Animal Week, Day 4: Canine Competitions!

Well, Dog Day has finally arrived! To celebrate it (along with Biscuit's 15-month birthday), he and I played a few "woof-woof" games around the house and then loaded up in the car and visited a local puppy breeder for some hands-on interaction. What follows are the doggy-style championship events we took part in today!

FLYBALL* (Run down to the "flyball box," retrieve the ball and run back to the starting line as fast as possible after seeing mommy demonstrate!)














AGILITY * (Maneuver through an obstacle course with strict attention to your handler - although I wasn't quite sure who was the handler in this event!)























OBEDIENCE* (Tell the good dog to sit, and watch how well he obeys!)

FRISBEE * (See how many times you can catch the disc in your mouth ... or, if you prefer, see how many times you can throw it down the stairs!)
HERDING* (Guide little woollies to their fold and guard them well!)










TRACKING * (See if you can track down the breeds of pups for sale using this poster.)










DOCK DIVING* (On the count of three, everyone jump into the water bowl!)









THERAPY* (Look at this cute face and just TRY to not to feel better!

Goin' on a Squirrel Hunt! (Animal Week, Day 3)

Hi everyone, Biscuit is BACK! He is feeling a lot better today - not 100% yet, but still in much higher spirits and ready to play!!

This morning during breakfast he started barking and looking at something out the window...it was his first squirrel sighting! He was fascinated by its flicking fuzzy tail and it's cccc-ccc-cccalling sounds so we decided to postpone Dog Day until tomorrow and do Squirrel Day today instead :)

So, in honor of one of my favorite childhood rhyme games, "Goin' on a Bear Hunt," we changed things up a little and went on a "squirrel hunt" :) It goes like this...

Goin' on a Squirrel Hunt!
Gonna catch a big one!
I'm not afraid! (I'm not afraid!)

It's a beautiful day
The sun is shining
The birds are singing
The bees are buzzing

What's that up ahead?
A tall, tall tree!
Can't go under it
Can't go over it,
Gotta climb up it!Goin' on a Squirrel Hunt!
Gonna catch a big one!
I'm not afraid! (I'm not afraid!)

What's that up ahead?
A park bench.
Can't go over it,
Can't walk past it,
Let's watch for squirrels on it!

Goin' on a Squirrel Hunt!
Gonna catch a big one!
I'm not afraid! (I'm not afraid!)

What's that up ahead?
Looks like squirrel tracks!
Can't go under 'em,
Can't go through 'em,
Guess we better follow 'em!

Goin' on a Squirrel Hunt!
Gonna catch a big one!
I'm not afraid! (I'm not afraid!)

What's that up ahead?
A tree nut! Squirrel's favorite food.
Can't really bury it,
Can't even eat it,
I think we better hold it!

Goin' on a Squirrel Hunt!
Gonna catch a big one!
I'm not afraid! (I'm not afraid!)

What's that up ahead?
Oh it's a hole...maybe a nest!

I can't see anything.
I can feel something.
I can hear something.
We better turn on our flashlights.
(pretend to turn on flashlight.)

Hey, what is that fuzzy thing!?
Let's take a closer look...
Oh look, it's a SQUIRREL!!
RUN! RUN! RUN!
(We ran all the way to the car and drove as fast as we could to the grocery store...and would you believe who was there waiting for us!? You guessed it!!)
Goin' on a Squirrel Hunt!
I just CAUGHT a big one!
I'm not afraid! (I'm not afraid!)

Well, whatcha gonna do with it?

Can't really keep him.
Can't really talk to him.
I guess I'll let him go!! :)

Still too sick to play :(

Well, our little guy is still pretty way-laid by this latest virus. He has been too zonked to want to play much but even sleeping is hard work when you don't feel good. He wakes up crying and even whimpers in his sleep, which is hard on his mommy and daddy to see. He started off his nap on a pile of pillows and blankets in the living room Friday, but it didn't last long...he ended up cuddling on me for the remainder of his nap. He's getting what appears to be 4 new teeth on top of his throat blisters and sore ear (or whatever is making him walk off-balance) so overall he just wants to stop hurting so he can get back to playtime and being his happy self again. Yesterday we thought he was on the upswing (we gave in and gave him children's Advil which doesn't have corn syrup either and it seemed to help for a while) but today he seems a little worse again. Hopefully the light at the end of the tunnel will be visible soon. Thanks for your prayers for Little Biscuit...we hope to have some more playful news to report in the next couple days!

Germ Day: A Whole 'Nother Animal (plus a little tangent on toddler corn allergies/intolerance)

Beeeeeeeeeeeep!! We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming on animal week (which was going to be Dog Day) to bring you...um...Germ Day?!

