October-Let the Holidays Begin!

I can't believe it's the end of October already! The start of the Holiday Season for us.  And Halloween is definitely a holiday for us.  In years past, we have had Halloween parties for the kids and the neighborhood and anyone else that came straggling in.  But this year there was the move.  Chewlie.  Building.  And life in general.  Sometimes it seems like the world is spinning faster everyday.  And I don't like scarey, horror film Halloween (that would make me a Halloweenie!) but cute, fun, lets dress up Halloween.  I like ghost stories and Rip Van Winkle, Sleepy Hollow and the Headless Horseman but not all the Zombie stuff and the blood and gore and crap.  I think that stuff gets a little ridiculous.  But the good old fashioned scarecrow on the front porch stuff; now that I like!  I can't do scary movies-at all!! But, my favoritist scary movie ever is the Blair Witch Project!  Lol!! Most hard core Halloween people scoff at my choice, but I'm just sayin'...in fact, I think this year, I may let John and Presley watch it!

So, this time last week, our dog, Chewlie died.  It was in the middle of the afternoon.  David had told the kids before school to go out and spend time with her because we kn ew she wouldn't last much longer.  She didn't. We had to have her euthanized, but it was time.  She was in pain. It upset the kids pretty good; in some ways more John and Addy, then Presley.  Partly I think it's because they have experienced so much loss in life as it is.  But Presley cried too and she was upset and kept praying for her even after she was gone. 
The next morning, Addy told David that Chewlie was already in trouble in Heaven, "cuz she done chewed up Jesus' shoes!!"  Then Addy sang a little song, "Chewlie I miss you.  Please remember me.  Chewlie I love you." You get the idea-from a 4 year old!  RIP Chewlie!

The kids are liking our new home.  They didn't have to change schools or anything, so about the only thing that changed was their bedrooms!  I still don't have everything retrieved from our Philpott Builders Warehouse, but I have most the essential stuff.  Presley and John are liking that our neighborhood is backed up to about 26 acres that the developer owns and they play back there.  They have built a "deer stand" and there's a pond where John "almost caught an 8 pound bass!"  A couple of John's football buddies live over here.  Presley still hasn't met any little girls her age, but I'm sure she will.  She's still too young to just go down the road to where she does have some friends, about a mile or two away. 

Harding University's Homecoming is this weekend and we'll be there!  Friday night we are attending the musical, Annie. David has donated materials and tools to the Theater Department, so they thanked us by giving our family tickets to Friday night's show!!  We are so excited and Christine Walker from Searcy Living is going to be taking more pictures of our family again! And the kids hope to get to go backstage and meet some of the actors and producers and directors, etc. We're all looking forward to it. 

Then Saturday, Presley is attending a Christian Retreat and will be camping the rest of the weekend.  Monday, Halloween, we will be at the Halloween on the Square and Philpott Builders will have a booth giving away free candy to all the kids!  I have no idea what John's going to dress up as.  Presley is a Fairy and Addy wants to be a cowgirl.  My girls will be cute! Anyways, then we'll be home handing out candy.  That will conclude that holiday!

One more thing before I go....I just finished The Help by Kathyn Stockett.  It was a very good book and I highly recommend it.  Out of 10, I'd give it an 8.  I'm starting my new read tonite, Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen. I'll let ya know how that turns out. 

Thanks for all the prayers for our dog and family.  Thanks for reading!  Happy Halloween!!

Lola Philpott

Update on Chewlie and more....

This past week has been very Philpottish...in other words: BUSY! 

We ended last week by having Christine Walker, the Owner and Editor of Searcy Living Magazine come take our families picture.  With Chewlie being sick, we wanted her (Chewlie, not Christine) in the family picture this year.  We weren't sure if she could walk to where we wanted to take the pictures and Christine (the animal lover that she is) was going to bring a wagon for Chewlie to ride in, but it turned out, Friday wasn't a bad day for Chewlie.  She walked around our neighborhood with us and only assisted with a leash.  Afterall, the last thing she needs is to get hit by a car! So we tok our time and had to stop often, and Christine was so patient and so was Chewlie.  We managed to capture some great memories the camera.  

David had a really good week.  He completed his first MBA class block at Harding and found out he made an A!!  Not only is that freakin' awesome; let me tell you something, that is a wonderful feat for a kid who had ADD and Dyslexia (and still does) in school and was told he would never even graduate from high school!  He has worked his butt off...and yes, I help him an awful lot, but the bottom line is David and hard work-which are also Philpott traits!  I'm very proud of him and I know the kids are too.

Speaking of grades, let me also brag about Presley.  She has been struggling academically, and not really because she couldn't perform, but because she refused.  I guess you could say she just didn't see the importance of turning assignments in.  After a meeting (intervention) with a couple of her teachers, her grandmother (David's Mom), a come-to-Jesus meeting with Mama and Daddy and a talk with my best friend and someone she looks up too so much, "Miss Stormy" not only has her attitude changed but also her grades!  She now has a B in English and has raised her Social Studies grade to a D and I think even it can become a B or better!!  We challenged her and bribed her with a toy for her American Girl Doll and it worked.  She improved so much and now I think she is back on track!  We're going to do the same thing for next week; there's another toy she wants for her AG doll and after a couple weeks of weekly goals, we'll move to bi-weekly and so on.  It's working because tonite she came home and got right to her homework and studying and really didn't pitch much of a fit.  Thank goodness!     

