Puck strikes again

Last week Puck ate the head off of a game piece that was, ironically, shaped like a cat. We gave the game to Linden for Christmas, and when we opened it up we saw that it was the type of rubber that he likes to eat. At that point we should have taken some action, either taking out the game pieces and swapping them for a non-rubber alternative, or possibly even taking the game back to the store. But instead we decided we could be careful to keep the cover on the game and the pieces away from Puck. But we got sloppy and complacent and last week he struck again. 

After finding the headless game piece we hoped that perhaps he had chewed it into pieces and they would be small enough to pass through his intestine. But unfortunately no such luck. On Wednesday night he started throwing up in his special way, and Jeff took him to the emergency vet where they stayed until about 3 AM. They sent him home because there was no clear evidence of a blockage in his intestine, but we were pretty sure there was one. Over the next day and a half he deteriorated and we took him to his regular vet who eventually sent us back to the emergency vet where they decided to do surgery. 

As we suspected, they were able to immediately find the missing head and remove it:

Puck has now officially used up four of his nine lives. That’s three surgeries (all for pieces of rubber he has ingested which have gotten stuck in his intestines), plus that one time when he ate my medication and was on life-support while it cleared his system.

He is home now and recovering, and although he is not as resilient as he was the first two times he had surgery, he seems to be doing OK. I just hope we don’t have to go through this ever again!

First harvest

 Last week I forgot to mention that Linden lost another tooth:

This week we had our first garden harvest – radishes!

The plan is to roast them which we haven’t done yet, so we haven’t tasted our bounty as of yet. I was getting excited that our next harvest would be peas, but sadly today I discovered that deer can easily reach them through the fence and have chomped off all the flowers. Of course now it is obvious to me that I planted them in a terrible spot, but that is where they are growing so I think the earliest we will have any peas will be fall (when I can plant them in a new spot where the deer won’t get them).

Today our department had a picnic at a park, and we brought rhubarb crisp to share. However, there were no forks or spoons so no one ate it. Here is a picture of Maren trying to have a bite with the best “utensil“ Jeff could find:

At least that means there was a lot to bring home, so I am going to go have some now!

Gardening

 Today I spent all day gardening. Planting tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, pumpkins, butternut squash, sunflowers, pole beans, lettuce, and a few flower seeds. This is in addition to the existing peas, carrots, beets, and radishes that are coming up, and some previously planted wildflower seeds that we are waiting for. 

I am so excited to finally have a space where so much can grow!

Spring Roll

 Maren and Linden have both been taking piano lessons this year. Yesterday was their piano festival, where they played songs from memory and an adjudicator took notes and rated them on various things. They will get their notes at their next piano lessons, but really that was not the point of participating. They had the chance to perform in a great big space on a great piano, which was special in itself.

They did great!

Then today was the Corvallis Spring Roll, a bike event just for kids. Maren and Linden got race bibs with numbers, and participated in a great big kids ride around our local park and neighborhood, just a few blocks from our house. It was lots of fun 😊

Happy Mother’s Day

 Since my last blog post, my kiddos have made me proud. Maren had her first school concert of the year. Unfortunately there was a kid who stood right in front of her, blocking her the whole time, but you can sort of make out parts of her in this video – she is the one in the pink sweatshirt on the far left:

Apparently hot cross buns on the recorder was not quite good enough so they learned to play smoke on the water on the ukulele 🤣

Linden spent so much time practicing and practicing, trying to learn to ride her bike:

And then finally actually biking:

So proud of my kids 😊

Happy Mother’s Day!