Turns out, Biscuit came down with a high fever last night (102.5+) that didn't respond really great to Tylenol so he ended up in his favorite place this morning. The doc said he has viral stomatitis (super-painful blisters in the back of his throat) that will take a week to heal (3 days for the fever to break until which time he's really contagious). Needless to say we didn't do much today besides lay around (it's all we could do after such a sleepless night). What is so weird to me is that this is the second or third time he's had very similar symptoms and whether it's coincidence or what, I donno, but each time he's come down with it has been after accidental exposure to corn products (which we have recently discovered seems to give him headaches, eczema, tantrums etc) or those could just be his body's way of showing us he's coming down with something. But if it's corn...have you noticed that corn syrup is in practically everything known to man? That includes liquid Tylenol and Motrin for children too, so all this time we thought we were helping him with his teeth we might've also been messing with his corn-sensitive system. I don't think his stomatitis is necessarily allergic in nature (there is such a thing) but it makes me wonder if having corn in him sucker-punches his immune system (so to speak) and makes him more susceptable to nasty germies? Guess we'll never know, only try to avoid the stuff as much as possible. In the meantime the doc's office did some research for us and told us about some corn-syrup free pain relievers out there (not necessarily corn-free, but corn-syrup free, which is what seems to really bug him)...in no particular order, they are:

tylenol dye-free liquid
tylenol meltaways
motrin chewables (ibuprofin)

We opted for the meltaways since ibuprofin is associated w/ more adverse reactions generally, even though I think ibuprofin would normally help him more since it's for inflammation. After the tylenols today he took a great nap and his fever seemed much better.

He's still not eating much but crackers so for our big activity today we made "soothie smoothies" ... a mix of his formula, pureed bananas and crushed ice. His favorite part was getting to drink it out of one of mommy's cups with a grown-up straw:

Anyway we hope to get back to animal week when Little Biscuit is a feeling more like himself...stay tuned :D

Duck Tales: Animal Week, Day 2

Biscuit got to feed some ducks at a pond last week and he thought they were loads of fun. But since he'd already done the most obvious duck-related activity, I wondered, waddle we do today on Duck Day - our second day of "animal week" ? But once we got our ducks in a row we came up with a few ideas ... so dive right in and dabble in our plucky diversions!

Sitting ducks










We went to a pick-it-yourself farm today (free to get in) and found some fun duck-shaped gourds there. Biscuit enjoyed checking them out and trying to feed them (and himself) pebbles and pumpkins. He got to pick a little 50-cent pumpkin for a souvenir...hmmm, maybe a duck-o-lantern??






















Band the duck
The general idea is to chase the little "wood duck" all over the place trying to catch him, and when I do, "band" his leg so I can track him by his unique ID number, er, teether. He ran as fast as little "webbly" feet could go but I still got him...apparently he wasn't too traumatized by the ordeal either. In fact, he seems to think he was one lucky duck to get caught!




Dip in the duck pond










Of course there can be no duck day without some form of water play!

Quackers










Biscuit can only have one kind of cracker that we've found so far...the Full Circle brand of organic round snack crackers (like Ritz, but these don't have any milk or corn syrup, neither of which he tolerates well). So needless to say we buy them in bulk when we can and he LOVES them, and we have to break them in small pieces anyway for him ... so we had fun making little duck shapes out of the crackers at snack time today :) Hey, corny (and cornless) as they are, at least they might help break up the monotony of his usual cracker cuisine ;)

Horseplay!

Biscuit has really gotten into animal sounds the past month or so...his favorites are horse, dog, sheep, cow and duck. So in honor of his newest infatuation, our plan is to focus on a different animal each day this week for playtime. Today we set up our dining room as an equestrian arena and enjoyed some equine-inspired toddler activities and games together. So hold your horses...here we go!

Western Events

Saddle Bronc Riding ("Yee-haa, giddy-up, Cowboy Biscuit!")
Bear-rel Racing ("Run, run, run, weave around the bears!")

Steer Roping (Hip-hip-hooray, he caught the hippo, yay!)
Pole-Bending!
("Go, Biscuit, push that toy pinto, or is it a mustang, around the poles!")









English Riding Events

Dressage ('Nuff said!)










Show Jumping (AKA, jumping over pillows to get to his favorite DVDs!)

Toddler Culture Class: Hands-On World Wonders!

This past week or so we've had fun finding teachable moments in the world of play, right under our noses :) Here are a few examples - some of the pics are from our visit the Magic House Children's Museum in St. Louis on Labor Day, and others are just around the house... )

Industrial Wonders

The Panama Canal
The "Eye-Full" Tower ;)

Medieval Wonders

Stonehenge!

Ancient Wonders

The Great Pyramid of Giza

Underwater Wonders

Great Barrier Reef

And of course, my favorite wonder of all...a one-of-a-kind original, created in His image :D