Here's a few photos from the week so far.

Jack is helping me with chores.  Besides clearing his dishes, he can load laundry and dust furniture.



Yarrrrrrgh


We met up with story-time friends at a park today


Who then came over for lunch.  Hazel and Jack had animated conversations about butts and pee.


After dinner we went to Sweet Action (mmmmm, lemon basil).  This is the face I endured while eating my waffle cone:


Who can resist sharing with that??

Our cat Molly has led me on a mystery this past month.  I started finding blood spots on my bed sheets.  Then I tied the blood to the cat when it started showing up in other favorite spots of hers.  The blood got worse, smears on the stairs, drips across the floor.  But in every other way she was perfectly normal.  Happy, diet and elimination all normal.  No signs of illness, no visible wounds.  It always appeared in the morning, so I never caught her bleeding.  A complete mystery.

I suspected a UTI.  Instead of taking her to the vet right away, since she seemed ok, we switched up her diet and gave her supplements.  After a week it hadn't improved.  I also noticed the blood was whole, not diluted like you would expect with a UTI (and I would know - I've cleaned up a LOT of blood in my old line of work ;-) 

I begrudgingly took her to the vet.  Everything checked out normal again.  The vet was stumped.  When the urinalysis came back normal she said without more data, all we can assume is that she had a UTI that she cleared up, assisted by our diet changes.  She gave me a plan for if we wanted to search further, but I didn't feel like it was worth the expense (I just spent $101 for a check-up and UA that was all within normal limits, felt like a waste of money).

The blood stopped after that.  I hoped she was better.  I suspected it was a nosebleed, after talking with Andy, because that fit the pattern and explained the lack of wound.  Then last week I heard Molly yowl up on my bed.  She ran downstairs and licked her tail furiously on the stairs.  Then she flopped in front of Jem, showing off her belly, then casually settled on the couch under the window.  When I got up I found these and many other spots:

I called Ben over and we examined her.  The tip of her tail was totally bloody!  I called the vet and she was relieved to know we discovered the source of bleeding.  She recommended some bitter apple spray and agreed after our discussion that it's probably due to stress.

After further research online, here's what I deduced:  Molly has feline hyperesthesia syndrome, or FHS.  It's a somewhat rare illness, sometimes called skin rolling disease.  The cat has extra-sensative skin that twitches.  It can be worsened by stress.  The cats react by licking, running away, biting, and scratching the skin.  Here's a video of another cat with it.

Molly has always had twitchiness like shown in these videos.  She licks herself when it happens and sometimes scratches.  The last 6 months she has been chasing her tail more often, and sometimes getting angry at it.   She definitely does the running away suddenly thing too.  I always thought it was general cat weirdness.  I mean, come on, cats do really weird things.  But Amanda said her cat never does anything twitchy like that, and I don't remember Scruffy being that way. 

FHS often manifests in older cats (check), cats fed exclusively dry food (check), and in response to stress (check).  For that last one, the first blood appeared after I hosted a big party and we did some furniture rearranging.  Things calmed down.  This last bloody episode happened right after we had some more visitors, and we had a stair railing installed. 

It sounds like they don't know a lot about FHS, but they think it's either an OCD type behavior in response to "neural-dermatitis" or it's a form of epilepsy.  The treatment ranges from playing with your cat, keeping a regular schedule, and adding wet food, to medicating with phenobarbital, gabapentin, and SSRIs.  Uhhhh, we are starting with the easy treatment.  She doesn't seem as bad as some videos online.  We are adding wet food, and if we anticipate visitors or house changes we can spray her with bitter apple to prevent biting.  Like when we paint the house in a couple weeks.

Poor kitty.  I hope she gets better.  She's had this behavior for years as far as I can remember.  In fact, for several years when we first got her she had bloody scabs on her head from scratching her ears.  I wonder if it was the same issue.

What a fun weekend it has been!  Friday we got to play at April's house with Ella, Charlotte, and their friend Nicolas.  I had a great time catching up with April and Jack was in heaven playing with other kids. 

