Bubbles and Father's Day, But Mostly Bubbles (Sorry, Da.)

Well, y'all, this week has been something.

Our main concern: Bubbles.  Remember how I wrote last week that she had stopped eating?  Now she's lost a considerable amount of weight, and after a $250 emergency visit to the vet and no shortage of tears, worrying and constant monitoring, she's still here.  Our vet is a wonderful man.  Wonderful.  He is great with animals and their people, even when their people are majorly stressed and unable to comprehend what's going on.  Thank you, Dr. M., for talking me down this morning when I thought my sweet fur baby was dying in my lap.

That said, not everything in our little yellow house has been negative.  Far from it, actually.  With the stress of a sick kiddo who can't tell us what's wrong, it's easy to lose perspective.  This post is as much for me to remember that there have been lots of good moments this week as it is to share them with you.

A friend from work sent this little hoodie home for The Princess to play
with.  I didn't have the heart to tell her that our girl has no interest in
dress-up, and it looked a bit small, so I took it from the closet with
the intention of donating it.  Silly Momma.  Guess who has a new
favorite shirt?  In June?  With padding on the tummy and
iridescent wings on the back?  And the bestest daddy
in the whole wide world?  How many question
fragments can I put in a row?

Here's the happy little love bug, hammin' for Momma.

Don't know what's going on, but the carp in our lake are
dying by the hundreds.  We went to the beach
yesterday but didn't stay long.

At least we got to see that The Princess's new Speedo swimsuit ($6 thrift
store find - like new...go Momma!) fits just fine.

And what's good enough for the puppy is good enough for our girl,
apparently.  A little hose water does a kid good.  Blow this one up,
and you'll see she's actually lapping it just like a doggy.

Saturday morning, Da went shopping for his Father's Day gift.  Don't look
at me like that...he wanted to check out art supplies, and The Princess is not
a fan of the store (which is also 45 minutes away), so he opted to go on his
own.  And we didn't want to leave Bubbles unsupervised.  Good thing, too.
A little while after he left, she started getting tremors and spacing out,
generally scaring the bajeebers out of her momma, so The Princess and I
loaded her into the car and drove the whopping three blocks to the vet's
office.  To entertain ourselves while she was getting her X-rays, we made
faces in the phone.  This is our worried face.

Later on, Grumpa and Grumma came over to visit for Father's Day.  Bubbles
was resting comfortably in the bedroom and even thumped her tail a couple
of times to say hello to them, but she couldn't really move from the spot.

This one cracks me up.  She's a perpetual motion machine, for sure, but I
love that their faces are crystal clear beyond the flappage.

Best.  Dollar store.  Buy.  Ever.  Grass skirt, hung from the door frame with
staples.  She loves it.

Father's Day started out mellow, with Momma playing
the uke and The Princess showing a major interest.  She
now knows how to hold it properly.

Now, between these two beautiful pictures of my girl is when my world kinda fell apart.  The Hubbs was at his folks' house - without us - visiting for Father's Day.  Again, Bubbles had made negligible progress, and we couldn't bring ourselves to leave her.  So off Da went, and The Princess and I stayed home.

About the time Da should have been arriving at his family's house, Bubbles took a nosedive.  The tremors were back, this time accompanied by abdominal contractions and the most pathetic moans of pain I've ever heard.  With her head in my lap, I began to cry.  I talked to her and rubbed her head, telling her I was here for her, and her eyes glassed over with another contraction.  I panicked and called my mom, knowing that Grumpa and Hambone were out fishing and she'd be home by herself.  I told her that I was scared and I didn't know what to do, and she was here in no time flat.

While I waited for her to arrive, I called the vet and told him what was going on.  God love him, he listened to my frantic rambling (I'm a snotty cryer - always have been - boogers all over the place, and I am not very easy to understand when I try to talk while crying), and he advised me to keep doing what I was doing.  I was to give her the next dose of medicine at 5:00 and call him at 7:00 if she wasn't better.  He said if I didn't think I could wait, he could stop what he was doing and come see us that very moment.  All this advice came from his home.  On Father's Day.  I could hear his kids in the background.  The man is an angel.

I decided to ride it out, and Mom showed up just after I got off the phone with Dr. M.  She stayed here with us for a few hours to make sure we were all okay, and I began to feel silly for having panicked.  But, man, was I glad to have my mommy just then.  We hung out in the back yard, I played some uke, she "fixed" one of my trimmers (ahem, well, it still doesn't work, but at least the rope part isn't broken anymore!), and my blood pressure came down.

After Grumma left, The Princess found another new suit I had grabbed at
the thrift store (this one was $2.25) and came prancing into the living room
in it.  I couldn't take her to the lake because of the carp kill, so we
improvised.  She must have run through the sprinkler a hundred times.

She also enjoyed sticking her hands in the spray, and after a while found
that she also liked to sit on it.  Yeah.  So, this sprinkler is toast.  :)

Sweet little Piggy always loves spending time outside.  I can't tell you how
fortunate I feel that whatever Bubbles is fighting does not seem to be
contagious.  This little girl is as sassy as ever.

We even got Bubbles to come outside with us, and she basked in the sun
for a good hour or so before heading back inside.

After we came back in, The Princess wanted to play.  We
had a tickle fight before taking selfies on the iPhone.
She really loves that self-facing camera feature, and
this picture absolutely kills me.  Sometimes you
just need to overload on cute.

Oh!  I almost forgot!  Yesterday, we went out to dinner.  Like, all three of us.  To an actual restaurant without golden arches.  The Princess loved it - a little Mexican joint across the street from the roller rink one town over.  The food was really good, and she was an absolute angel.  That was our special Father's Day treat for Da, and he really enjoyed it too.  After we got back, we tried to remember the last time we'd all gone out to a restaurant as a family - ya know, like, to sit down and have a meal instead of a meltdown? - and we honestly couldn't remember when it was.  Big deal, folks.  Huge deal.

And to my man, my guy, the love of my life: I don't have words to describe how amazing you are at what you do, duder.  Being a stay-at-home parent isn't easy.  Throw autism into the mix, and you're in a whole 'nother league of "not easy."  Add a crazy wife and two plucky bulldogs to the mix?  You deserve a medal.  Or a statue.  Or a statue wearing a medal.  Everything you do, you do with grace.  Your love for our daughter is evident in every step you take (every move you make....sorry, was listening to The Police earlier), and I love you more and more every single day.  Thank you for being the crazy glue that holds this motley crue (I mean crew...jeez, the 80s are taking over here - sorry!) of gals together.  We're so lucky to have you in our lives each and every day.  Whatever you do, don't go changing...we love you just the way you are.  (Yup.  Had to get one more in there.)