Charge of the Lice Brigade!

So far so good! The girls were with Tulip on Sunday and that's the day her mom found the lice on her. No sightings here yet and I'm checking daily, sometimes twice daily. It can take up to a week for nits to appear but I'm hoping my Tea Tree Oil trick saves my butt! In the meantime I'm sending the Braidy Bunch to school every day. It means getting up 20 minutes earlier and listening to a lot of whining as I braid their heads within an inch of their lives. Twenty minutes of that beats the pants off what Tulip's mom described to me on the phone last night though! She said it takes her about 2½ hours to go over Tulip's head, picking and pulling and Tulip cries the whole time, it hurts so much. She's also done 40-50 loads of laundry since Sunday night. Oy vey! I don't see us surviving that if it hits here.

But that's not our biggest concern at the moment. Murphy seems much worse this week. He's refusing to eat most of the time. We have been able to get one small meal into him each day, some DentaStix and he can't get enough snow lately. Weird. Last night he was out in the cold til 10pm and only came in because I went and dragged him in. Today he wanted back out early this morning and when I brought him in shivering around mid morning to get him warmed up, he turned around and wanted back out. I made him stay in for a couple of hours but by then it was sunny out so I let him go out til Murray got home from supper. He has no energy, and just lies on the floor or couch all day. Today he didn't even thump his tail whenever we came in to the room. When he's lying still, I have to look closely to see if he's even still breathing. I'm afraid it's not looking good. We're taking him to the vet tomorrow afternoon to get him looked at but we doubt this is a "fixable" situation. He seems so sad and listless. We hate seeing our Murphy baby like this and are trying to brace for the worst.

Sick or Scam?

Sweetie got the flu Sunday night after going to bed and was up several times in the night with tummy troubles. Expecting that she'd be exhausted and still under the weather, I kept her home on Monday.The minute I walked back in the door after seeing her sisters onto the bus in the driveway, she popped out of her bedroom. "I was watching you in the window! but nobody waved to ME!"

She got up and had some breakfast and then I was ready to go back to bed from being up with her in the night so many times! I was sure she'd need a nap as well so we went into our bedroom to rest but that little stinker never did! After awhile I gave up on that notion, hoping assuming she would rest later. Instead of a nap, she had a leisurely soak in a nice hot bubble bath and played with the mermaid barbies. After her bath we braided her hair, something we don't normally have time to do on a school day. She loved her braids! (once all the pulling was over)

While she lounged, I finished up a batch of Ginger Sparkles (mmmmm coooooooooooookies!) and then once she was out, we played Super Mario Brothers for a couple of hours.

Once she was all Mario'd out, we had some lunch and she was still happy as a clam, no symptoms and lots of energy. I decided we'd take Murphy for a walk since she was obviously feeling ok. We went almost all the way down to the main road and only turned back because Murphy was getting tired.

I brought along my camera to work on a project for my photography forum's monthly challenge and got lots of material as she ran along, jumping in puddles and walking Murphy. We got back just in time to meet her sisters off the bus and was she ever glad to see them!
As much as they squabble, scream and bicker, they don't like to be without them for too long. As much as she enjoyed her day with me, she kept asking how much longer til the girls got home and mentioned several times that she missed them. Nice to see they might actually like each other afterall!

my favourite Sweetie shot of the day :))))