The Saturday 7

1. Last week my kids were playing in the sprinkler and I was opening windows at night to keep my house temp under 80 so I wouldn't have to turn on the air. By Monday, it was snowing when I had to do recess duty. Oh Michigan.

It was a very wet snow, and I got drenched.

At least I was stylin' on the playground. Lol.

All four seasons in one week!

2. I've been thinking about creating a "summer reading" list for some of my library classes now that the school year is winding down. I know there are other parents out there like me who want someone to vet recent children's books for appropriate content. It's getting harder and harder to find middle grade novels that don't have any sneaky agenda in them, and it's a lot of work to pre-read everything. So I ordered a whole bunch of books from the public library this week and have been plowing through them. I found a couple that I loved and a couple duds.

My favorite was Adventures with Waffles by Maria Parr.

I started this one on audiobook about a year ago, but got distracted and never picked it back up. I'm so glad I finally got a physical copy to read. It was delightful - fun and silly (I was literally laughing out loud, which never happens), but then it got serious and was done so well. This is my Goodreads review if you want to see my "content considerations." I don't think they're bad enough to take away from the book, but if you're especially cautious you might want to be aware of them.

Another one I really enjoyed was The Faithful Spy: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Plot to Kill Hitler by John Hendrix.

It's a graphic novel-esque version of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's story, geared toward middle schoolers. I love children's books about history because it dumbs it down a little for me. World War 2 is such a massively complex historical period, but this book distilled it down to the important facts that impacted Bonhoeffer. I knew a little bit about him, but learned so much more. I was also fascinated by the details about Hitler and the distrust of his own inner circle. It was flabbergasting to read about how many assassination plots failed to kill him. This book was really well done and I zipped through it over the course of one evening. This was one of my favorite quotes:

I also read Stolen Girl by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch, which was good. Ali Cross by James Patterson was OK. Mr. Penguin and the Lost Treasure by Alex T. Smith was OK. Hotel Flamingo by Alex Milway was OK. And I didn't really like Prairie Lotus by Linda Sue Park. It got really good reviews, but it was a little too woke for me. I started a new Goodreads account specifically for children's books if you'd like to follow me for more of my reviews and content consideration warnings.

3. Levi is playing soccer again this spring. It's his third season, and today was his first game. I told him that if he scored, we could have McDonald's for lunch, so he played pretty hard. But he didn't score. And then he was mad when I wouldn't get McDonald's. He said, "I tried my best. Shouldn't I get McDonald's for that?" and I had to remind him that I'm not that kind of parent. Lol. Sorry kid. There's always next week!

4. Ok, now for the story of the week . . .

On Friday morning, in the wee hours of the morning we heard a loud crash. I nudged Justin and mumbled, "what was that?" He said, "Stella knocked something down" and we went back to sleep. He got up an hour before I did and Stella was acting like her normal self. When I got up, she was in my bedroom attacking her own tail. I remember saying, "It's your own tail, dummy" and stepping over her to go upstairs. When I got up there, though, I realized I forgot to grab Levi pants, so I went right back downstairs to get some out of the dryer. When I turned around, Stella was standing in the hall between my room and the laundry room . . . and there was blood e.v.e.r.y.w.h.e.r.e. I'd love to see a video of my reaction because I was so confused. I knew it had to be coming from her, but I was so disoriented that I just immediately started cleaning it up without inspecting her. Fortunately she stayed close to me while I cleaned. When I was done, I picked her up and finally realized it was coming from her tail - the tip was almost completely severed off and bleeding profusely. It was 7:15 (we leave for school at 7:30), Levi wasn't dressed, Lena was still asleep, and I hadn't even brushed my teeth yet. So I locked her in the laundry room and frantically finished getting everyone ready. The whole drive to school, I had a pit in my stomach imagining the mess I'd have to encounter in the laundry room when I got home - not to mention wondering what the heck was wrong with her and what I was going to do about it!

I got home just before 8:00 and this is what I opened the laundry room door to see . . . (it's mildly graphic - watch at your own risk)

I eventually got smart, wrapped Stella in a towel, and put her in her carrier so she wouldn't keep bleeding all over the house. Then I called the animal clinic closest to my house while I started scrubbing the laundry room. They sent me to voicemail, but I was still scrubbing 20 minutes later when they called me back and said they wouldn't take her. So then I called the animal hospital a little farther away and they told me to bring her in. I abandoned my scrubbing to drive her in.

She hates the car.

The whole animal hospital experience was weird. Immediately, when I described the tail situation, the tech who answered the phone said, "We can get her in for surgery later today." And when I dropped her off they said, "The doctor is busy today, but we'll get the bleeding under control, give her pain meds, and then call you after the surgery." It never crossed my mind to ask if there were other options. They seemed so sure that surgery was inevitable. And I was so flustered and overwhelmed that I just let them do it. 🤦🤦🤦 Maybe there really weren't any other options, but I kind of expected them to at least give me the option of stitching her up and sending her home. No such luck. They finally called around 5:30 pm to tell me she made it through surgery and I could pick her up the next day. At this point, I was beginning to panic about what it would cost, so I asked if I could pick her up early and avoid an overnight stay fee. They said it's protocol to keep any animal overnight and is part of the surgery fee. She insisted that I wouldn't save any money by picking her up early, so I figured I might as well get my money's worth and let her stay the night!

I picked her up this morning, paid an unconscionable amount of money, and brought her home with meds, a cone of shame, and a ridiculous looking tail bandage (they amputated the broken part of her tail).

She wriggled out of the cone almost immediately, but she's leaving her bandage alone, so I'm not going to fight that battle.

I never imagined I'd be the kind of person who would pay for a stray cat to have her broken tail amputated, but here I am, albeit unwillingly.

Oh, and for the curious minds, it took me another 40 minutes to finish scrubbing the laundry room after I finally got home after dropping her off yesterday. All I can say is thank goodness that I noticed the blood right away and she didn't wander through the whole house bleeding all over everything. The best we can guess is that she pulled the blinds down on herself early in the morning (the crash we heard) and injured her tail. It wasn't bleeding when Justin got up at 6, but when I saw her attacking her tail at 7, she must have bit through enough that it started bleeding. What a fiasco.

5. That's all I've got today. And only a few memes . . .