About That

Funny how Jack has been out of the Army for over a year and it still has the ability to toy with us like the ocean with tiny sea craft. Due to someone else's inability to deploy due to diabetes, we will not be relocating to New York. Two months worth of plans, excitement, worry and stress now erased like they never happened. I am disappointed about not moving closer to many of our loved ones, but I have to admit to a sense of relief at not having to actually go through with moving house. We've been here for 4+ years now and the idea of uprooting is a bit (okay, a lot) unsettling. Instead, we are focusing on the perks of remaining in our Chesapeake community for the time being.

The week has also been stressful because our beloved cat Bullock ("Wooly" to Petal) ran a fever this week and required veternary services. He has been diagnosed with Feline Immune Deficiency since well before we adopted him, but his symptoms were minimal until recently. He was hospitalized in September but bounced back quickly so we were hoping it was just a blip. However, the hospital visit resulted in our learning about a very new treatment for FIV+ cats. I did some research on it and it seems like it can vastly improve Bullock's prognosis. Jack mentioned it to our regular vet when he brought him in on Tuesday and the vet said he wasn't overly familiar with the new treatment but that he would look into it. He called about an hour ago and said he thinks it would be worthwhile to give it a shot! I'm really happy about this. Bullock will get a shot once a week for three weeks, then if blood work shows improvement he will continue to get a shot once a month for the rest of his nine lives. We first learned about FIV when we adopted Bullock in February 2009, and we were told that there really wasn't anything we could do as far as his prognosis. It's amazing that not even three years later there is a treatment so effective that, in rare cases, it has completely cured some cats of FIV. When I was a junior in high school, our family lost two kittens to Feline Leukemia, a related but more lethal disease. This treatment also works on Feline Leukemia, so while my family and I were powerless to help tiny Gracie and Orson, I am gratified that the technology to let Jack and I make things better for Bullock now exists.

I have a million things I should be doing right now, namely picking up the living room and folding laundry, but I'm refusing to leave the couch because sweet Wooly cuddled up next to me and I don't have the heart to get up and disturb him.

Isn't he adorable?

Score

The early morning hours are not my favorite time to be a parent. Especially icky is when I'm up before the sun gazing bleary-eyed at my daughter, who's ready to start her day. Shakira and I refer to the state of just waking up as blinky, as in "Petal is often blinky after a nap." To add insult to injury, when you're up in the predawn hours with a begging to be entertained baby or toddler, it's all you. Hours until playgroup or until the library and the stores open. The streets and playgrounds uninvitingly chilly with lingering night air. No, the early morning is definitely not the highlight of my day.

As the end of daylight savings time drew nearer and nearer, I resigned myself to at least temporarily having a whole extra hour of early morning time to battle. It seemed inevitable.

So imagine Jack and my delight when on Saturday morning, Petal slumbered until the totally civilized hour of 8 am. We immediately decided to start observing standard time a day early and pushed Petal's schedule back an hour for the remainder of the day. And it seems to have worked. This morning I awoke at 7:15 to a room bathed with sunlight shortly before Petal summoned me through the baby monitor. I could get used to this.