Work and play (with the cat)

Um, so, I figure I should post something on my blog! I haven’t really taken any pictures of the kids in the last few weeks, or much of anything, but I did find a few older pics of Billy (big surprise) and the kids playing with the cat that I had on my camera.

Last week was pretty crazy at work. Not only is it nearing the end of our financial year, but we had one of our project funder reps in town, who just happens to be from Montana :). I got a phase review of one project and an extension request, complete with updated budget, done for another, and we left both on the same page which is always a huge step in the right direction. Hooray for Montanans! We cut the blab and just do the job : ) Also met with our newest translation team, the Kwamba (from Bundibugyo and DRC), and got their work planned out in detail for the next three months. Thursday I didn’t get home until 7pm and I had to go in on Friday for a few hours, so it was a busy, long week.

And how can I forget! Late the night of the 17th one of my bestest friends – PROSSY- came home! She’d been studying in the U.K for the last very long year and is now home again, much to my selfish relief. She’s staying with us until her new house ( which she found within the first week of being home – no, she’s not a procrastinator like me!) is ready to be moved into, sometime the beginning of October. Not only is a relief to have her back in the country, but it’s always nice to have another adult in the house. Especially one that will cook dinner now and then, AND clean dishes : )! And no, haven’t gotten a picture of her yet. She doesn’t look that different than when she left, to tell you the truth! Although I’m sure she’s smarter with all that added higher education ;)

This week the rest of our translation teams come in and we get end of the financial year finances all squared away, and go over each of the projects goals and translation schedule for the next year. Today I sat down with our two Uganda based consultants and we somewhat finalized our FY12 consultant checking and training schedule too. All of the translation teams and all three of our consultants (one is coming from the U.S) will be working in EBB next and the following week at a two week Paratext workshop, but I’m not responsible for that (we have a great I.T department!) so it won’t be any extra work for me. And I’m excited to see the amount of work they can accomplish in doing basic checks on all their previously translated work.

I also started a group Bible study – something that I haven’t participated in for 4 years! We are going through the study guide to Shepherding a Child’s Heart, by Ted Tripp. We’ve only done two chapters so far. I’m also reading The Five Love Languages of Children by Chapman and Campbell, which is a GREAT balance to Ted Tripp. I’m still trying to figure out Ella’s love language (quality time perhaps? Still not sure- that girl LOVES them all ;) but Frank’s didn’t take much study. He is a snuggler, touchy little boy and when asked how he knows his mom loves him he says, “Because she hugs and kisses me!!” So yeah, his love language is definitely TOUCH!

So, anyhoo – all that to explain why I haven’t updated my blog as of late!

And finally, here are some pictures for your viewing enjoyment.

Baby of the Pack - my how he is growing! He's going to be a BIG dog if he keeps this up!

Odd ball of the Pack. Sorry, but he is.

Somewhat of a mutual understanding.

Don't fart, Billy!

Ella, proudly presenting her tupperware with...

... the cat inside (who was gasping for breath, poor guy!)

The gloved hand reaching for the cat was the surgeon. They were pretending to do surgery after surgery on the cat (no real knives or needless, don't worry!), hence the "surgical" gloves.

This is a little safer activity - getting pushed in the stroller. I'm not sure but I think he still might have been a bit dazed for lack of oxygen...

The cat torturers, I mean LOVERS!

Who's the Pack Walk for?

Me, in all my bulky, Pack Walking glory ;)

So, I started taking a daily Pack Walk with my Pack about five or six months ago. I was sort of testing out Cesar’s theory about the importance of a Pack Walk. After about six weeks of the walk, I noticed a MARKED difference in Madea, our most excited/anxious dog. It was great for the kids and the rest of the dogs and I enjoyed it, just knowing that I was doing what was best for my dogs.

After a recent two week hiatus from this activity I came to realize who the Pack Walk really, truly has the most benefits for. ME!

You see, I struggle with depression. It’s gotten worse as I’ve gotten older and runs in the family. Life is a bit overwhelming right now and to be honest, work sucks. Thankfully I have my kids to keep me going so I don’t slip into total and complete comatose depressed oblivion. But I can get to be a pretty cranky mom! And we all know that children or dogs won’t follow a cranky depressed Pack Leader – they need a calm, assertive one!

The children have started staying behind on our Pack Walks. It’s pretty much a power walk and I felt a bit bad for the wee ones. They would much rather prefer being planted on their little butts in front of the boob tube watching and singing along to a Cedarmont Kids DVD (it was the Christmas DVD tonight ;) for 45 minutes than trying to keep up with a marching mother. We have 24 hour security so there is always a responsible adult on the compound and I tell them that if there’s a fire or the house starts falling in, to run outside and get on the big trampoline.

