Day... Ah, Hell. Does it matter? Breathe.

From Webster's Dictionary:

Breathe (verb): to draw air into and expel it from the lungs

Breathing is not something we're taking for granted around the Norman house this week. After a fun weekend in New York for Grandma's birthday, Dexter woke up Tuesday morning wheezing and coughing and sneezing and unable to breathe through his nose. Which is a problem, because inability to breathe through nose = inability to suck fingers. And inability to suck fingers = inability to self-soothe and put self to sleep. All that meaning? We had a cranky sick baby who didn't sleep for shit yesterday. John stayed in his room for half an hour or so last night until he settled himself down enough to go to sleep, finally. Dexter, I mean. John fell asleep just fine, sitting in the glider in Dexter's room. Fortunately he seems better today. Snotty runny nose, still, but the breathing seems fine.

Somehow it seems wrong and morbid to check to see if the dog is breathing every single time I walk in to the living room. And yet I still do it. Walk downstairs in the morning. Flip on the light. Watch the brown fuzz lift up, fall down. Lift up, fall down. Excellent. The old girl made it through another night. It's not a given these days. She's had a bad week, throwing up a lot and not eating very much. She went to our awesome vet yesterday, gave up some pee and some blood and... the results aren't good. Kidney failure has progressed to anemia, as the kidneys are not telling the body to make more red blood cells. Urine has 3 - 4 times the normal amount of all kinds of bad things that normal urine has. And yet? She's way more perky today than she has been all week. Perky meaning she actually came in to the kitchen and ate Cheerios off the ground.
There's not a lot we can do for the old girl. I mean, I'm sure there's a lot we CAN do. Dr. Moffa said he'd go to the ends of the earth for the pup if we wanted him to. But, I don't want him to. I don't want to make her stay in the hospital and get an IV drip of fluids for several days. I don't want her on medications that will make her feel bad. She won't survive any surgery. And, Christ. The dog is 18. She's had a great life. I'd truly love for her to fall asleep one night and just not wake up. Not any time soon - I am not wishing for this to happen. But if she's going to go, I'd rather have it be that way. Happy, sleeping in her own bed, at home.

We'll run up to the vet's office tomorrow and have the vet techs show us how to do some Sub-Q fluids for her. She's on some Pepcid AC twice a day to help her nausea. And we'll just see how she does. I'll continue to look over at her every time I am in the living room. Watching the brown fuzz lift up. Fall down. Lift up. Fall down.

Breathing is hard for John and I these days, too, as we worry and stress about buying a new house. Which school district? Which town? Decisions we make now will affect the small child for his lifetime. And that's kind of a big burden to shoulder.

Increasing the stress level, in a good way, is the news we got tonight that someone is writing an offer on our house. Yay! We don't know yet what the offer is, if it's any good, etc. But if it's a good offer and we accept it, well - we kind of need to decide on that whole "where do we buy a house" thing kind of quickly. And get our asses out there and BUY ONE.

Other tidbits of news - John has like one more day of Jillian to do. He got all crazy and got himself some five pound weights. Which the baby tried to lift up yesterday, couldn't, and promptly signed "help" to me. So freaking cute. I have seven more days, I think? Who knows. I started up again today after a week off, for the bum knee. But I think today will count as Day 23 for me, as I didn't really do a workout on Day 23 last week.

And, finally, pictures of a cute baby. I thought I had video of him standing up, from the ground, no assistance needed. But, alas, I am a moron and I do not.

Walking is FUN! I get to hold TWO completely non-toy objects in my hands, at the same time!

Check out my sexy post-playing-in-the-yard outfit. Striped socks. Jealous??

Mere milliseconds before I cheerfully walked right off the edge of the stair and would have landed SPLAT on my face if Mom hadn't caught me with the hand that wasn't holding the camera.