Dear IRS: After the amount of time and money shelled out this week, the dog is officially the third child. Does that mean we can deduct his care-related expenses? Or at least use the HSA account?

What does it mean when your regular vet finds out how much you spent ($1785.34--it honestly doesn't even seem like real money) on emergency surgery for your dog, he doesn't charge you on your next visit to irrigate a now infected incision, give an antibiotic shot, and dress the wound? Besides the fact that I have the best vet on the earth, I think it means your vet feels sorry for you and your Mastercard. Not as sorry as I feel for Sherman. The incision is infected. So on top of recovering from major surgery, he's sick. Ever try to change a dressed abdominal wound on a loopy golden retriever who weighs about 14 lbs less than you? I need a drink.

To get the proper context why I wish I were drunk before noon, I should start at the beginning with my morning yesterday. I intended to drop the dog off at Dad's so I could be parent helper in Cassie's class. Except that my alarm didn't go off. And when I woke up (LATE!) I noticed that Sherman didn't sleep with his weeping wound on the towel I provided to protect the carpet. So my bedroom looked like the scene of a minor homicide. A can of Spot Shot and 20 minutes later, I got ready. We were crazy late and I didn't have time to run by Dad's. I left the dog in the laundry room with his lampshade. The Parent Helper gig went swimmingly until my little princess BIT a kid on the playground. He pushed her first, but still...she BIT HIM! The Mother's Day Tea was nice, but I was honestly still trying to get over my horror at being the mom of a biter. We'll call that the cloud over the tea. When we got home, the laundry room was the site of homicide 2 (much easier to clean that floor). So I called the vet and they wanted to see him.

This time I dropped Cassie off at Dad's and made it to the vet right on time. (Late for human kids, on time for canine kid. Clearly, I'm a mom with my priorities in order. Which may explain why it is the 30 pounder who bites instead of the over-90 pounder...) The vet took one look at the incision, decreed infection and irrigated the wound. It took three of us to hold him down while they did that. And still his tail wagged. Then he gave him an antibiotic shot and dressed the wound. Mostly b/c I complained how gross it was that it wasn't dressed. This morning, as I changed the dressing, I learned why dog wounds aren't usually dressed. Adhesive tape + fur. YOUCH! Being MacGuyver Mom (and out of that cool adhesive tape that sticks to nothing but itself), I ace-bandaged a new dressing on. The incision doesn't look any less infected to me though. I hope I'm wrong. If he ends up septic and I'm out almost 2 grand AND my dog--MacGuyver mom is gonna go postal.

And that's why I'm comptemplating a vodka tonic before noon...although I may settle for shooting the bird in the vent w/an air soft rifle instead...

The Most Expensive Ear of Corn EVER (otherwise known as there is no ear of corn on earth that tastes as good as $1,785.34--therefore we're now a corn-free home)

Right now I'm on the couch in my bathrobe, listening to Cassie play with a pair of toy binoculars and a baby monitor (perhaps she's a secret agent?) and Sherman do this wheezy whine thing. On Saturday afternoon, Jamie's dad came up to look at a piece of farm equipment (I'm not going to try to tell you what is was because I will undoubtably get it wrong). He brought a cooler full of fish and corn. Jamie's local siblings came over and we had a fish fry. I made two delicious apple crisps, we all had a lovely time and all was right with the world.

Sunday I went to church w/Cassie, Jamie went to baseball with Chase. When we got home, I decided to try to take a sick day (HA!) and went upstairs to sit in my chair with my latest crochet project. Sherman followed me. To make a very long story short, he ended up puking. A lot. Multiple times. At one point a chunk of corn cob came up. At that point, my mother's intuition (and let's be real here--this just proves that mamas don't get sick days) was shrieking "BLOCKAGE! Intestinal blockage!" When he refused steak for dinner and puked again, I decided a trip to the doggie ER was in order. Jamie disagreed. I went anyway.

3 days and $1785.34 later, Sherman is recovering from major abdominal surgery. He did have an intestinal blockage (they saved the surgically removed corn cob to show me) and my intuition saved us another $700-1000 in additional surgery costs. It also saved Sherman's life.

Now I know some of you reading this are astounded at the amount of money we shelled out for our dog. I know. I threw up a little in my mouth when I handed over the Mastercard. But when push comes to shove, Shermy is a part of our family. We love him, he loves us and you can't put a price on that.

So my sick day turned into nurse duty. Shermy has 10 pills a day to take until tomorrow, when it drops to 8 pills a day for 10 more days until the staples come out. I've got two more pills to shove down his throat and a shower waiting for me. As for the sick day? Mamas don't get sick days. I should know that by now...