L.O.V.E.

Little
One
Validates
Everything

This little lady seriously makes life worth living.

Little Outings

We try to go and do at least one thing every day. I think it would be really easy for me to let our day revolve around chores and playtime, with a few trips to the backyard thrown in. For some reason though, I just feel it's so important for us to GET OUT OF THE HOUSE at least once a day.

If it were just up to me, even though I just said I found is oh so important, this would rarely happen.  Luckily, my husband loves to take Cassie places as well, and often I will just leave them to it.  I get time to myself and they get a fun outing.  Things are working!

We go to parks, shopping, grandma's house, play dates, the library, etc.

Today it was just the two of us, and our outing was a trip to the local historic village (Greenfield Village) and The Henry Ford Museum, followed by an unexpected and (toddler demanded) long visit to our neighborhood park on the way home.

There were some older kids at the park - I'm guessing an age range of 7 to 11. One young lady took a special interest in Cass (who kept calling her "girl," despite the fact that she introduced herself as Elizabeth) and talked to us the whole time. It was very sweet.

Our planned 2 hour outing somehow turned into almost 4, and we were exhausted by the time we rolled home.

Pictures of Pictures

We had a wonderful time on Sunday having our pictures taken (by a professional) with part of our family. I'm so looking forward to seeing the results.  As usual, I couldn't help it and whipped out my phone to take a few candid shots. 

Let's get random

Still need to post about our fabulous trip to the U.P.

Still need to post about a great, last-minute Labor Day jaunt to the cabin.

But, to be honest, I'm not really up for all that. Instead, I'm just going to share some randomness. That's cool, right?

She loves to swing like it's her religion.  All hours spent at the park are now made up of swinging.  

Finally our garden has yielded a tomato bounty! All summer, every time I purchased a tomato at the store I felt like a traitor.  

She doesn't look all that confident that she can save me. 

Homemade pizza with tomatoes and basil from the garden.  We did not make the cheese, as we do not own a cow. 

More food! Tomatoes from the garden soaked in balsamic, guacamole, crusty bread toasted lightly and sprinkled with parmesean, and leftover roasted veggies (sweet potatoes, green beans, and apples). 

Curly mop-top.  Man, I love that hair. 

Doggone. Losing our beloved pet.

I miss my dog.  I miss her desperately.  I simply do not like (at all) the fact that she is not here with me. With us.  It is so wrong.

I am so sad.  My dog died Saturday.  Or rather, my husband and I held her in our arms as a very kind and compassionate doctor administered the drugs that would kill her.  She was so very sick.

We took her to the vet for an appointment at 3:45pm on Friday and everything went downhill from there.
She hadn't been eating her food - but had still been chowing down on treats and table scraps from our toddler.  She was a tank.  She would, and could, eat anything.  I never worried about her because she was so tough.  I honestly considered that she might not be eating her food because she knew better things were to be had, in combination with her teeth hurting or something.  I mean, she was still eating treats and scraps! She was still going to the bathroom!

On Wednesday evening I had noticed a lump on her side.  She needed to be laying in the right position to feel it, and there were a few times when I couldn't find it that I thought my imagination was playing tricks on me.

That lump ended up being a giant tumor on her spleen (at minimum the tumor was 10cm...the docs weren't able to get the whole thing in one view on either the x-ray or the ultrasound, so they could not be sure it wasn't bigger).  The moment I first palpated it with my hand I had known that something was seriously wrong.  I tried to deny it under the guise of, "positive thinking," but deep down I knew.  My beloved childhood dog had "fatty" tumors on her body, but I just knew this wasn't the case with Kylie.  I tried to think positive and convince myself otherwise.

She was still eating anything except her own food (although on Thursday she actually ate ALL of her food!), and running around as usual.  I actually told my husband that if I wasn't feeling the lump, I wouldn't even bother with a vet appointment for her.  She seemed fine.  She wasn't.  She was far from fine.

I took this picture about 4 hours before her doctor's appointment.  It's hard to believe she was so sick. Thinking of how scary her blood work results were (In addition to the doctor explaining it, one nurse/helper looked at Kylie's results, raised her eyebrows and said, "Whoa! Okay. That's not good."), it just shows how strong she was.

Our vet took x-rays and told us the devastating news about the tumor on her spleen.  As I mentioned, her blood work was no less devastating.  She was severely anemic and they could not find a single platelet on their slide (I don't even know what that means, but I know it is very, very bad).

We were sent to an emergency vet/surgery clinic with the belief that after a blood transfusion, Kylie would undergo surgery to remove the tumor.  So, at this point, we were just praying the tumor was benign. Hoping that she would recover from surgery and be her happy self again.  I stay at home with my daughter, so I was thinking about how I would have no trouble helping her to recover.

But she didn't have surgery.  She spent Friday night in the hospital and after more testing it was determined that she had a very aggressive cancer that had already spread to other parts of her body.  She was in pain.  She was in misery.  We had to let her go.

I feel a horrible sense of guilt and anger that I didn't just know there was no way to save her.  If I had, I could have spared her that last night in the hospital, full of tests and loneliness and misery at being away from her people.  I feel so guilty and sad that she was there all alone, only to perish the next day.  I worry that she was angry at us, and confused and felt abandoned.  We were only trying to keep her alive and hoping to find a way to save her - but there is no way she could have known that, of course.

When they finally brought her to us for our final time together, she was barely wagging her tail.  She was walking, and she gave a few sweet kisses, but she was just so sick, and so tired, and so very sad.  It was awful.

She lay down on a blanket and I lay next to her.  She actually put her head down and cuddled next to me.  I hold in my heart the hope that she felt comfort at being near us.  We petted her, and talked to her, and praised her, and loved her, and then we pressed that horrible button that would let the nurses know it was time.

The doctor that administered the lethal dose was the most compassionate and respectful person we could have hoped for in that awful moment.

I can't continue, because I don't want to describe the final seconds.  It hurts too much.

Oh, sweet doggy friend.  We miss you so much.

Death of a Family Member

My dog, Kylie, was put to sleep on Saturday.  I can't bear it.  I really have no words.  I can think of nothing but my sadness.

Spending a few hours at the park this morning with my beautiful daughter did help to cheer me up a bit, and of course I mostly fake a smile in her presence.  But inside I am heart broken.  I have been working on a post about how deep my sorrow runs, but I can't even stand to continue.

I love you Kylie, and you will be forever missed.  RIP, puppy.

Not Feeling It

I just haven't been interested in writing in the past few days.  We arrived home a few days ago from our fabulous trip to the Upper Peninsula, yet I haven't even finished half the re-cap post.

As this blog is mainly a tool for me to practice and improve my shaky writing skills, this is a total failure on my part.  I can't help it though...the interest just isn't there.

I think I need to wind down from vacation and get back into the flow of regular life.  So, sorry to my one follower (hi mom!), but I will get back to posting daily soon.  And I will get that re-cap post finished and posted.

Soon.  I promise.