I enjoyed my 2 days off from the Police Department, for sure.  I always do!  Went with Presley's class to the Municiple Airport and got watch her class (and about 325 other 5th graders) fly their model gliders they made and also she got to ride in a small Cessna!  Presley was so funny...I watched her make friends with a new student (?) that didn't speak any English and Presley insisted they were amiga's and ride in the same plane together! It was awesome to see her heart open up to someone else-truly a Christian spirit!  Even though I had to leave a little early to go work on Philpott Builder issues, it was fun being with her!  

Also, last week was my last official meeting as the President of the White County Foster Parents Association.  I resigned and we voted on new leaders.  I served two years and feel like we had a good run of it.  I did my best and I pray I made a difference.  I sure gave it my all.  I had lots of good help, including the previous President, Dr.  Penny McGlawn (who I now consider a friend), Lucy Stewart, Kim Smith and Andrea Boozer, DHS employees and of course our network of foster families in White County, The Mallonee's, The Moellers, the Shepperds, the Baines, Miss Lanelle for sure, and I'm sure I forgot some to mention here, but we realy have such an awesome group in our county!  Wow!  It made my job so much easier!  Shawn Moeller is the new President, Chasity Moeller is the Treasurer and Miss Nancy Malonee is the Secretery.  And David, what a support system David was.  He was like my cheerleader.  Attending the meetings and telling me what I did good, better and best.  It all really encouraged my spirit.  But now, I am so happy to spend my time and focus on my family and their needs. We may even slow down on fostering-at least till we build our new house and move in-in about a year. 

So, back to Chewlie, cuz a lot of people ask me how she's doing.  And here's the deal.  We chose to bring her home and let her finish up her meds and see what happens.  We are not going to biopsy anything because the Dr seems pretty certain it could be cancer.  Regardless of the "what it is" we know that she doesn't feel very good and she is still bleeding.  He says she won't bleed to death, but when she begins to be in pain or when she is no longer eating and drinking, then our next obvious option is putting her to sleep.  The kids are spending as much time as possible with her and we're keeping her comfortable.  She has quit eating her dog food for the most part and only eats the hot dogs I hide her meds in.  She's losing weight.  But we still have hope.  We're still praying.  Poor dog.  I really wish there was something more we could do, but truly, there is not.  I don't want her to be in pain but we don't want to put her down just yet either. 

Hope y'all have a good weekend!  Thanks for reading...

                                                                                         

Life Transitions: a Move and a Dog

This is Chewlie, our 8 year old registered Lab.  We got Chewlie for Christmas for our family, the year we moved back to Searcy from Fayetteville, Ar.  She was a pup, just barely 8 weeks old.  She has romped and played with more than 20 foster kids, nieces, nephews, neighbor kids.  She was "married" to Harley Buie, a registered Chocolate Lab when she was a couple years old.  They had, like 13 pups in one litter together one summer!  We should have kept one of the pups.  Presley particularly loved a little fat chocolate one she called Tubby! 
Chewlie has heard our kids secrets. "Our" kids as well as foster kids.  I've seen foster kids cry while hanging on to Chewlie's neck; cry for parental visits that didn't happen or didn't go as planned.  Sob into her thick fir and tell Chewlie they were angry that "Mom showed up high!"  Or in anger, ask her, "why me?!"  And some little ones just pet her and squeal with delight! And she reminds almost every kid of a dog they "used to have."
This past weekend we finally moved to our new house.  She moved with us on Friday.  Saturday morning, early, while she was in the garage, we noticed a tremendous amount of bleeding coming from her rectal area.  I knew I had to take her to the vet immediately.  We put her in our vehicle and hurried down Beebe Capps to Dr Hoffman's Westside Vet Clinic.  He wasn't really open for another 30 minutes, but he pulled up the same time we did.  And when I explained Chewlie's problem, he urged us to quickly bring her in. 
After an examination, he put her on fluids and he came to 2 likely conclusions: either a severe infection or rectal cancer!  The only way to know for sure is to take a sample from the polyps he felt inside during an exam, and send them for biopsy.  Besides the cost, there is also the cost of treatment and then of course, the chance that the treatment might not even work.  After much prayer (yes for a dog!), on Monday we opted to bring her home and finish her medication and see where we end up.  We purchased her a dog bed and the yummiest looking dog snacks and set her up under our back, covered porch.  We still don't know for sure if it's cancer or not and we may never know.  Dr Hoffman said he feel lots of polyps, and she is going to probably continue to bleed, but not bleed to death.  So now, we have an old dog we're trying to love and keep as comfortable as possible.  It seems, just like human cancer patients, she has good days and bad days.  On her bad days, she can hardly get up and we place her food and water right next to her bed.  Dr Hoffman says as long as she is eating and drinking ok and is not in too much pain, she'll be ok.  She did have a really good day yesterday though!  John went out to feed her in the morning and she was actually rolling around and acting like she was feeling pretty good.  I walked her down the block and she seemed to enjoy that too.  Today was kind of in between.  She's not exactly laying around, but she's no hyper Lab either.  This ole dog has been so good and faithful.  She's never barked or growled at us or the kids, save for the night David came up to our house from the back and surprised her. She liked to tear him up till he called her name and she recognized his voice!  We laughed about it then! 

Chewlie's registered name is Rich Chocolaty Chewey.  We were going to call her Chewey, but for some reasons Presley kept adding an "L."  She was there, looking on with interest when Addy came to us as a sick little baby.  She was excited when John came as a 10 year old boy-every Lab's dream! 
We can't know how much longer she has with us.  We are planning a family picture tomorrow and she will be in it!!  We love her and hope and pray God can work a little doggie miracle for this ole yellow Lab that has been so good to us! Perhaps she can be around awhile longer. And if not, well, maybe it's true, All Dogs Go To Heaven!