That night Neil gave us a ring because his wife was out, leaving him with their girl McKayla, and he was in our neighborhood.  Of course we invited him over to watch Frozen and eat pizza with us.  Sam got a tray of spaghetti and he was soooo happy.


After the kids were in bed Amanda came over and we finally watched the second episode of Sherlock from the last season.  Oh man, it was so good.  I'm in love with that show.  This episode was really sharp too.  I can't wait to rewatch it after I finish the season.

Saturday I escaped to Zumba for an hour, then ran errands with the family.  After quiet time we picked up Indian take-out and trekked up to the Arcands house in Conifer.  Erin and Steve are our friends with two kids our age. 

Here's Sam and Henry.


And buddies Nora and Jack. 


Oh my word, these two get along so well.  Every time we get together, Erin and I remark that we need to do it more often.  These two are so well matched for play.  They are absolutely adorable to watch play act with their toys and crack jokes all through dinner. 



In the above they were watching Tangled together.  Right then Nora put her hand to Jack's ear and stage whispered "I love you, Jack."  He turned and smiled "I love you too."  Erin and I about died.


Tomorrow we get to watch Wolfie for a few hours, so the playdates continue!  I'm looking forward to a laid back day since it's General Conference weekend.  Plus Ben said I could sleep in tomorrow - woot!

Another round of classes has started for Jack.  After drama he did short session of Messy Art Class again.  Now he's on to Tumbling.  Next week he also has Wee School - sort of a faux preschool class for a couple hours once a week.  I had a request for tumbling pictures, even though I don't think they turned out that good.

It was a lot of running around.  They did some opening exercises very similar to his dance class - circling up and stretching and moving in different styles.  Then the split into smaller groups and worked on the equipment. 




 

Sam was fascinated the whole time. 


At the end of class they each got to run down the trampoline strip into the foam pit. 




I love the tension in this group of kids waiting their turn.  Look how fast Jack pops up.  They were all wound up springs ready to pounce.

He LOVED tumbling and said over and over that he didn't want to leave.  Later during quiet time I found this:



The sign of a good day.

Hmm, what to say? I just have a cute video and photos to share, but I feel like I need to have some substance.  We had a fun weekend with family.  Jack has discovered Pokemon and I'm scared.  Sam is a teething monster.  I've hardly had any sleep the last few nights because he wakes up nearly every hour.  We got a stair railing installed and I LOVE it!  It was one of the first big improvements we knew we needed to make on the house.  It's much safer now and it looks good too.  Next up?  Paint the walls!

Anyway, here's the good stuff:

I'm a little embarrassed how much I like Frozen.  We bought the movie download on Friday and it's been on whenever Jack is allowed to have a TV on.  I'm not sick of it yet. 

It's not perfect - the plot has a lot of holes, the trolls look like early 90s cartoon characters, and it's obviously geared for a Broadway adaptation.

But there's a lot of goodness about it:

• The feminist slant on saving yourself without a man
• The first true love being false
• Josh Gad
• Broadway singer casting all around
• The costumes
• The rosemaling
• Oaken's trading post
• Let It Go (I know, I know)
• The snowy clothing animation
• Jack quoting it
• Jack singing the love songs
• Jack asking me to make heart hands 

And now a new reason to love Frozen.  He asked me if we have carrots so we could eat them like Kristoff and Sven.  Egad, really?  He's gagged on carrots when I offered them in the past. 




Jack has eaten seven baby carrots by the writing of this entry.  Yay, Disney!

You know I'm a cold weather gal, but kids are changing my tune.  Between all the sickness this winter and the NOISE OH MY GOSH THE NOISE GET OUT OF MY HOUSE I'm excited for the season change.

Jack earned this Spider-Man bubbler by sticker chart, with the final sticker this morning. 


I got flowers at the store to celebrate.  Also, I told Jack we should make a Spring Cake.  A Spring Cake is just a regular cake, made on the first day of Spring.  This might have to become a tradition, like my first-snow-waffle making.  Seasonal baking FTW!



We made the cake from scratch but I drew the line at homemade frosting.  Sam was not in a patient mood today. 





One of the few moments he wasn't in tears today.


Fork?  Ain't nobody got time for that!