For an introvert, the Pack Walk gives me some alone time without chattering children, and a break from being “mom”. I can relax without worrying about either child getting hit by a car (Frankie gets pretty focused when he’s on the trail of grasshopper or dragonfly!) and just march along at my own pace. It’s my “Me Time” ;).

It also gets my endorphins pumping which simply feels good! I also have a bad back and a vigorous walk with The Pack really seems to help it. A lot!

To be honest, there is also a real feeling of accomplishment in being able to calmly walk half a dozen dogs along through such a target rich environment of people, vehicles, chickens, monkeys, cats, barking dogs, goats, birds, you name it! I truly do feel like The Pack Leader and my dogs are so much more obedient at home, without any additional training! I noticed this when it came to clipping toe nails. Bridger’s always put up a fight and I was floored when he just calmly laid there wagging his tail the last time. It has got to be so much better for him than me sitting on him!

And last but not least, I always end up having a good laugh on our Pack Walk. And laughter is good medicine, right? Like today when I was marching coolly along with my Pack, visions of Cesar in my head, only to have Happy Bill strutting along with a big piece of jack fruit clamped firmly in his mouth. He must have walked for 10 minutes that way! It’s hard to be cool when your dog's packing along fruit!

Our Happy Bill :)

Welcome to the Pack, ROWDY!

Due to a horrible, puppy induced accident a few weeks ago, our little kitty Bronco died :( This left a very large hole in the Pack and Frankie's little heart. Because Frankie you see, is a cat person, like his Grandpa, and he loved his kitty Bronco!

Believe it or not, I am not much of a cat person. I know, who would have thought? If it weren't for their excellent hunting abilities and the fact that rats and bats abound here, I wouldn't even think of getting one. But the most compelling reason Bronco was because of my little cat lover. The boy NEEDED another kitten! And so, I obliged.

There was quite a bit of debate between me and my mother over letting Frankie name the cat. I didn't want to. I do not believe that small children should be allowed to name family pets because they often end up going through life like poor Ms. Dave. Or worse. But in the end, I caved and let Frankie name the cat - but only because I liked the name he came up with!!

So please, meet the new member of our Pack, ROWDY!

We had gone to see Rowdy and his beautiful siblings several weeks ago when he was five weeks old and too young to leave his mother. He was the plainest cat but Frankie claimed he was his favorite. We were going to wait until they were 8 weeks but then this week the lady that had them called me up and said, "Can you take the black kitten?" The other two PRETTY kittens had been taken. So it all worked out and I brought home Rowdy.

What was fun about it was that I didn't tell the kids and I surprised them!! Now, I generally suck at keeping a secret so this was really hard for me. But I did it! I actually had told them the day before that I was getting them a surprise (see? I really can't keep a secret) and Ella said, "Oh, a kitten?" and I just laughed at her like she was stupid and I was all mysterious. Yep, I'm a good mom like that ;)

But come Tuesday afternoon the kid really had no idea what I was bringing for them!! Frankie's generally NOT very hard to surprise, being as he's not as snoopy as his sister, so he was tickled pink that I'd brought him a kitten :)

Rowdy, giving what for to Arnie the Lamb

Not sure why the cat was in the travel pillow but he didn't seem to mind!

Now is this one pleased little cat loving boy or what?!

Some guys keep a parrot perched on their arm, others keep a small cat

A couple of boobs watching the boob tube together

This is my cat training device. This little cat was causing problems for himself because he was TOTALLY overreacting to the dogs and hissing and spitting at them while they were fast asleep. This would wake them up and naturally they'd want to stop him! Sanyu was taking it personally that he was growling at her and Bill wanted to play with him. Not good.

So, I took it upon myself to put a stop to the behaviour. I mean, you can't be yelling at the dogs all the time when the cat is instigating it! He's MUCH better since he was on Tuesday but I figured that I should just treat him like a dog - if he exhibits behavior that I disagree with, I squirt him. This also redirects him and with one swift squirt at the curious dog, redirects them as well, in a painless and screechles way.

The gun also works for instances like this. I don't agree with this behavior ;)

And, well, some of us still think that a good dog is hard to beat!

Breaking Pack News - A New Diet!

It's been a while (who am I kidding?) since I've updated on the Pack. There's big news in the Pack world actually - I've changed their feed! To a person (and her Pack) who doesn't get out much, this is exciting!


Puffy Face Frank, before his allergy medicine, sandwiched between Bridger and Sanyu, watching a movie. This poor little feller is our cat lover. BUT the dogs were there first and he voluntarily crawled up between them, so I don't have that much sympathy for him!

Bill's feet are the ones on the right, Rangers are the ones on the left. Notice how much bigger Bill's are than Ranger's and he's less than six months old! If this boy grows into his feet and tail (Have I mentioned before that Billy has a super long tail? He does!) he's going to be a good sized fellow!

