That darn raccoon! I think it pretty much cleared out of the bottom attic, which continues to be guarded by motion sensors and screeching sirens. Now it went into the upper attic atop the second floor addition. I hooked up sensors and floodlights up there too, but it is a much larger space and I couldn't jury-rig enough sensors to cover it all. I pointed the light and stereo towards where I thought the raccoon was entering and, although it got tripped every so often I thought that it had scared the raccoon away. I checked every time after the alarms went off and saw no vermin.

Since the security system did go off sometimes, I wanted to make double sure whether it was a raccoon or just some random wind. To that end, I found an old laptop and some old webcams, updated the little motion detection program I wrote from when we lived in Edmonton and tried to catch a raccoon getting in. Nothing for several days, but yesterday I found the evidence. Raccoon climbed in over a vent and chilled in the attic. Might even be a different raccoon -- them things all look alike! I chased it out this morning and it didn't come back all day.

I'll seal up that entry with chicken wire but I do hope that our contractor comes quick to finish the exterior!

So after we discovered the raccoon I looked up some FACTS! on the Internet. It turns out that they like to live in attics because they are warm, dry, and safe. Raccoons also like to poop, which I would expect. I didn't expect that they would poop in their homes, which is our home. I thought they would just live there, like a dog, and instinctively want to poop outside far away from their homes. Nope, they poop their own homes.

Also, interestingly, Raccoons carry this nasty kind of roundworm that can invade humans, burrowing into their brains. That's not a joke. Mishandling Raccoon poop can make you go mental.

Another thing I found out is that raccoons have babies in the late spring or early summer. So, pretty soon. And once a mother has babies, she'll never leave them.

We had to take action.

Step 1: Check if she's still up there. So we pointed a light in the attic and Bogusia spotted the sucker. She's still in there, and she's taken poops because it stinks.

Step 2: Send in the dogs. We tossed Joxer in the attic and he scared her out no problem.

Step 3: Clean the toxic poop. I did that because I've had a longer happier life than Bogusia, so if I die it would be better. She has her whole future ahead of her and I'm just on a decline.

Step 4: Install a light and motion detectors. We have two old portable motion alarms that emit a siren when anything moves. They now protect our attic so when the raccoon wants to come in for a quiet rest after turning over trash cans, she'll be screamed at by the alarms and have a light in her face. Another function of the alarms is that it tells us when to send Joxer into the attic.

Step 5: Dunno yet. The alarms tripped yesterday a couple of times but I don't think the raccoon stayed. If she doesn't get discouraged enough to find a new home then I'll have to take further action. I'm going to try to set up a night vision camera to film where she gets in. I suspect it is a cedar next to our house. Perhaps we could cut it down, electrify it, tie up the dogs next to it, something like that.

We'll see.

I love to tell our kids horror stories about ghosts, vampires, monsters under the bed, that kind of thing. Not to mention that I frequently hide behind a door or a wall and jump out as family members walk by screaming `BOO!`. Well today I`m putting little Robert to bed and I hear a scary noise. There is shuffling around in the corner of Robert`s room, but on the ceiling like it`s upstairs. That should be ok except that I thought everyone was downstairs. Konrad in bed, Jakub going to bed and Mom getting him a drink of water.

"It must be the dog," I think and mentally make a note to double check. But I'm a little worried. It sounded a little bit too clear, too close. It was almost like the noise was IN the room.

After finishing Robert's reading I go upstairs to check for dogs, but they aren't there. Hmmm. Maybe they were up there, but went down in the few minutes that I read the book. So I confirm that everyone is downstairs and I take a stick to just knock the ceiling a little. Nothing. Nothing. Then a little shuffle, maybe. I knock louder. This time there is a shuffle for sure. Great. We have a critter somewhere in the attic.

Well, turns out that a cute little raccoon took advantage of our construction to hide in the little space of the roof overhang. Now how do we get rid of him?

In the last few weeks of winter we had really great snow falls followed by very mild temperatures leading to great SNOW. One of those days was a gorgeous weekend Saturday. That day Robert and I didn't want to come inside. First we made an awesome snowman, then we went sledding down our little hill in front of our house. Then we recruited Alex (Daddy) and Jakub to build forts and we threw snowballs at each other protected only by our wicked forts. FUN FUN FUN!!!!!!

