Another Day, Another $ ....

AS crazy as I had anticipated last night to be, trying to get two kids to two different places, on different sides of town, at the same time ... our puppy Guinness who is a rough and tumble six month old, had to throw a wrench into our plans. At 5:15, while I'm screaming my head off like a lunatic trying to get the Palentologist into his LAX uniform for pictures (which were subsequently cancelled because of gypsy moth spraying in the area - I got the email this morning cancelling!) and trying to get Twinkletoes into her Tball uniform, the husband noticed that there was a pool of blood on our back step. Nice. Ok, where are all of the dogs? Jack - accounted for and not bleeding. Sudz - accounted for and not bleeding. That leaves Guinness - where was he??

Found him -- he was out by the fence and yes he was bleeding profusely. We got him into the house to try to figure out what was wrong. There was blood all over his back paw but when he was walking across the white kitchen floor, I noticed that he was actually leaving two sets of bloody footprints! Did I have time for this? Absolutely not! Ok, I calmed down and got him where I could try to determine what is going on. Looks like a broken toe nail in the back -- wait, no, in the front. ah, heck, there is so much blood coming out his front paw that it takes me a few mintues to have my "look see" to find out what exactly was going on. His right front toe, the first one, has a nail which is sticking out completely to the side! Ok, I yell to the kids to get me a towel to mop up some of the blood and to put some pressure on his foot while I figure out where the telephone (and the husband - since he's disappeared by now) has gotten to. Does anyone else know their vet's telephone number by heart and the girls at the front desk on a first name basis, or is it just me? So I dial the vet, speak with Natalie, tell her I have a bleeder and she tells me to come right over.

The 5 of us pack into my new truck -- and head over to the vet. We get all kind of blood in their parking lot, waiting room and examining room. When the vet tech took us into the room she was shocked at how much blood was coming from this dog and the vet was even more shocked, I think because I'm not sure that anyone communicated to her that we were coming in with a bleeder. After Dr. Snyder examines Guinness - she looks at us and tells us that she may have to operate on him and she needs to put him under general anesthesia to get a good xray of the toe - problem is the toenail is broken inside his skin, not just a regular toenail break like Sprite used to give us on a monthly if not weekly basis. So, she tells us to give Guinness to her, he'll be spending the night with her there at the office and the girls at the front desk will give us an estimate to get him fixed up. Ok, what happens now?? i look at my watch - we still have time - Ithought to myself. It's only 5:45. We don't have to be at the fields until 6:00. Knowing that someone is going to be late, I tell the girls at the desk to call me on my cell to give me the estimate. I know its going to be huge - how huge, I had no idea!

We got to the LAX field and #1 - the vet called. Its gonna be a lot of money to fix this dog if what she suspects is wrong is really wrong; #2 - the photographer is not at the field; #3 - although the coach and his son are there, there are no other players other than the Palentologist. Huh?? I have my envelope all filled out along with the check. Can you get more prepared than this? We waited until 6:15 and when the photographer still didn't show and the coach had no idea what was going on, I told him the Palentologist would see him at Tuesday's practice and we had a Tball game to get to. *in the back of my mind, I'm still thinking ... we're late to the Tball game and I'm snack mom! And, how do I get this Palentologist changed duirng the 8 minute ride from field to field?*

Upon our arrival at the Tball field, everyone gets something to carry. Twinkletoes, who thank goodness is in a good mood, takes the fresh soft pretzels. I grab the bag with the Palentologist's uniform and gloves inside of it along with the juice and we start heading over to the field. The husband takes the bat and heads over to talk to Nanny who is patiently awaiting our LATE arrival. The Palentologist changes his shirt on the way to the Tball field, worried that someone is going to see his bare stomach. (Keep in mind this is the kid who likes to dance around the house naked!) Twinkletoes puts on her hat and grabs the wrong glove because obviously her dad not only grabbed the bat but her Pink glove as well. When the Pirates team hits the field, I'm still trying to get the Umbro shorts off the Palentologist and get the baseball pants on him, over his cleats because they are a royal PAIN to get off and on. Ok - finally finished, I gave the Palentologist his glove and the wrong hat since I couldn't find his Tball hat and sent him out on the field. He proceeded to take 2nd base then run over to short to trade hats with his sister because, you know, it just wasn't right, and I collapsed onto their bench and try to catch my breath!

The kids played a great game, except when Twinkletoes had a great hit down the third base line and didn't drop the bat and run to first. Eventually, it will all come together. After the game, all of the Pirates team enjoyed their apple juice and soft pretzels. We talked to the family a little before packing it up and calling it a night. Daddy gave the kids their baths while I mopped the blood off of the floor downstairs. Fun! We finally got the kids to bed and settled down to watch Grey's Anatomy and await Dr. Snyder's call. At 10:36, she finally called to let us know that Guinness is okay. She had to in effect, "declaw" that toe and remove the nail with part of the bone that he had broken. He was starting to come out of the anesthesia but was still groggy. She set up a time when our Nanny Extraordinnarie (my mom) could go pick him up to bring him home (this morning.)

This did teach us something. #1 - never to let the Nanny Extraordinnaire go home early on a night that we have a million things going on in a million different places. #2 - to say our bedtime prayers and include our dogs in them and #3 - to just accept that we're going to have bad things happen to us. We just have to have faith that the good will outweigh the bad.

Whew, I didn't even have any coffee last night!