Squirrel Havoc

In an effort to elude the adult male human, the flying squirrel shoved himself into a space behind a half-depth drawer, knocking a water pipe loose. Water starts pouring out onto the kitchen floor and flooding the basement at the same time.

Panicked male human starts screaming about hating the house -- he was furious!. He ran downstairs to turn off every switch imaginable on the water and heat to that end of the house.

He called the plumber, at 7:30 p.m, wondering if he may have a clue where it was coming from. He didn't, so he was here in about 10 minutes. Turns out the squirrel bashed into a pipe that really went to nothing, but the water from upstairs drained to that location. Said plumber removed the pipe since it didn't go to anything and obviously was causing problems.

Earlier in the day, Dave purchased four Have-a-Heart traps to try to catch the critter. Flying squirrel likes peanut butter, so he used it to bait the traps. Squirrel was caught and has been transported across the river into another town.

Plummer visit: $72
Chewed jar of peanut butter: 3 for $5
Traps: $104
Gas to transport squirrel across the town line: $2.30
Picture of squirrel on box of Snickerdoodles: Priceless!

There Are FLYING Squirrels Among Us!

Dave removed a squirrel from our home today . . . for some reason I was just happy we didn't have a rat, but is there really a difference? We hoped that would be the end of it, but this evening another little gray squirrel decided to sit out on the open atop a box of Snickerdoodles in our kitchen.

The dog and the kids were pretty amused. Thane just looked at it and said, "A squirrel. Over there!" Then he went back to watching The Wiggles.

Not just a squirrel, though, this little one is a flying squirrel!

Not a dwarf

We took Thane down to Portland to see a geneticist today. She said pretty early on that “there is no way he is dwarf, I don’t even know where they came up with that!” – but then she said there are different kinds of dwarves, including some normally-proportioned, but really the only piece there that remotely fits is that he has tiny facial features . . . but so do I. He has a tall forehead, but so does Dave.

Basically she didn’t see any physical characteristics that make her think we’re going to find a cause for his autism. She said they always check for fragile-x as it is associated with mental retardation and autism, but usually more profound autism than Thane’s. She didn’t want to set up another appointment unless they find something in the blood work, which should come back in a month. If there is anything there, she will suggest we return and also bring Braeden.

She actually plans to write to our family doctor about me . . . the karyotype I had done almost 11 years ago showed a Turner's mosaicism. I guess I get to have some screening done because of that.

On to the next challenge . . . questioning CDS about appropriate goals for Thane.