10 months old and a new form of terrorism has emerged

My sweet little boy is 10 months old and has just mastered the art of crawling.  August 19th Mino decided he wanted to get to Portos' food bowl, so he did, and knocked it over and spilled its contents and continues to do so every time there is anything in it - good thing Peef is such a pushover.

Sorry for the sideways filming, I rotated my camera and I guess it went the wrong way.

He has mastered the art of solid food and only gags every now and again - is in love with those Gerber Puff things and still carrots.  Sleep is not going so well right now, I am blaming it on teething and hoping that we didn't accidentally create a monster by letting a poor sick little baby sleep in our bed.  He has been horrible. He falls asleep between 7-9 and sleeps well in his crib until we go to bed.  I think it is the lack of sound that wakes him up.  But as soon as I go to bed Martin retires to - lets call it his office - for appx 1-1.5 hours of which Mino is waking up and screaming every 10-15 minutes for his Pepe. He finally calms down for about an hour then wakes up every hour on the hour until we bring him to bed where it is much easier to plug the pepe in without having to get up.  He is officially sound asleep around 6-630 am just in time for my alarm to go off.  He is so darn cute though, that after my coffee (which I drink daily now) I love him again ;)  Heres hoping for the rest of those teeth to just push on through.

Without futher ado, his 10 month pictures.  It was a Tuesday again which meant that I had to work late which meant rushed photos in the AM - I couldn't find the white blanket so these may not fit in quite as well. .

Portos is Back in Business - Argentina will have to wait

Finally, after nearly two weeks in residence at the Emergency Vet Clinic Portos returned to our house on August 10. (Yes August 10, the day we were supposed to be arriving in Argentina.  That trip has been postponed until October.  All things considered maybe for the best as that way the Felices' get to spend his first birthday with him and his abuela has a little more time to recover some energy.) He went from being a limp noodle to sitting up in his kennel on his chest overnight about three days after his second surgery.

 

 His neurologist was so kind as to text us a picture of him doing something other than looking like a carpet.  He couldn't walk, he couldn't let us know he needed to go to the bathroom, but he could eat and wasn't in pain and got the get out of jail card.

 

 His surgeon and neurologist and his personal nurse all got to like the little food monger in those two weeks.
We recruited Nana to come help as a crippled dog and teething baby and neurotic dog and cat/dog were a bit much for us to handle on our own.  Peef was basically a newborn, he needed to be carried outside every 3-4 hours and held up the whole time in the front and back as he couldn't support any weight on his legs. 

The vets advised us to keep in close proximity to him as he had people around him 24/7 at the ER Vet and was on lots of drugs and was in a werid place so we set up camp in the living room over night to make sure he wasn't wetting himself or getting into too much trouble

And since then he has made gigantic leaps and bounds towards recovery.  Two days ago he started to get up and walk on his own if we were in the kitchen.  This dog is so majorly food motivated that if he thinks there is food and he isn't part of it he wills himself onto his wobbly legs and makes a run of it towards the kitchen.  Then yesterday at his follow up visit at the vet they said to let him do that as he needs to re-learn his balance.  He is still on a strict bed/cage rest for 6 weeks but manages to get up for an adventure every now and again.

And now moving on to the namesake of this here little blog, Mino. His photos have taken a downward spiral these last couple weeks.   Little fella now has his two lower incisors and one of his top central incisors (F,O and P) E is doing its darndest to bust through and he hasn't been too happy about it.  He also now can roll all around very efficiently, pull himself to a stand anywhere there is something to hold on to, crawl backwards and just starting forwards, go from a lying down position to a sit and unplug many electrical devices.  What a talented little fella.

He won't let me pull at his lips to get a good view of his teeth, so I will have to wait until he is sound asleep to get pictures of those but I do have these. . .Look at that evil little look on his face as he is about to destroy our entertainment center.  He is loving playing peek-a-boo over the coffee table too.
I got him some new pajamas. .

Oh!  Another new hobby of his is grabbing everything nasty and horrible and quickly stuffing it into his mouth.   We have spent a lot of time sitting in the front yard while Portos rests or drunkenly walks around which gives him lots of great things to eat such as rocks, sticks, grass, moss, bugs, leaves. . .

