Finally the puppies

Here are the two moms: Annie is the smaller mom with the white chest. She had three pups. Sadie is the one with her tongue out and quite a big girl. The litters are only three days apart with Annie's pups born on January 3rd and Sadie's born on January 6th.

This is Lilly and she will be adopted by a librarian friend of ours. She is quite small and full of spunk.

This is the tiniest of all the babies. Her name is Sugar Pie and she is my heart. At almost six weeks old, she is no bigger than a mite. She eats like a horse, so I think she will just be smaller than her mom.

This is Jack. He will be living with us. We call him Jackaroo and JackAttack. He is very handsome.

This is the first of Sadie's puppies. Her name is Pippin and she is the runt of this large litter. She is unbelievably sweet and a tiny bit shy.





This is the smaller of the males. His name is Star. He has not yet been adopted, but I know that someone will love him.

This is Sir Snuffalump - he is very furry and quite the character. He is not yet adopted either. He is a big kisser and loves to rumble.

This is Daisy and she will be moving in with a good friend of ours who works at the library. I know she will love it there and we will still get to see her from time to time.

This is Peaches and she is a big girl with a heart of gold. She loves to run and play and kisses everyone. She does not have a permanent home yet, but I would not mind her living with us.

This is Lilly LuLu and she will be staying here with us. She captured our heart from the very first. She is also a furry big girl and might give her mom a run for the money when she gets bigger.

This is Rocco. He will be living with my son who delivered the litter of seven. Rocco, who looks like a very tiny Rottwiller was not breathing for some time when he was born and my son saved his life.

Sadie's puppies born today Oh my God!

Here is the thing folks, I am worthless. I cannot tolerate anything that I cannot control or do not understand. I may seem like I am fine but really inside I am dying. Because of the high stress level of the last few weeks, I am especially worthless. So today's drama is that Sadie is having her puppies right now as we speak, and I cannot help in any way. Instead I am in my office with my door closed, crying, and useless. I have office hours tonight and I don't think that I will be able to answer one single question. Not one.

Fast foward a few hours or so: The first puppy was born at 5:30 and by 7:30 she had given birth with Joseph and Mary's assistance to five puppies. For the most part I stayed in my office with the door shut and talked with the five students who showed up for virtual office hours. Every time a pup was born I would run out and check. Then after office hours were done, Stephen watched the puppies try to nurse while I cleaned out the playpen and put in clean blankets and sheets to move the mom and pups. Now, that was a task that required moving furniture in the TV room where they will live for the next eight weeks. Annie's puppies are in a big box in our spare bedroom. By the time the moving and cleaning and washing and doing were done about 9:30, I was burning up and dripping with sweat. Dog birth is hard work. So Stephen is in my office trying to chill and go to bed. I walk back into the room with Sadie and notice that she was having more contractions - I jumped in the car to go get Joseph and Mary who live two minutes away. By the time we got back, Stephen had helped Sadie give birth to puppy number 6 - he had to break the sack and suction the puppy. When we got in Mary tied the umbilical cord and since I was the only one who had not done so, I cut the cord. Between the four of us (my part being so very little of the whole), we birthed six puppies - two males and four females - of all colors and sizes. Now Stephen is in bed, everyone has gone home and I am praying to God that she is done...I am not up for any more fun tonight. Annie is having a bit of a fit because she can hear Sadie's puppies crying.

In one week, we have doubled the number of dogs who share our house. What an insanely delightful nightmare. They are beautiful. Jo and Mary are going to keep at least one of the male pups and possibly one female. If all goes well we are going to give away or sell the others. They are all beautiful. It is going to be a long two or three weeks.

Love,
the not so normal, worthless but loving, Flusi

Addendum: It is now 11:42 and unbelievably Sadie just gave birth to two more puppies - a female and a male. Unfortunately (crying will not cease) the female was dead when I checked on Sadie. We tried to revive her, but she died. The male seems to be fine. So when I knew that the baby pup was dead, I wrapped her in a cloth and put her inside a beautiful Heavenly Angels Victoria's Secret box. Tomorrow we will find a place to bury her. I am so very sad. There wasn't time to go get Jo - I think he could have saved her. I put my mouth over her nose and mouth and tried to breathe air into her little lungs, but nothing I did worked. So now there are seven where there were eight. I hope there are no more. I am undone.

