Of Stitches and Wheels...

Howdy. 
It's been an eventful month, full of stitches, toothaches, big dogs, wooden cars, new cars and trophies.  Let me catch you up:

At the end of January, Colt had what was left of his lower two front teeth removed in an extremely painful process by an oral surgeon (his was a very complex extraction).  The result of a collision with a metal sled when he was eight or nine, he has since continually lived with crowns and root canals that have caused swollen gums, pain and infection--never being able to bite into an apple or gnaw on a steak bone.  While we have received five different suggestions for treatment from five different specialists, he's probably going to go with implants--but will be hilariously toothless for a while as it heals.

When we returned from our Denver tooth-extraction trip (where we also said "good-bye" to our beloved Mazda CX-9 "Blueberry" and said "hello" to our new Toyota Sienna "Sweet Pea"...I CAN'T believe I'm driving a minivan now...gulp...but we direly needed the room!), I made a trip out to get the mail and came back with a HUGE package, in the form of a Great Pyrenees dog.  I said "hi" as I was reaching into the mailbox and he bounded over to me and nearly knocked me over with puppy glee. I could tell immediately that he was a big teddy bear and still quite young--though still very BIG.  I put him in the back yard, locked the dogs inside, and promptly found out the only way to get him to the animal shelter was to load him up myself (life in the country).  Colt was in LaLa Percocet-Land, so I attempted to load him in Big Red (our Dodge truck).  I giggle to think of how I must have looked as he gladly let me loop the leash over his neck, then he sweetly but resolutely disagreed about the direction we needed to go.  His way was any way AWAY from the truck (got that?).  When it was clear that he would not budge I knew it was hopeless.  I put him back in the yard and called the neighbors.  Knowing that he was likely a wandering sheep dog, our neighbor called all the sheep ranchers she knew.  No one was missing a dog, but they'd send the info out along the rancher-wire.  After a few days of not finding a place for him, it became apparent that it was no longer our choice.  When one night he awoke us with barking, we looked outside to find him outside the gate asking to come in!  He freely came and went from our back yard, jumping over it with ease.  He watched over us, barking and chasing things away at night, and was great with the kids (though I always stayed near as one playful bound could lay them all out).  He also played well with Silver, so his presence wasn't such a big deal EXCEPT for Jasper.  Jasper, our fearless terrier, turned into a nutcase around Casper/Cooper/Maximus (we all had our pet names for him).  He would bark furiously at him then run away yelping like a hurt rabbit the minute Cooper looked at him.  At first, Coop didn't care about Jasper but when the yelping started he became more interested in the little furry thing--as though it might make a nice snack--and so we continued to have to monitor Jasper's time outside.  It became quite a pain.  Eventually, Cooper began to just stay on the front porch (encouraged by the fact that after finding a skunk one night, none of us would give him hugs anymore)--literally guarding our house day and night.  We got used to his presence, even felt comforted by it, but we were tired of dodging the skunky fellow and I felt for the UPS guy trying to deliver us packages. (0:

Then, one day after a week or so of his guardianship, he was gone. 
I can only hope that he's found a flock, and is safe and not hungry.  He was such a gentle, sweet soul.  I still find myself looking out the window, expecting to see the giant white fur ball laying on our front doorstep. 

A few days after Cooper left, Wyatt woke up on a chilly Sunday morning to a face swollen like a balloon and complaining of a BAD toothache.  He had been up most of the previous night complaining of the pain--and let me tell you, when this kid says it hurts, then you know it HURTS!  He has Colt's high pain tolerance, which is seriously not even human.  Before his face swelled up, we couldn't see anything the matter and I thought it was an adult tooth trying to cram itself into too small of space.  When he turned into a Who from Whoville the next morning, we knew it was something more.  It turned out to be an abscessed tooth from a fall on a wet tile floor that happened eight months ago (in which his front adult tooth was chipped and shoved into his gum).  We put him on penicillin, thanks to a wonderful friend from church who is a local dentist, and halted the infection.  He's back to looking like our Wyatt again and the poor kid is scheduled for a root canal the first week in March.  Following right in Daddy's footsteps...darn it!

Wyatt Who From Whoville

As Wyatt began to mend, and Colt began to be able to eat solid food, we felt we simply had not had enough of stitches, blood and pain, so we took our 12-yr old Weimaraner, Sage, in to have surgery on her CCL.  The surgeon cut into her bone, shaving off a chunk of it to create a new hinge, if you will, and added a plate to secure it.  Her activity would need to be severely restricted for eight weeks (i.e., carrying her out to go pee, etc.) and she would be in intense pain while the bone healed.  Home now for a week and a half, she is doing very well--a relief considering she nearly died five years ago when we had her other leg repaired by a different method.  She is in pain, but she is the toughest dog I know and she is already ready to escape her bathroom prison.  I think the only thing she enjoys about her seclusion is that Jasper is barred from annoying her.

On a positive note, we did have some celebratory moments over the past four weeks.  Colt turned one year older, an event that didn't phase him one bit.  I wish I could be so blase about the aging process, but I am seriously freaking out about cruising towards the forty-year mark!  He's been-there, done-that, no worries. 

Eek!

His greatest celebration, though, came in the form of watching his son win Second Place for speed in the local boy/cub scout pinewood derby.  Last year, Wyatt didn't do so well and it was heartbreaking to watch him lose.  This year, Colt researched well and designed a pretty unique car (influenced by some powerful painkillers, perhaps?).  He and Wyatt built it and ran it last Thursday.  When it lost its first race, my heart dropped as Wyatt, with watery eyes, looked up at me and said "it's okay, we're here to have fun, right?"

Gulp.

Colt and I held our breath as he set up for the next race...and WON!  He then won again, and again and AGAIN!  His car kept getting faster with each run that it made and in the final race he actually beat the car that had beat him in the first run.  He ended up taking second, but actually never raced the car who took First Place (another one of my Bear Scouts, thank you!).  He was sooooo happy, I think he slept with the trophy that night.  His intensity, when he is into something, is off the chart and he so wanted to do well in the derby.  So Kudos to my boy, who put on a brave face and ended up doing awesome.  And Kudos to my hubby, who put his own pain aside in order to help his little boy win his very first trophy.  I'm so proud of both my boys! (0: