The Big FOUR!

My Baby is FOUR! How did this happen?

We had Kaden's 4th birthday party last weekend. He wanted a football cake. The plates and napkins were easy to find being so close to the Super Bowl, but when I went to get the football shaped cake pan, everyone was out. Thankfully my Mom saved the day and found one at her store so Kaden got his cake.

One highlight of the day was the pinata. This is the pinata that I filled for New Year's...to welcome 2009! It has been hanging out just waiting for the perfect opportunity to shower us with treats. Even though it was old, that didn't make busting it open any less fun for the boys and we all enjoyed the 2+ year old candy.

Snake Show

PETCO hosted a Meet The Snakes show so the boys and I went. I wasn't really excited about going, but being a home school mom convinced myself that this would be a good educational activity. We will hopefully not ever have a snake of our own (never say never), so I thought this would be a good opportunity to ask questions from a knowledgeable person and to maybe touch a snake, see what they feel like, watch them move up close, etc.

I must have hidden my disgust of snakes well because the boys were not at all intimidated at the plethora of snakes on the tables. There were snakes everywhere. The guy running the show brought his personal stash of about 6 snakes. Then he got all of PETCO's snakes out of their cages and then customers started walking in carrying (and in some cases wearing) their snakes. The boys started out by petting a very large python that was wrapped around its owner's body. They progressed into holding a small snake and from there the snakes just got bigger.

One snake owner so kindly let the boys hold their python and commented more than once about how Mom didn't seem to be too interested in touching or holding the snakes. I told him I was the official photographer and didn't have time to enjoy the lovely reptiles over trying to catch the perfect shot.

We ended with an orange snake (I think it was albino) that was placed around Kolin's shoulders. The snake was not content to stay in that position and started twirling and wriggling and basically being a snake. It wrapped itself down and through Kolin's shirt and his shirt was literally being pulled up to his shoulders by this snake. Being the heroic mother that I am, and realizing that this snake was making Kolin uncomfortable and being mildly concerned that this snake was trying to wrap itself around Kolin's neck, I....went for help. That's right, I wasn't brave enough to grab the snake off of my own child's neck, instead I tapped the demonstrator gently on the shoulder and said, "Can you help him?"

Luckily he was kind enough to remove the snake and at that point I decided it was time to go look at the fish.

Parties

Friday we went to our church's home school group Valentine's Day party. There were lots of kids there, games, food and of course valentines.

This is the only picture I got where both of the boys' are facing the camera. Kaden is front row in a white snowman t-shirt (he picked out his own party clothes) and Kolin is on all fours to the far right in a red long sleeve button-down.

Unfortunately it seems that Kolin picked up more than valentines, he woke up Saturday with a fever. So he did not get to go to a friends birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese. I took Kaden and he had a good time, what kid doesn't at Chucky's? In the picture the birthday boy is on the left, he is turning 5. The other boy is already 5. Kaden is still 3 and he's in his socks. I think people think I'm joking when I tell them he's 3.

Back Outside She Goes

Tonight Little Bit will stay outside for the first time in a while. The barn is open if they want to go in they can. The weather was beautiful today and it's shouldn't be terribly cold tonight. She has her jacket on. I'll check on her first thing in the morning.

Update on Little Bit

Tuesday:
So I'm not sure I even mentioned what was actually wrong with Little Bit. The vet said she just got too cold and her body quit working. He mentioned hypothermia and hypoglycemia, but I'm not sure he officially determined which she had. He was consulting his Sheep and Goat Handbook so it didn't seem like he had seen this too many times before. She is the runt of the triplets. Her two sisters are twice her size and though she is a fighter I'm not sure she's getting a good share of the milk. Her fur is different from the other babies too. It is very soft, the others are a little coarse. I'm not sure if that is affecting her ability to retain heat or not.



Our night feedings went well. Tuesday the boys and I took Little Bit on a road trip. We went through the drive-thru at Captain D's then to TSC for some milk replacer. She also rode with us to Aldi. We are going to start giving her one or two bottles a day so supplement what she is getting from Kay. The weather is supposed to warm up soon so we will probably return her to the barn/field with the other goats then.

Friday:
She won't take the bottle, so I guess she's not starving. She is asleep in her bucket with the boys. She really doesn't make any noise until she gets really hungry. I took her to the barn at 1AM last night for a feeding then put her in her box and she didn't make a peep until 8AM this morning.
The boys and I went to the pet store today and bought her a sweater. She's very cute in it. I bought purple so if we needed it in the future for a male kid it wouldn't look to girly :) While at the pet store Kolin discovered they were having a snake exhibit next Saturday. He wants to go. Any volunteers?

Kid in Crisis

I had just talked to an out of town friend who asked how the goats were doing and I said they were all good when Konrad called me from the barn.

He said that one of the triplets was dying and did I want to come down and look at her. I said no, but asked for her symptoms and went to the internet. Konrad said she had a stiff neck. I diagnosed this as tetanus but I called our Extension Agent to see what she thought and she also thought tetanus with the description. The is almost always fatal in goats. She suggested I call the vet to see what he thought so I got the number and headed down to the barn. I want to point out here that I was in my red moose pajamas, but I threw on my coveralls before heading to the barn.

She was laying on her side all sprawled out, legs fully extended and head tilted waaaaay back, like laying on her back. Her eyes were open and she was breathing. The vet had said I could bring her in. Konrad and I decided that though we were sure she would die we would pay for a $30 vet exam to determine what killed her in case it was contagious.

I had picked her up as soon as I got to the barn and wrapped her in a towel. With goat in my arms I walked back up to the house, grabbed a real shirt, my purse and keys and left. I turned on the heat and put her in the passenger seat so I could change my shirt as I drove.

The vet looked her over and took her glucose which didn't register on his machine bc it was so low. He took her temperature and it didn't register either because it was so low. So he put her on a heating pad and started a line in her neck (including 2 stitches to hold it in place with no anesthesia and she barely winced) and put in warm saline and glucose. Then we waited. Then he tubed her down her throat and gave her more glucose. Then we waited. After about an hour he got a temp of 90-normal is 100-102, but her eyes had started to twitch and he said that is sign of brain damage! Eventually he moved me to the surgery room where I just sat and held her and the heating pad all wrapped up in blankets for a long while. He checked on her a few more times as her temperature went up, the eye twitching was getting a little better.

Her temp went up to 95 and he sent me home with instructions to be her mama for a few days, keep her in the house on a heating pad and feed her every couple of hours. He said I could either milk Kay (her real mama) or if she seemed up to it I could let her nurse.

We didn't have a heating pad so I went to Walgreen's....in my coveralls...with no makeup...poop on my shoes...and a towel-wrapped baby goat in my arms. All the heating pads shut off every two hours (who knew you couldn't buy one without auto shut off?) but I bought one anyway.

I took her straight to the barn to collect milk. Konrad came down. He was *supposed* to be sleeping so I was surprised to see him. He suggested I let her nurse. I really didn't think she would but he went and got her out of the passenger seat and sure enough she went right to nursing, aggressively.

So though we didn't intend on using any *heroic measures* to save her, I'm glad she is alive and as I was leaving the vet said she would probably make it. So at this time our plan is to take her to the barn every few hours to nurse, which means removing the other two kids and putting Kay in a headlock so she will stand still and quit worrying about her loud mouth kids on the other side of the barn.

Any volunteers for the 4am feeding??

This is a picture of Little Bit in the bucket in the living room with her heating pad, and my bed for the night on the couch.