like he had a bunch of "peas" under his skin in his normally soft ears. I flipped out, and called the Nashville pet emergency. We took him in, they did some skin scrapings, and found basically nothing. The doc scratched her head, gave him a benadryl and batril shot, and told us to have a follow up visit the next day. We did...doc didnt know what it was, and gave him a oral perscription for baytril, a heavy antibiotic. That was Monday.

Well, here it is Friday (well, Saturday...now that I'm writing), and Happy is NOT better. I had called the vet every day this week giving updates. no improvements whatsoever. Only declination of his scabs. Today the welts are just as red and high as ever, but now his ears are starting to crack open and bleed, and Happy is starting to naw at his ears, causing them to be raw and lose hair.

I called the vet this morning, beggin for them to get us in to the Nashville dermatologist, and to our dismay, they said, "She's a great doc, but she isn't working today, and is not going to be in until next week." I said that if there was another place inthe state of TN, I would jump in my car and go. So they called the doc in Knoxville. They had an opening, so I went.

Here's where the need for the cameras kicks in....Get ready to die......

I talked to Harpeth for the last time around 11:30am, and that is when they told me that Knoxville had room for me, heres the number, they will be expecting you at 3:30pm EASTERN time. 2:30, my time. Well, that leaves me 3 hours on the dot to get there!!! (((Humanly impossible in Friday afternoon traffic, btw))) I flew around the house, bagging up dog food (just in case we were there over the weekend), getting cash, organizing my office work in my folder, forwarded the phones, calling joe every 2 minutes. etc etc etc. I get a call right when i'm leaving from Jessica's tour manager having problems with one of her band guys. I had to fix it before i left. Then the venue was refusing to cover hotels, in which they had orgianlly agreed, so I had to take care of THAT too. So as soon as I had everything gathered up, I threw the boys in the car ((yes...both of them. I had no one to watch Rudy, so I figured, what the hell....it'll be a good buddy for Happy. Wow, was I wrong. You'll see. It wasn't bad, but I could have eliminated some frustration.))

We're in the car, driving down Hicks Road. We get to the stoplight next tothe shell station, not even a mile from the house, I hear Happy whizzing all over the back seat. "Damn it, Happy!!!" I screamed. Poor buddy....Happy is NOT a travel dog. I was already preparing myself for the worst. He normally begins a road trip with a nice burp and a regurgitation of his breakfast all over the back seat. Thank God he didn't do that, but geez.

My first stop, Eckerd, because I needed the drowsy version of real benadryl to knock his ass out, and now I was in desparate need for a roll of paper towls, and some cheese slices to disguise the benadryls. I go inside, found the benadryl, paper towels, but no cheese. "Great"....i thought..."this is going to be fun to get him to eat these. I can say "Treat! "all day and the bastage will never believe me." I was right. He didn't believe me. I had to pry open his slimey jaw and drop it down his gullet, and pray that he wouldn't try to spit it back up. That took me way too long. And also, by the time I ripped open my tower of paper towels, the piss had already sunk into the carpet. So I jumped back into the front seat, buckled up, and decided to get on the way.

Next stop, I had to drop off a couple of CDs to the CDX place....mission accomplished. Easiest part of the day.

I start flying down I-40 headed East to Knoxville. Most of the time Im cookin' anywhere between 75 and 90 mph (sorry Joe, sorry mom!) I'm watching everywhere for cops. Wild thing was, EVERYONE was driving that fast. Ic ouldn't believe it. I was getting passed all over the place. At this time, Happy is sitting in his usual seat, directly behind me, staring out the window, completely silent. I try to look back over my shoulder to check on him, but I can't see anything but his tail, but it appears to me that hes sitting up and looking out the window...which is usually what makes him sick.

We roll about an hour and half out of town, and get to ohhhhhhh about Center Hill Dam. I smell something awful. I swore that Happy had passed some gas far beyond anything he had ever passed before, which, to me, meant that he needed to "go." I said "hang on, Hap...we'll stop in 2 seconds." He couldn't wait that long. He decided to poop right then and there. ARGGGGHHHH!!!! Next stop...a rest stop. Ahhh good. I took the exit. The worst exit for a rest stop I had ever seen in my life. It whirled me around the interstate and around a couple more circles before it mis directed me to where the semis park, only by the time I parked I was facing the semis. Screw it, I'm parking here. I got out, shut my door, put my head in my hands for a moment, ran my fingers thru my hair, took a deep breath (fulling knowing that it was my last fresh breath for the next 15 or 20 minutes, and then opened up the back door where Happy had been sitting.

Everywhere. On the seat, on the floor, on the water bowl, on Happy.....gross. Thank God for the paper towels, the extra plastic bag that I had gotten at Eckerd (for just in case he threw up) and Clorox clean up wipes. I dove in head first, cleaning up the crap with paper towels first, and then wiping down with the clorox wipes. I ordered Rudy to stay in the front seat, and like a rambuncious kid that doesn't mind, he disobeyed me, ran right thru it, and then decided he had made a bad decision. He then peacefully sat on the back seat, quietly, until I finished wiping up the mess.

Keep in mind, I was in a hurry.

