The Ratties are now home!

The kids and I sprang the Rat Brothers out of the slammer yesterday! We were all excited to be part of this rescue mission, and (being that it happens so rarely) the folks at the Humane Society were practically giddy to have a pair of small animals being adopted.

The Boys came to the shelter without names, and the staff there began calling them "Billy" and "Daniel". As these are N's new babies, she decided to rename one of them - we now have "Billy" and "Tommy"! (for our friends in soCal, yes, they were named after our buddies down there). These are pictures of Tommy...


Billy and Tommy are both albino rats, and kind of hard to tell apart. Billy is a little bit bigger, and has some slight rusty coloring on his sides (although I'm not so sure that wouldn't just wash away if we bathed him, LOL!). They have a complimentary exam scheduled with a local small animal vet on Monday, as part of the post-adoption process. They eat rat blocks, and an assortment of fresh veggies (so far they've had fresh broccoli leaves and leaf lettuce from our garden, and organic apple slices). N. thinks that people should know that they are really good lap pets, and enjoy being scratched behind their ears and under their chin.

Yesterday was the last day of the first session of swimming lessons. YAY! They have next week off, and then go back for a second session with a new teacher. In spite of my disdain for the teaching methods the current instructor has used, I have to admit she's gotten great results. N. is down to half a float, which is more of a security blanket than anything else (she started with two floats at the beginning of the session). She is now eagerly jumping into the pool (compared with two weeks ago when we could barely pry her off the edge), and can swim the length of the practice pool using a sloppy crawl stroke, or a modified back stroke, and is working on the leg work for the breast stroke. A. dropped down a float on the front, is jumping in on his own, putting his head under by himself on the swim across the pool, and starting the switch from dog paddle to front crawl. Best of all, they're disappointed to be taking a week off, and are looking forward to the next session of lessons!

Update on my mom: the "thing" in her larynx isn't cancer! But she was just diagnosed with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) yesterday, and is taking the news that she has a lifelong condition which will never improve quite hard. She's fairly young, and this is currently feeling like an awful life sentence for her. The growth in her larynx still needs to be dealt with, but for now the focus is going to be on her respiratory health.