Moose and Milk Issues

The downside of Kurt’s new job is the fact that he will have to travel now and then.  Now started today. As luck would have it, a few minor catastrophes have coincided with his trip. First of all, Moose somehow contracted a skin infection resulting in this wound on his shoulder blade. He has to get it cleared up before he can have the hip surgery. The surgeon specifically said no skin infections – what are the flipping chances he’d get one for the first time in his 8 years right before scheduling the procedure? We took him to the vet and, in addition to his Rimadyl for hip pain, he’s now taking an antibiotic 2x/day and he also needs a topical spray antibiotic applied every 4-6 hours. We can sneak the pill in with some cheese, but as soon as he sees the spray in your hand he runs for the hills. How does he know what it is? It doesn’t hurt him, but I swear our “dumb” dog is secretly a genius because he knows when we’re up to something from a mile away. Fortunately, his hiding place isn’t that sophisticated; he sits very still on his dog bed in our room and tries to blend in with the surroundings as if we’ll perhaps overlook his 50 lb, brown, furry self. If he could whistle nonchalantly and read a newspaper to provide further camouflage he would do it. Hasn’t worked yet, Moose, but I commend your efforts.

The other drama was a literal meltdown last night. I opened the freezer drawer in our less-than-a-year-old beautiful stainless KitchenAid refrigerator to find 3 months of stored breast milk quickly defrosting. Holy cow I about flipped out. I didn't spend countless hours with my boobs hooked up to a portable machine for nothing! It would have been absolutely devastating to lose it all, as I’m now using a lot of the frozen supply to satisfy baby’s milky desires all day long.  So my stockpile and some frozen halibut were rushed over to our friends across the street. Kind of weird to ask neighbors to store bags of my breast milk in their freezer, but it was an emergency and they were nice enough to make room. Back to our fridge. As does anyone in the computer age when something malfunctions, we think, “reboot” and unplug it, then replug.  Lo and behold, it works and the temperature is back to zero. Great. However, WTF happened, Kitchenaid?  We didn’t spend $1800 on a new fridge for it to screw with us 13 days away from the expiration of the 1 year warranty. So I call them up today from work. The Customer Support (and I use that term loosely) hotline is designed to make you give up and go away. First they ask you if you are calling to buy a small appliance like a toaster or mixer. What? Uh, no, why would I customer support to buy a toaster? Next you have to run the gauntlet of options that you have to speak to answer - no button pushing here. This remarkable technology never works and I spend at least twenty minutes repeating my answers. “Refrigerator” “Re-frig-er-a-tor” “REEEE-FRIDG-ERRR-AY-TOR” AAAAHHH! Finally, I get a real live person who kindly informs me that not only do I need the Model number but I need the Serial Number before they can help me. The serial number is located on the inside wall of the re-fridg-er-ay-tor which is in my house, naturally. Dangit! Round One goes to Kitchenaid. I’ll be back.

To top it all off, sweet angel baby who has been sleeping through the night for weeks decided to wake up at 3AM today for an early breakfast. Kurt woke up at 5AM to catch his early flight. Mommy didn’t get much sleep but no rest for the weary; baby slept in ‘til 11AM. I was at work by 8:30. Whoohoo. Let me tell you how into merger integration I was today.

I bet you are anxiously awaiting Halloween photos. Well, we ran out of time on Sunday so we’ll have to do it later this week. Our little monkey is still the most delightful girl in town. She has discovered a new love in Freddie the Firefly who rattles and crinkles and tastes delicious, apparently. Her favorite thing is my water bottle. It’s a greenish-yellow plastic (BPA-free of course) that completely mesmerizes her. She has animated conversations with this bottle. It excites her almost as much as her Daddy does. Glad we spend all this money on fancy toys carefully designed by Master Educators to stimulate infant brains when all along she’d rather talk to a container. That’s my girl!