K, so I wiped it all up...next duty, let the boys out to do business. Rudy went first. Good job, Rudy. Happy next. Ugh...I had to pick him up and put him on the ground....not knowing if I got all the poop off him or not. I think so, but damn. Good thing I let him do business, because he left a pile........... I mean A PILE. After they were done, I shoved them back in the car, cracked the windows, took my flip flops off, and RAN straight into the rest stop, practically knocking over men women and children to get to the bathroom to wash up, AND wash off Rudy's leash, of which Happy so gracious contributed some poop to. Raced back to the car, jump in, and, did what I had been dreading since I pulled into the rest stop....tried to analize how the hell i was going to get out of there, since I was facing the wrong way, and if I did turn around, i would be going out the wrong exit.

Well, as I was high tailing back to the car after washing up, my eye caught a pathway marked back to I40 east, but that meant that I would have to jump 2 curbs and a median to get to that pathway. You can bet your ass smacked those curbs and ran my tires thru that median!! With 100 people watching me, I didn't give a crap....I dared 'em all to come after me!! :) I have a big vehicle...might as well show it off. Sorry to all you saturn drivers. You couldn't do what I just did!

So on the road again...Happy is now in the back sitting behind the passenger side of the vehicle. He looks doped up. Hes sitting up, and he looks like he could puke at ANY given moment. I'm up front with Rudy inmy lap just praying that he doesn't.

We pull into Knoxville, I'm an HOUR late. I had already called the vet clinic 3 times to get directions, and I get a little further in the directional process before I lose cell tower. So I'm in knoxville, and we come to a dead stop. Road construction. Finally get thru it, and I take what I THINK is the right exit. It was, but THEN after that, I took the wrong exit, and it takes me down a wrong path. I go to the next exit to turn around, and I have the clinic on the phone to tell me how to fix my mess. They didn't know how to, so I had to figure out how to turn around in a very messy situtaion. I'll tell you, I ended up at Cheroke path or park or something stupid before I could get turned around. So I'm back on the right path, and i figure out how to get to the clinic. Ah ha. We arrive. I'm shaking from not having time to eat. its 4;30 PM. LATE.

I leave Rudy in the car, I take Happy in, and they are ready for us. They greeted us and took us right now. Sweet people. We talk about Happy for a few minutes, and I decided to go out and get Rudy so he doens't toast in the car. I brought him in and of course he's sniffin' and trying to get attention from everyone around.

The docs take happy back to get some tests done, and Rudy and I are left in the exam room. He's sniffin' around and decides to pee on a few spots. I see him, and he knows hes in deep poop. So I swooped him up, and put him on the table, while I went to cleaning up his mess. He then decided that he wanted to be a super hero, and jumps....off the table on the slick hard floor. Conk!!! He bonked his little head on the floor. I immediately turned around to see if he was ok. He came running over to me and reached up for me like "Ohhhh mom....That was dumb. Hold me. and please dont beat me for that." I snuggled him for a little bit, while we waited for lil' Happy.

Happy returned, and the doc said they couldn't find much, but they needed to run a biopsy. So RUdy and I waited again. This time Happy returned with 3 patches of skin sown up on his chest where they had taken skin samples. All Happy wanted to do was bite at the stitches and chew on his ears.

We had to get one of those cones to put on his head, and the vet tech and I were having a hell of time getting it sized around his loose skin on his neck, AND keeping Rudy from trying to bite at Happy's poor ears. We finally got it on him, but Happy HATED IT. He had such a hard time sniffing on the ground, and going thru doors. It hurt him too. Poor lil guy. I checked out, and walked to the car with the boys. It was a monster chore to get them in the car, mainly Happy because he had that damn thing on his head and couldn't fit anywhere. I finally got him semi comfy and jumped inthe car to go get some things at PetSmart.

I was so hungry at this point that I could barely stand up. I had to stop at Arby's. That made me sick.

So I get to PetSmart,and I'm looking for a tshirt for happy to wear so he doesn't bit at his stiches, a bed for him to lay on so he doesn't get car sick on the way home, and some treats for the boys. I get all the stuff, and have a "Oh my gosh...the Arby's is backing up on me" feeling, and need to find the bathroom quick. I couldn't find it for a few minutes. Ugh. Finally I found it. I had to leave all my stuff outside the bathroom. After i had finished, I needed to find a store clerk to help me find a "snood" that would help tie up happy's ears so he would bite at them. It took me 10 minutes to find someone, and then, no one knew what the hell it was. So I said Screw it, and went to check out.

Went out to the car, and the first thing I tried, was to put the tshirt on happy. WAY too small. I remebered seeing some tshirt for sale with a $2 donation. I ran back inside and bought a Human tshirt sized Large, and ran back out. The next trick was keeping Rudy in the car while EVERYONE had their dogs in PetSmart. he kept seeing them all walking in and out, and he wanted to go chase them all down. I was having a hard time with him, and trying to get the tshirt on happy. Then Happy kept squeezing out of it, so I had to knot it around him. He was IN LOVE with his new bed and instantly laid down in it.

Borders books was on the corner. No way I was leaving town with out a coffee. I went in, got some coffee, came back out, and I had to readjst happy again for he came out of his tshirt again. Finally squared away, and we took off. They both slept like little babies until about an hour and a half later. I stopped to get gas and let them out. That was a 45 minute stop, just trying to get them all in and out and pottied.....Happy was so uncomfortable. As soon as they were in, they got comfy though.

So now I'm finally home. I got Happy one of my tshirts so that it fits him snug, and instead of a damn "snood" I have safety pinned 2 of joe's socks to Happy's ears so that he won't bite at them. Gave Rudy a bath, and they are snuggled happily ever after, BOTH OF THEM TOGETHER, in Happy's bed.

Ahhh....time for lights out. How about THAT for a day???