One day and counting

Good morning,
We made it through one night. Annie and her babies slept in a laundry basket on top of a towel and sheet, under which was a heating pad - it has this new-fangled improvement that causes the heating pad to shut itself off automatically. So far, I have not figured out how to disable this "wonderful" feature because of which I did not sleep two seconds in succession last night. As Steve was leaving the vet's office, they said make sure Annie stays with them the whole time and that you have a heating pad on - we had a lady last week who let one of her puppies die because it got cold. AHHHH! Lucky for us, Annie is being a good mother and wants to stay with her babies. They don't seem to be crying much, so I am left to assume that they are getting enough sustenance from Annie.

Oh goodness, thinking back to Sofia's first few days makes me want to fall to the floor in praise. She had a C-section and four puppies. The first time we put her in the box with the pups, she went nuts, yelping at the top of her lungs. They had warned us that she might not have ANY milk at all, so off we went to buy nipples and bottles and formula. The only problem, we could not get them to drink a drop. We were a wreck. As it turned out, all of the puppies must have had plenty. They grew up just fine - fine enough to impregnate Annie and Sadie. This time we are trying to be a little more hands off. Love Annie and make sure she has what she needs. She will take care of the babies.

Round two should be any time. Good Lord.

Flusi

Annie's puppies born today

Annie had her puppies today. When we knew she was in labor, we took her to the vet because she is so small. She had three puppies - with the last one born extremely large. Strangely enough, they had to give her an episiotomy and almost broke the puppy's neck trying to deliver her. We do not know the sex of the puppies yet - I can barely tell them apart, but I know there is at least one female. And I think one male. The last one will be a surprise when they get a little bigger. They almost make Sofia's babies this time last year seem gigantic. I cannot believe that we have to go through this again soon with Sadie. It will be a little different though because Sadie is a big girl and hopefully will be able to have them on her own. Good Lord folks - this means we have thirteen chihuahuas. I am sure there is a law. And that is not counting the ones to come. Forget what I said in the last post about being fairly normal - maybe we aren't. Pictures will come later.

[In the event it is making you crazy not to know, there are two females and one male.]
Flusi

Happy Fuc&i*g New Year

Dear Diary,
Until this morning, I thought that last year had to have been the worst year of my life. Don't really know why, but I just assumed that any year that included the following would be the absolute worst:
1. I turned 55 and while I know this is not ancient, it sure ain't young.
2. My mother was in the hospital for a month - two weeks of which we were given NO hope that she would ever leave - except in a coffin.
3. My family was in shambles with one son losing his job just weeks after buying a house and the other son nearly losing everything since he and his wife were employed in the house selling business which you might recall has not been doing so well of late.
4. My daughter-in-law lost a pregnancy, had surgery to try and correct the problem, lost another pregnancy, and then within two weeks was raped by "a friend". And she still manages to get out of bed in the morning - not sure I would make it.
5. We almost lost our home.
6. Our oldest dog had to be put to sleep, nearly breaking my heart.
7. I am in NO way a material type girl, but the joy of the holiday season is always to find the best present for each person. With no money, we only bought gifts for the babies. No other gifts were exchanged. It was miserable.
8. I let down so many friends - not that I really have any, but if I did, now I don't.
9. Because I work in a two person office, the only time I have off is the three weeks around Christmas, but because I did not get the flu shot this year (secondary to my mom's hospitalization) I have had the flu the entire three weeks. Can't go to the doctor because we don't have any money.
10. To make the three week vacation even worse, my middle son and his wife fought the whole time - I mean seriously. I love them both. I love my son, but he was not really being fair. I love my daughter-in-law, but she needed to get a grip. It was rather hard because she lost her fourth pregnancy in the middle of all of this.

So that is probably the top 10, but I should add that there were many good times. We had baby puppies (I might add that number 11 would be that two of our older dogs are now pregnant and no we do not understand how that happened, except to say that it was possibly secondary to not having enough money to pay to have the newest babies neutered). Our youngest son did very, very well in his first semester in college and I am very proud of him. Of course, he does not really have much time for me because he is in college and needs his own time and friends. Oh yes, I forgot number 12, which can be seen as a blessing and a curse - my only daughter who is almost 30 and had been living with us - helping out tremendously with every manner of home stuff - moved in with her older brother to help take care of his children so his wife could get a full-time job outside the home selling business. I miss her every single day. In other good news, my sister and my husband are speaking to one another again...subsequent to the long hours together in the hospital with my mom. The State of Florida is still in a bad way economically, so for the third year in a row, my husband and I have not gotten even cost of living raises. Which is one reason for the problems financially.

My boss always says that if I wrote a novel about all of the crap that happens in my life, no one would believe it could possibly be true. I wake up every morning hoping it is a nightmare that will go away when I put my feet on the floor. But no, it is all very real.

