A few weeks ago we took a family trip to Pensacola Beach. Last year we drove to Pensacola; six hours to New Iberia, LA spending the night at Carl's Mom's and then six hours to the beach. Then the same thing on the way home. The drive was too much for me. I wanted to go to the beach again this year so I talked Carl into flying with the twins.
I have never had the courage or energy to try to pack up the twins and fly with them until now. I know several other twin Moms who have flown a ton with their twins and they had great advice.
The first tip was simply to have lots of snacks. Since we usually take a bag of snacks whenever we run errands with the twins this was pretty easy. I kept their water bottles empty through security and filled them up at a fountain once we got to our gate. They were a little more interested in the novelty of some of GiGi's snacks versus the boring ones I brought, but no one went hungry.
We have ipods for the kids to play games and watch movies, but one Mom reminded me that you have to turn them off for take-off and landing. Where this becomes a problem is if you let them play with them while waiting to board and then try to take them away and shut them down for take-off. Her recommendation was coloring and a quiz game you play together called Brain Quest. This was awesome advice. The game is compact and the kids loved it, especially Connor.
Overall the twins were amazing on the flights. Although it's expensive to get the whole family in the air it is so much better than driving.
The one big drawback is packing. I need to work on packing less and carrying it on. It is so painful to pay for a checked bag.
If we can make it work in the budget, we'll definitely make flying part of our travel routine. For the kids it's all part of the vacation adventure.
We adopted our newest family member, Piper, a little less than a year ago from Take Me Home Pet Rescue. She was born in January of 2012 but didn't come to live with our family until last Halloween.
On Monday night we noticed Piper wasn't interested in her food. Tuesday morning she still wasn't interested in food and she seemed really lethargic. That morning Piper rode with me to drop off the kids at school so I could then take her to the vet.
The twins were really concerned about Piper being sick and interested in what the puppy doctor would do to help her. They wanted to go with me to take Piper to the vet, but I convinced them I'd take a picture for them instead.
Since Piper is our little rascal and chews on everything, we thought she might have eaten a toy. Either that, or perhaps she'd gotten too much people food at the twins' Pirate birthday party the previous Saturday. The X-ray didn't turn up anything so I brought Piper home with an antibiotic and instructions to keep an eye on her.
We watched Piper carefully that Tuesday evening. I showed the kids the picture of the puppy doctor and they were not impressed since they took me literally and thought there would be a "puppy" doctor. Honestly, I'd be disappointed if I'd expected a dog with a stethoscope checking Piper too.
The next morning Piper was still not eating and not herself, so we took her back to vet and started to get nervous. They discovered she was anemic, which means she has a reduced number of red blood cells (normal is 40% packed cell volume and Piper was at 20% PCV) Anemia for Piper is the result of some other disease process that we've being trying to figure out.
For the rest of the week she spent the days at East Dallas Veterinary Clinic for drug therapy and tests and then would come home to be with us in the evening. A fecal exam and blood parasites tests were negative. I really thought she'd eaten something crazy at the birthday party but a pancreatic test came back negative. We're still not sure what's causing the anemia.
For the weekend we had to move her to the Animal Diagnostic Clinic which is more of an animal hospital. She's had a blood transfusion which made her feel much better, but it's only a short-term fix. We still need to find out what's causing the anemia and how to treat it.
The kids understand Piper is sick and at the doctor. At this point they seem fine. For Carl and I it's causing a bit more of depression.
We hope to learn more soon and that it is something we can treat.
I cannot thank the folks at East Dallas Veterinary Clinic enough. They have been so amazing and caring, I'm so glad they've been our partner in this process.