At the regular dental appointment, Jakub's dentist noticed that his new teeth were already out, but his baby teeth didn't fall out yet. So, as quickly as possible, without Jakub even realizing what was going on, the dentist pulled out Jakub's two bottom teeth:

Now with three boys in the family, we need more space. Maybe not yet, but soon each kid will want his own room - and of course we need an office. So our small bungalow was not big enough. Option #1 - move to a bigger home. This we didn't want to do, because we love our neighbourhood (in the forest with the lake near by), the school Jakub just started to attend, the neighbours. Option #2: Build an extension. That is what we chose - building up our house - a second floor. There will be three extra bedrooms upstairs plus a washroom. A few more weeks, and we'll have our wish. Here are the pictures of the progress of the build.

Jakub and Robert are very much into magic now. Although sometimes they don't really understand the concept of magic, but they try their very hardest. It's so so cute.

After two weeks of hospitalization, Jakub came home. Then he had 11 more days of oral antibiotics. They were disgusting in flavor and we had to give it to Jakub every 6h (the nights weren't long enough), but now it's over. Recently we went to the hospital for a final checkup and a final x-ray, and he's very very healthy. Even the doctors said he did better than expected. YEY!

Jakub has been in the hospital for the last 8 days. He went in with a fever and sore ribs, which were diagnosed as a Staph Aureus infection. Staph is a tough bacteria to kill when it's inside the body, but it is all around the outside, apparently especially in the nose. One of our doctors said that Jakub could have got it from another kid who had picked his nose and then touched a scrape that Jakub had on his knee. Or maybe Jakub picked his own nose. Anyway, he was sick on Thursday afternoon and we took him to the hospital on Friday morning. The initial advice was that he was just constipated, causing the pain in his stomach area, and had an unrelated infection causing the fever.

I was very impressed that the doctor took blood and x-rays. She sensed that the initial explanation was maybe not 100% right. Turns out, after a day of culturing the blood, that he had Staph and the hospital called us back.

Now the tests and treatment really started at the Montreal Children's Hospital. He went on intraveinous antibiotics and rounds of x-rays, ultrasounds and gallium-bone-scans to find out what was causing the pain in Jakub's chest. Staph enters the blood and then can cause infections usually in the lungs, heart or a bone. Since the pain seemed to be in a rib the doctors suspected a bone infection at first but they also had to eliminate the heart. The bone is a bad place for the staph to hide because the treatment is very long, perhaps six weeks. While the investigation continued he was kept on antibiotics assuming the bone, and his blood cleared of the staph infection. Unfortunately, he still had the fever and pain so the search continued for the hiding place of the bacteria.

After the tests the doctors believed that the staph was isolated in the lung causing a pneumonia in the left lung. Additional, the pneumonia caused an accumulation of fluid around the lung, which would explain the fever and the pain. Since the fliud was not easing on his own, Jakub was scheduled for an emergency surgery to drain the fluid. He had this surgery on Friday morning and is currently attached to many wires. He is in good spirits, eating well and generally seems to at least be no worse off than before the surgery. Hopefully the fever will break after a day or two and he can be released in a week. The doctor gave me only a 20% chance of this optimistic outcome.

I must also say that the Montreal Children`s Hospital is fantastic. He has a team of doctors looking after him as well as specialists from infectious diseases, respiratory illness, and now surgeons. Each day they answer all our questions with endless patience, tell us what puzzles them and their strategies, and teach us whatever we need to know. Nothing is held back. He gets whichever tests and procedures might help his recovery but not more. We don't take ourselves or the kids to the hospital for colds or bumps so we don't experience the 12 hour waits that we always hear about. Every experience we've had: childbirth, ear infection, a scary high fever in Newfoundland, and now this, has left me very satisfied with our care.

The Montreal Children's is very children oriented. They have playrooms, videos, games, and an outdoor terrace with a playground on the 8th floor. The only thing they don't have is good food, but I hear that no hospital has good food.

Special thanks to all Jakub's friends who visited him in the hospital or sent get-well-wishes. He appreciated those visits so much and says THANK YOU to everyone. And thanks from Bogusia and I for the many offers of help. Thank you also to CN and my VP and director for not hesitating to give me the flexibility to care for Jakub.

Here are some pictures of Jakub from this week.

We went to Sherbrooke to visit our friends (Beata and her daughter Karolina). We took our other friends along (Asia, Jurek, Amelka, Natalka). It was supposed to rain, but the weather changed, and it turned out to be a great day. Here are some pictures from the trip, a little hike we did, and then a swim in their ultra clean pool. I love to go visit Beata - there's always so much to do.