BUT, I woke up this morning with my typical optimism, that things would be better in 2009. The right man was elected, we will hopefully get on the right path, I still have a good job, my husband has a good job - if you met me on the street, you might think I was fairly normal. And maybe I was until about 11 this morning. Then my life and hope crashed. HARD. My daughter-in-law called to tell me my son had been arrested. Possession with intent to sell. Marijuana. That is when I knew that last year was a lark, a walk in the park. And that I better buck the fuck up and put on my big girl pants because things are getting ready to get really bad. I don't even have enough money to get him out of jail or hire an attorney. I don't know what to do next. Who to call. When to stop crying and get on with it. I don't know how to go to work on Monday. I don't know how to go to sleep. I am not sure I know how to pray. Lord knows I have tried. I don't know how to care about any thing else. I wish I had a friend. I wish I was someone who knew how to fix this mess. I wish his father gave a shit - his response was "He didn't call me, I have other things to worry about, let me know what you do." Fuck you, as always you never have anything constructive to say to me. I wish my son was okay, but he isn't.

So Happy New Year, 2009. I held my arms open for you and all I got was punched in the gut and a broken heart. Welcome.

So my mother is dying

My mother was hospitalized last Monday. She has been diagnosed with COPD, CHF, and another bunch of ABCs that mean little to us. What has been important is that she seems to have lost her will to live. She told me that she is tired. She is tired of being tired. After five days of not eating or drinking anything to speak of, she told me that there was no point because she was going to die anyway. When I asked her how she knew that, other than the fact that we all are going to die sooner or later, she said that God told her it was her time. Because I know that the right thing to do is to let her go if it really is her time, I told her that I loved her and God speed. Then I walked outside and cried and cried. Difficult stuff friends.
Love,
Flusi

Trouble in Whoville

In spite of having a zillion (free) books to read, I have been in a bit of a funk. I cannot seem to motivate myself to do anything beyond the basics. I clean, do laundry, check on my online students, and play with the dogs. My husband is in a bit of a funk as well, so we just sit together and try not to cry. I am a smidgen worried about the presidential election and while I will not blame my own personal funk on the masses, I just hate seeing how close the election still is and cannot understand HOW in the f-ing world anyone thinks there is a choice. Or perhaps it is all so polarized that neither side can see how the other side feels. I am a registered Independent, so I just don't go vote down party lines. But this time, so much is at stake. But I just had to look back over the last president's two terms and the decision was not hard, even in the deep South....sorry folks, I live here and know how (stupid) people can be. Here is MY short list:

• Over the last eight years, our (meaning mine and my husband's) personal income has dropped - literally, not just as a result of the cost of living increases that are also outrageous. I currently work two jobs - as a librarian and then teaching a marketing class online. My husband had to change positions and take a rather large pay decrease. Not enough money folks.
• My daughter graduated from college with student loans and cannot find a job to save her life - which is in her own hands, I might add, because she has no health insurance - CANNOT AFFORD her own health insurance and is trying to deal with a lifelong seizure disorder from a birth injury ON HER OWN. And did I mention her student loans? They are also due now. HA!
• My oldest son is a mortgage broker - you can imagine how well that is going! Guess what his wife does? Yep, a realtor! All the eggs in the wrong basket this time. Two beautiful sons who they are sending to parochial school, sacrificing even more.
• Middle son - married, works full time. NO HEALTH INSURANCE because he cannot afford it. And eat or live. Wife - full time student whose financial aid was cut this school year. Why? Because between them they made a whopping $20,000 last year. Don't get me wrong, people exist on far less, but come on. BTW, they have lost three pregnancies in the last two years. Our free clinic just can't seem to help them and they cannot afford a specialist who said to come in for a one hour consult would be between $100 and $300. In my stupidity, I asked why would it be different for the same amount of time. Response - it depends on what you talk about...whatever, give me an f-ing break, your words cost different amounts. I think I need to remember that.
• Youngest son - graduated from high school, has scholarships for college. Life seems to be going well for him, but I wonder what sort of world he will inherit from us.

So you see, from where I am sitting, there is no choice. The decision was made for me because one candidate says the economy is fine, healthcare must be earned, work harder! The other candidate understands that I am working as hard as I can for all of my family. There are not too many more hours in the day. If there were, I would work even harder...look for a third job. In fact, I am looking because I work for the State of Florida and that is not going so well either - we are faced with another 10% budget cut for the second year. We are being told that we must do more with less. I am exhausted. No wonder I am in a FUNK. Then I open C*N*N and see the top headline that the election is a dead tie. All I can say is that you people must be in much better shape than I am both financially and emotionally, because I have had ENOUGH!

one tired and disgusted LibrarysCat