Pestilence, diarrhea, vomiting, and insomnia

Not a nice post title, right?? Well, it does speak the truth. So after our "staycation" we went back to work and then Thursday 11:30pm at night I found an engorged tick on the bathroom floor downstairs. So of course we were concerned and read everything we could...which only made our fears worse! We could barely sleep and had the "creepy crawlies" feeling like every tickle or sensation could be a tick. Also, we were worried about Diego and Natalie.
Diego started having accidents inside on Thursday and of course we thought it was because we got home late. So, Michael went to work and I had carpet cleaners come Friday which showed up at the same time as lawn mowers and spent my morning talking with Pest control and Vet techs regarding ticks.....

Friday night, Michael and I were determined to sleep in the same bed once again, which we have been trying to do since Natalie was 10 weeks old....WOW....with MANY obstacles...some comical and some not so comical. So we tried last night, with once again, a thunderstorm, and Diego shivering next to Michael keeping him up. Michael awakened around 3 am to find multiple soft Diego BMs around our freshly professionally cleaned master bedroom carpet. We knew something might be wrong and Michael had him sleep in the bathroom. We struggled to get back to sleep and Michael tossed and turned so much we both got little sleep. We awakened to more BMs in the bathroom. We scheduled an appointment for Diego with the Vet. Before the appointment we found another tick in our bed! Sigh...Then Diego started vomiting on our freshly cleaned living room carpet and couch. So much for trying to be clean!! Long story short, the ticks could have been from the hike, or from our yard. The Vet thought the ticks were sick from the advantix and unlikely to bite anyone. Diego still had an infected ear, but otherwise looked good with no parasites. The Vet thought he might have colitis or possibly stress-induced IBS. So today I'm tired, but grateful everyone is ok. :)
I do "smell a rat" though and feel that the enemy has been heavily at work against Michael and I sleeping in the same bed!! It is just unreal the list of things that have kept us from it!!
On a "Nat note", she is "cruising", but taking more and more steps. She is so good at crawling that I think she is taking her sweet time. She is talking more and more saying, "more, mom, dada, hello, hi, all done, I love you, dog, baba". Her naps are going ok, but sometimes she only wants to take 1 hr of one of the naps. We just changed her bedtime to 8pm yesterday because we want more time with her and she takes her naps better. She is SO LOVELY! :)

First Day

So, first day of blogging. The Hoods are doing fine. We just finished our first "staycation" which was bittersweet...The "sweet" was time together as a family which was great...the "bitter" was Natalie started off with croup followed by an ER visit and then we were sick for days as well. Lots of lack of sleep and days later and we went on a 30 min hike which resulted in 2 ticks on Michael and one crawling on my forehead at 2am. We rented two movies which were terrible. We planned a trip to the aquarium, which we canceled due to torrential rainfall. We had a bunch of financial dues and events that all came at the same time limiting what we could spend. We did make it to the neighborhood pool for 1 1/2 hrs. We planned another day at the pool and again...torrential rain. We are also in the midst of drainage problems in our back yard...but that is an ongoing saga...It was a nice staycation because we were all spending time together...just wanted a little more recreation! Next stop will be some place tropical!