How is it already the end of July? June was crazy busy, but July has possibly been even more hectic! It started on the very first day of July, which is also Karl's birthday. What better way to celebrate than taking your dog to the after-hours emergency hospital for a snake bite when you're in the middle of dinner? Oh yeah. Talk about a big surprise "present." We were smoking ribs for dinner that afternoon, and we were all out back behind our house. We have a big hill in our backyard, and Cooper loves to stand at the top and throw stuff to Sadie. She stays between 4-8 feet away from him waiting for him to throw her something. That's what the two of them were doing. Karl was sitting by the smoker talking to our neighbor, and I was sitting on the deck. Sadie didn't yelp when she got bit, but all the sudden, she ran up and jumped in my lap. She was acting very spooked or scared. I petted her for a little bit, and then put her back on the ground. She was acting strange but not hurt. We went inside a short time later, and I fed her right before I sat down to eat. She has been getting in trouble for begging while we eat, and we praised her for not doing that this night. She was sitting off to the side just looking at us. I noticed she was panting, but it was hot outside and she'd been playing with Cooper. When I was done eating, she jumped on the couch with Karl and a pillow fell and touched her face. She yelped and started shaking. Karl said something to me about it, and I said (I don't know why this even came to mind), "You don't think she got bit by a snake on the hill, do you?" At that moment, he noticed that the side of her face was really swollen, and it was literally getting bigger before your eyes. We were pretty sure that was what had happened immediately. I saw that Sadie hadn't eaten any of her dinner, which has never happened, so I knew she was in a lot of pain and needed to get to an animal hospital quick fast and in a hurry. Karl was about halfway done with his dinner, but he got his stuff together, and loaded her up. I was a nervous wreck and a complete mess. She's our first baby after all!! Her blood test confirmed that it was a snake bite. The vet said they would keep her overnight and monitor her condition. If there were any changes, he would call.
At 4:15 am, the phone rang. The swelling was getting worse, she was bleeding from one of the fang marks, and her clotting levels were declining. He said they would have to give her antivenom after all. That stuff isn't cheap, but we of course couldn't say no. When Karl went to pick her up that morning around 7:30, they were giving her another dose of antivenom because she wasn't showing improvement after the first dose. She had to go to our regular vet for the remainder of the day for fluids, monitoring, and blood work, but thankfully we got to bring her home that evening when our vet's office closed. She was so pitiful, but she pulled through like a champ! The overall price tag for saving her life was not pretty at all, but it was 100% worth it. Cooper was only a matter of a few feet away from her when she got bit, and Karl and I have both said she took that snake bite so that Cooper didn't. I have no doubt she knew that thing was trouble, and she wanted it away from her little brother.
Karl's been hunting copperheads in our backyard since then. We're determined to find and kill the snake that bit Sadie. I told Karl that I want that thing's head! We have lived in this house for 7 years, and we have never seen a copperhead before now. We have seen 3 since Sadie got bit. The one in the above picture was killed two days after Sadie's bite, but it's not the one we're after (the one that bit Sadie has a very wide mouth, as the fang marks on her face are pretty far apart and wide in diameter). Karl shot at it and then hacked it in half to make sure it was dead. Your adrenaline gets going pretty good when you have a snake charging at you, as this one did towards the shovel Karl was holding. He let it have it pretty good after that. Once that thing was in two pieces he said, "You're dead now, B****!" That's not at all how he typically talks, but this is war! I got tickled when he said that because that was exactly how I felt at that moment too!
Sadie has made a great recovery though. By the end of the week, she was completely back to herself. Cooper didn't waste any time in resuming his typical play with her either. This is him using paper towels as a saddle and riding her like his horse. We had to have a talk about not using Sadie as a pony.
In the midst of that crazy week, we celebrated our country's birthday with a great cookout and awesome fireworks show with some of our favorite friends. Cooper LOVES fireworks!
We closed out that week with my 30th birthday! By then we were beyond exhausted from the week's activities, so we kept it very calm and low key. We took Cooper to Build-A-Bear the day before my birthday, and he built a precious fireman bear that roars. He loves his "Smofee" (Smoky) bear. The maternity store was right across from there, so I was able to get a couple new nursing necessities for after Jake comes.
I'm not sure how I didn't get a picture with him!
We started our next week with our much anticipated swim lessons!
My neighbor and I signed our boys up to do lessons together. I thought since they're best buddies and play together all the time, they would do fantastic taking swim lessons together. Apparently I was wrong. After the first lesson, she recommended separating them. I guess they were too playful and not good listeners together; however, they are 2 1/2 and 3 1/2. A very long story short, we did end up separating them, and Cooper did learn how to swim. I was shocked. I did not expect him to swim on his own after 8 lessons, but he did.
He had lessons 4 days a week for 2 weeks, and some days he did great, while other days he would either pitch a fit about getting in the water or act like he'd never been in water before. Karl and I decided that bribing him was the best way to get through these two weeks, so we told him if he did good, he could get a blue icee after swim class. Overall, this was a successful, though pathetic, tactic. He was having a rough morning on the day of his last class, and I didn't want us to end on a negative note, so I bribed him with all kinds of things, and then Karl called before class and threw in some extra incentives. Low and behold, he swam really well that day! It was a long 8 lessons, but I am very happy with what he accomplished!
The weekend in between those two weeks, I went away for a much deserved and wonderful girls' weekend. Karl sent me this picture of Coop at our neighbor's pool...
That might be one of my favorite pictures to date! I love the Nemo goggles he and Coop bought while I was gone!!
The weekend after swim lessons ended was potty training time! I think that deserves a post to itself though...
Throw in the birth of two of our closest friends' baby, another closest friend's engagement, friends' birthdays, doctor appointments, and getting our outside trim and Jake's room painted on top of normal day-to-day activities, and you see what a fun, crazy, and busy month this has been!
That picture reminds me of Nicholas riding Pumkin at the same age.
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