Possums!

The other night I went downstairs to feed the cats and heard this awful scratching noise coming from the other end of the storage area. I went and turned on the lights and looked around to see what was making the noise (my first thought was it was one of the cats scratching on a cardboard box). Instead, there was a possum going crazy trying to get out of the window well!

I told Aaron about it and he said just wait till morning and then call animal control to come get it out. So come morning I look on the internet to find the number for animal control and what I find is that I need to call the local animal shelter; that they do animal control for domestic and native animals in the area. I try giving them a call only to find that they don't open till 11:00 am.

Meanwhile, I go downstairs to check on the possum and see that it has left bloody scratches on the inside of the window well and our window. Quentin came down with me and he ran over by the other window well we have, and glancing out I find that there is a possum in that window well too! How crazy is that!

Once it was 11 I tried calling the shelter again and the woman I talked with said I needed a different number since they only delt with domestic animals. I then call the number she gave me and the woman I talked with there said she doesn't come get animals; she does rehabilitation for animals. So helpful!

In any case she suggested I put a broom or something of that nature down in the window well to let the possums crawl out on their own. Let me tell you, brooms don't work! The only other thing we had that was long enough was an aluminum ladder, which apparently possums will climb up. So we are minus one possum and hopefully tonight the other will take its leave as well.

What I've learned from this is that animal control in Osky for wild animals is apparently non-existant and the person they put you in touch with obviously does not know what she is talking about. Yes, the possums need something to help them climb out, but a broom isn't going to work! The other thing I learned is that we need to get those window well covers we've discussed getting sooner rather than later!

Child Health Specialty Clinic

The other week I finally heard back from the Child Health Specialty Clinic in Ottumwa. The woman I talked with wanted to know if I had any questions regarding what the nutritionist wanted us to do for Q. I told her we hadn't heard back from the nutritionist yet. She told me the info was sent to Q's doctor, but since I hadn't talked with the nutritionist, she would go over it with me now if I wanted. Of course I wanted to hear what we should do! So she tells me - have him drink whole milk (we're working on that), add extra butter to things for him (doing it already), give him fruits and vegetables with more fat in them (there are fatening fruits and vegetables?) and keep giving him 5-6 meals a day. Wow! How helpful was that?!? Everything Q's doctor had already discussed with us and that we've been working on with him. They also want to see him back in 3 months. My question is why should I do anything else with them when they haven't done anything different than his doctor has? It's about 30 min to get there, we were there for about an hour, took time to eat lunch and then 30 min back. So about 2 1/2 hours of my day ended up being wasted since I got nothing new out of it. I'm so disappointed about the whole thing and am not looking for a repeat thank you very much!

Potty Training!

A couple of days ago I went to change a poopy diaper of Quentins and noticed he looked like he needed to pee, so I put him on his training toilet and sure enough he went! I put him on his toilet two more times that same day and he went again! He's gone two more time since, one of which he actually told me that he had to go before we put him on the toilet. I'm so proud of him!

We Made It!!!

Quentin had another weight checkup this past week. Things went really well; he had gained almost 1 lb in the 4 weeks since our previous check. He is now 21 lbs. 12.2 oz. The best part is that he is no longer below the 3%! He made it back onto the charts and is in the 3%-5% for his age! I'm so happy about that, you can't even imagine! (Well, I'm sure Julie could)
We also had his iron and hemoglobin levels rechecked to see if there was any improvement. His iron is up, but the hemoglobin was down a little bit. The doc is wanting us to continue giving him Fer-in-sol (iron) and Poly-vi-sol with iron (vitamin suppliment with iron) plus give him iron fortified cereal at least once a day, but twice would be better.
In other news, the doc talked with the people we met with the other month down in Ottumwa at the Health Clinic. We still haven't heard back from the nutritionist, but I guess they've been restructuring and will be getting back to us soon. Hopefully we will be talking with them again in Sept. and finally get our feedback. I'm sure they will be pleased to know that Q now is really only interested in eating fruit (berries preferred), broccoli, cheese, cheerios, bread, pasta, and rice. And that's about it. Mealtimes are quite difficult needless to say.
Overall though things seem to be looking up. I just hope they continue!

First Kiss

Over the weekend we had friends from college come and visit since we hadn't seen each other in about 4 years (for most of them). Kevin and Maureen have an adorable little girl Madeline who is 2 years old. She and Q seemed to get along pretty well and Sat. night they kissed! It was so cute! I wish we had gotten a picture of it.

Pictures

Kissing

Quentin has learned how to kiss! He's really gotten into it lately, giving kisses to his toys and having me kiss the toys too. He also gives me kisses, just not that often. Today he was giving Harvest kisses. Harvest didn't seem overly thrilled by it, but I thought it was way too cute!