And he is not too happy if you take these things away from him. . .

But as long as he is supervised he has lots of fun.

Otis finally returned home after nearly four weeks visiting us and it is very strange to not have to fear thunderstorms for the repurcussions it brings with him, or to try to step over him while carrying our obese paralyzed dog just in time for him to stand up and try to knock everyone down, or spend mass quantities of time to get him up the three front stairs and through the scary "hallway" or vacuum up the enormous amounts of fur.  Wait, it sounds like I am complaining, I am not, but he takes up a lot of energy compared to our lazy mutt.  And in all of this poor Wallace has been shuttled completely to the back burner.  So in closing here are the two other neglected men in my life. .

Yes, I can admit it, I am kinda hooked on instagram.

We did have other visitors, Mari and Michelle made a pitstop on their move from Seattle, WA to State College, PA.  They along with their cat Bailey and dog Humphrey stayed for two nights.  They were busy visiting Kate and Claude - wait I lie - visiting wee little Abigail so we didn't get any pictures of them but they were here and it was really nice to see them twice in one year after going probably fives years since seeing Mari last!

Major Illnesses in this hizouse

Well, lets summarize what has been going on here over the last week and a half or so:  Benjamin has been teething and is the proud new owner of two lower front teeth (just the incisal edge at this point) and two top ones that are about to pop through, Benjamin has had a Croup cough and his first multi-day fever and a pretty significant cold and first episode of legit vomiting all over me, the carpet, the chair and the floor, we are babysitting Otis still who is petrified of thunderstorms and here in the Twin Cities we are blessed to have those awesome all night starting at midnight types of storms, Portos had a slipped disc that subsequently ruptured and has been through two surgeries and has been in residence at the ER vet since last Sunday (cha ching!$$!) and we are supposed to be leaving for Argentina in four days.

Last Friday Peef and Wally had their annual check up, in the morning Portos was whining and didn't eat his breakfast so I just thought he was being dramatic as we were waiting for his check up.

 He got some good drugs and vet said she thought a slipped disc so we went home.  Wally is same old same old, got a vaccine, tried to kill the vet, came home.  As we were waiting for Martin to get home I noticed that the baby felt really hot, took his temp and he was at 102.  I called to ensure my husband was near by because a sick dog and sick baby at the same time was a bit stressful, so just as Martin pulled in the driveway Mino showered the livingroom with his stomach contents.

 So we nursed a baby and a dog back to health (or so we thought) 

 On Sunday Mino was posing showing me how he gracefully goes from a sit to a stand.

 Then poor Portos' pain returned and we had to bring him to Emergency Vet because of course it was Sunday night.  Lots of tests and a CT scan and surgery later to clean out the debris from a ruptured disc.

 Otis meanwhile was terrified to leave the bedroom to come out to the livingroom as it is a very scary hallway.  Going in is no problem, but it takes two of us and lifting his back legs to get him out every morning.

 Otis and Mino have been bonding and Otis gave Mino this very fashionable hairdo with a precise lick to the front of the hair.  Just like a cow I suppose.

 So all week we have gone after work to visit poor Peef and have gotten calls at 9 am on his status over night.  The poor guy wasn't doing much better after his surgery (which of course had to be complicated in that the rupture went out the back rather than the front so the had to access through his back muscles rather than his neck) so the call was made to take another CT and see what is going on, why is he still just laying there and still yelping in pain.  It showed that he had new material, out the back again, that was probably impinging on the nerves and spine causing pain, so he went back under the knife and had it cleaned out. 

 We sat through his surgery and got to see him on his second Post Op all drugged up which was kinda funny and at least he was kind of moving.  Now we are on a wait and see with him.
Meanwhile Benjamin has been torturing poor Otis who takes it surprisingly well and has yet to show any kind of annoyance to the hands full of fur that Mino has been retrieving.

 And Mino, while he likes to look all innocent, has found a new favorite past time. . .

 Pounding on daddy's gaming consoles and pulling all the DVDs off the entertainment center.  Little munchkin.

We'll keep posted on Portos.