A smelly update

Ok, here it is-this is a true 2-fer (aka 2 for 1)...I am going to blow your socks off with the mother of ALL unbelievable posts but first, here's how the appt went:

All started off well-after working until 1:30 in the morning (oh, did I mention this is the extended version...?) I came home to joyfully prepare 75 ooey gooey rice krispy treats sprinkled with dots confetti candies for Jake's snack at preschool on the theme of "polka dots" day. Then, I finally hit the pillow around 3 amish.

At about 9:45 I woke up to the sound of tapping on my window- first thought, is Owen still breathing?, 2nd thought, what's that tapping noise?...in my sleepy stooper I managed to figure out that the tapping was freezing rain/sleet/what have you and yes Owen was still breathing and sleeping like a precious Angel. I said a little Thank you prayer and laid back down for a few more minutes of dozing and finally joined the awake world at 10:15, got Owen up and got ready and out the door to pick-up Jacob from preschool. Oops, forgot Owen's growth chart, back home I go and then to get Jake.

The snack was a hit. Now off to Chick-fil-A where we had lunch and met Amy and Alex. Apparently, I order high maintenance-like, but I like to think of myself as liking it the way I like it (think When Harry met Sally diner scene;-). I digress.

So, on my way to Indy a projected route of about 60 miles mostly interstate. I give myself 1 1/2 hours "just in case". It was SOOOO WINDY!!!! I held my hands at 1 and 5 o clock most of the way because of the wind pushing the van and it was so loud to drive in! Owen cried for the 1st 20 minutes since I wouldn't give him a drink of my soda (thank you Grama Becca for the new addiction) and then his cry turned into singing Ahhhh, Ahhhhh, Ahhhh and so on for about 10 more minutes before he fell asleep. We arrived timely and found a parking spot but as I was trying to get Owen out of the van the vehicle next to me pulls out so I decide to move over a bit since we had to park too close to the other car next to me. As I pull back in, I notice the stroller (which I had already gotten out of the van and set up) had fallen over. As I went to pick it up-oops, I had ran over it, who knew? So I backed out a few inches-nope, not enough-a tire was still on my purse. A few inches more and some trendy tread marks later, I have my purse free at last! Ok, a kick or two to the stroller wheels and it's as good as new. Now into the wind tunnel to get inside the office building. Ah, the 3rd floor-great, better make a potty trip since I drank a 40 ounce soda (without sharing) on the way up. Hmmm...bummer, no handicap stalls, but a nice sign referring me back to the first floor-nah, I'll just go with the door open but did Owen appreciate it? No, he still cried and he even could see me the whole time (maybe that's why he cried). The things we do for our kids.

Into the office-I'm there 45 minutes early as we came 15 minutes early for paper work-which consisted of a signature, I don't know about you, but my signature takes about 1 second. There was a holy terror running around the waiting room (not mine) so I was ecstatic when they called Owen's name shortly after we sat down.

Once in the office, the nurse measured Owen and then when she went to weigh him I questioned taking his clothes off but she said it wasn't necessary, which I thought odd for a growth MD, but ok. So he was weighed in kg so I asked what that was in pounds and she said oh, 8 kg is around 16 pounds. Ahem, "around" kay.

The doctor actually saw us shortly after we were put in an exam room which to me is a miracle of modern medicine. Dr. Riggs is the son of my own childhood pediatrician. He seemed nice and patient with Owen who was being beastly after his mere 20 minute nap. He (the md) seemed a bit confused as to why we were there. That always ticks me off when doctors act baffled.

On a more sappy note of seriousness, Dr Riggs actually was a breath of fresh air in some respects. He point blank told me that his job was to help Owen achieve an average adult height (if possible) but that Owen would NOT likely ever be a kid who was average in size. He went on to say that he had inappropriate growth as a child and really struggled with that his whole life and didn't catch up until he stopped growing at the age of 23. He offered to talk about human growth hormone with me now even though it's not something to "truly" consider until at least Owen's 2nd birthday and even then he must meet criteria to use it.

Finally hearing someone say "Owen will not catch-up" for some reason helped me. I think I was tired of hearing how he will surprise us all and tower over us someday and such. I am at peace knowing Owen will just be little and we don't know why.

The doctor ordered tests and we should have the results later this week (but the doctor doesn't think they will be abnormal). Assuming they are negative, we'll return around Owen's 2nd birthday.