My big ol' lumpy corn fed puppy!

Like I mentioned before, I changed the Pack's feed to posho (corn flour that you cook up into a tasteless lump), cooked in groundnut sauce, with a carrot or two (for their eyes you see - they are WATCH dogs after all, and duh, a WATCH dog uses their eyes a lot), and a handful or two of little dried fishies. Previously I was feeding them Vitagen Purina with a bunch of the little fishies but gosh, it was expensive and everyone (except Sanyu - we're alike in that we're easy keepers!) was looking a little thin. Plus, I had to go to Kampala to get the Vitagen, which is not fun.

I switched over to the posho, which is cheaper and I can feed more of, and then read some things on the Internet about how you shouldn't feed your dog any grain because dogs are carnivores and it's unnatural, blah, blah. I also read that avocado's are supposed to be lethal for dogs, which is just plain WRONG as dogs here feast on them, especially if you have an avocado tree. So I determined that a lot of that was just dog food companies trying to convince people to buy their products. I'm proceeding to feed my dogs corn, fish and peanut sauce for protein, and carrots because, why not?

And oh my goodness do the dogs ever look great on their new diet! Billy is a down right pudgy LUMP (soooo cute!) and all the black dogs have SUPER shiny coats. They're not as hungry either and everyone knows that a satisfied dog is a happy dog!

My next experiment is buying chicken feed, which is even cheaper than posho, and because a lot more is added to it than corn, I'm thinking it will not only be cheaper but more nutritious. And who knows, maybe the dogs will start laying eggs! It's not like chicken feed in the States, but is powdery, like the posho, and can be cooked up.

I've also started being able to feed skinny little Madea twice a day, like a young dog should be. Bill still eats three or four times a day, which could account for some of his lumpiness :) Ranger still gets fed only once a day, even though he's young, just because he is a bottomless pit and looks fine.

My incentive for finding cheaper and cheaper ways to feed my Pack is a) I feel guilty spending so much money on DOGS in a country where the majority of people are living below poverty level and b) If it's not so expensive to properly feed them, I can get more dogs!! But not for a while, don't worry Mom!

Despite their new diet, they would still really prefer a sandwich instead!

You'd have to have a pretty cold heart (or a hungry belly!) to say no to these guys... ;)

Mystery SOLVED!

So, after googling "Child's facial swelling" on Saturday, reading about all sorts of terrible causes for it (kidney failure being the most common!) and Frankie waking up looking like this Monday morning... I finally buckled down and took him to the Doctors that morning.

They took a urine and blood sample (little boys are so much easier to get urine samples from than little girls!) to checked his kidney's and his blood count, which both came out CLEAR. WHEW. Thank you Lord! The doctor prescribed the lad some allergy medicine, Cetzine, which he is supposed to take once a day and VIOLA!! He's been fine ever since!! Man, what a relief.

And all of that, a doctors visit AND medicine (six days worth), for around $12. That my friend, can't be beat ;)

Mystery, mystery, what could it be?

So, we've got a little mystery here at the H house. It all started last Sunday morning when Frankie woke up in the morning looking like this.

Hmmmm, maybe he got bit or stung by a bug while in his bed....

Antihistamine didn't seem to help. At all.

Then Monday morning he woke up like this. What? Now the other eye is swollen shut? Blankets and pillow were changed so the child had fresh bedding.

Tuesday morning, the lad was fine. Whew! Problem solved. He had something in his bed. Until...

Wednesday he woke up looking like this! The FRONT of his face was swollen!! What the heck?

Get a load of that top lip!



We have wracked our brains as to what could be the cause. Perhaps he's developing an allergy to something? We haven't eaten ANY thing different, used different soap, NOTHING new in the last week or so. Nothing.

For a while I thought maybe he was having a reaction to his urine as both children are bed wetters and don't get their blankets changed every time. However when he was put on a new mattress with fresh bedding, in pull ups, he woke up again with not only a slightly puffy face but with welts on his stomach and arms as well. Nice. A swollen distorted face and itchy welts...

Antihistamine does work for the welts and he hasn't been quite so puffy or swollen on his face, so I guess he's sort of getting better. Our dear little cat, Bronco, was killed last week and he was Frankie's favorite little pet. In true Frankie style Frankie did not cry or express ANY grief over the death of his beloved cat. But as the week wore on he began to exhibit some unusual behaviors which were his own weird ways of dealing with the loss of his cat. So, we're kind of wondering if these physical symptoms could be a result of the stress he's putting his little body through, trying to grieve for his cat.

Praying that his swelling just stops and yes, we are in the market for kittens. We all miss our Bronco! But luckily not all of us have swollen up about it ;)