We headed home and I picked up Jacob and took the boys to the lab to get Owen's blood drawn. 45 minutes later we were done with that fiasco where Owen essentially cried and fussed for no reason (other than being a tired crabby baby) from the moment we walked in-and it didn't even get us drawn any sooner!

Fast-forward to us getting home from a nice kids night at the ole Texas Roadhouse-TJ brought a friend home-the principal's son, in fact- so we planned on being on prim and proper (he, he)...but when we pulled up in our garage, Tim said, uh oh-looks like our friend is back.

Ok, rewind a moment-a week ago or so Tim was leaving for work and he ran back in the house and said there was a rat in the garage. Yea, whatever Russ... I asked him what in the WORLD he was talking about and he said, when he opened the door he saw a ginormous rat run away from the trash bag that we left at our back door (which the creature had apparently gnawed on all night). Ok, so as I thought on this mystery rat, I notice some poo near the garage door and it is, well frankly, a big poo. Much bigger than mouse droppings. Seriously, like cat poo (soory for the poo visual). So, on Easter I asked my dad (a non-poo expert) what he thought it could be from-he said no rat could make a poo that big. Maybe a raccoon- what??? We live in a subdivision not a backwoods wilderness! We couldn't possibly have a stinkin' raccoon living in our garage.

Ok, fast forward. We get out of the van and Tim declares (at 7pm at night) we are cleaning out the garage and finding out what is leaving poo and nosing thru our trash.

Rut, ro- (in my best Scooby voice) this means moving out a ton of junk into the driveway to get to the back corner where I am just sure we are going to find some varmint and it's spawn. NEVER in my wildest imagination could I have conjured up what we found...

In the back corner of our garage, as Tim and I were moving the junk out comes a SKUNK!!! Tim says "it's a skunk" and immediately says "get the kids inside!!!" (visions of the Griswalds fleeing from the squirrel on Christmas vacation flash before me) and then Tim reminds me, poor Owen is still in the car seat in the van, so I whisk him out of the van and inside the house- now mind you, I'm sure this is the last sleep-over for the principal's kid. As I'm running Owen in and pushing the kids in the door Tim yells shut the van door!!! (apparently he thought Pepe' Le Pu was going to steal the van!?!).

I run in to call-uh, who the heck do you call??? 9-1-1...apparently not a life threatening emergency. Sheriff dept...apparently animal control is off duty...wildlife something or other no stinkin' answer. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, eh um, I mean garage, Tim has the critter cornered and we are all praying he doesn't spray. I actually should say "she" doesn't spray since I really was guessing it was a momma and there were going to be skunk babies nestled in the corner.

Ok, so finally some 13 year oldish sounding gal tries to tell me (via phone) that we need to be humane (HUMANE!!! ARE YOU SERIOUS???) and try to keep it from coming back-blah, blah, blah. I try to convey to her this thing isn't leaving-it LIVES in our garage. So, she takes our number and "will get back with us". Uh, Thanks.

All the while I've been searching for our camera (and praying we don't get sprayed-scenes of the Brady's bathing in tomato juice kept flashing through my mind) and I finally found it. I cowardly got in the van as Tim somehow had gotten Pepe' to head toward the door and under our lawnmower. In the pix you can see him attempting to push the lawnmower out of our garage. I had done a quick Internet search and found that they can spray up to 15 feet so we were VERY nervous to say the least. Oh, and did I mention the principals kid and TJ were left inside in charge??? Nice.



Hooray, the skunk decides to waddle out of the lawnmower and out the door...only to come right back in the other door-CRAP! Now what???-it's hiding under some shelving...

Tim in his genius quick thinking barricades most of the garage with a large board from who knows where (apparently God) and I think to have him close the doors he came out of and get the main door all but about 1 foot closed. I cowardly retreat back into the van and hold the camera with one hand and garage door opener with the other. Seriously, by the grace of God, Tim was able to coerce that stinkin' skunk out and I pushed the button and the door closed and we managed to avoid being sprayed. We searched the rest of the garage and found no sign of babies so I was apparently wrong in my theory. We carefully assessed the outside for signs of Pepe' before re-opening the garage to get all our junk back inside.

Can you even believe it???

Crazy! We have now had a bird in our furnace (which we freed-uh Humanely), 2 sets of bunnies be born in our yard and now a skunk to make it's home in our garage-you'd think we live on a farm-but we live 10 feet away from our neighbors on a slab on a 4000 square foot lot...crazy!