Home Study Meeting #2 & a Medicinal Mishap

We had our home study meeting this morning, #2 of 3, so we're 2/3 of the way there (I know, my math skills are awesome).   We had the house pretty well picked up, nice Christmas music playing in the background, had given Yarbo benedryl, since he sometimes gets hyper with new people, and had put him away in his kennel (we weren't sure up front whether he would need to be out with us or not, thus the benedryl, which had been ok'd by our vet).

So, we sat at the table with our social worker, answering lots and lots of intensely personal questions, and all the while Yarbo was howling, whining, squealing, and literally bouncing off the walls upstairs.  Now, I know that I said he sometimes gets hyper, but that's usually when he's with new people, not when he's upstairs.  Since I have piano students coming in and out all the time, he's very used to people being in the house.  He just gets excited when he actually sees them.  So, for the life of us, we couldn't figure out what all the ruckus was about, and it was annoying, but also a little concerning as well.

So, we wrapped up the visit, scheduled our last visit, and after the worker left, went upstairs to get Yarbo, who should have been somewhat sleepy, like he was the last time we gave him benedryl.  He exploded out of the kennel and tore all over the house, running around like crazy, which was a bit.....unexpected.

Rewind a moment to last night, when we were running errands after our class and trying to pick up the benedryl.  We were supposed to get the children's kind, and give him half of one of those.  We looked at 4 places, and the only children's benedryl we could find was liquid, or those little strips of medicine you put on your tongue, and I wasn't sure that we could get Yarbo to take that.  So, at the 4th store, we finally just got regular benedryl, after seeing that the active ingredient was the same and all.

However, after his behavior this morning, we went back and read the rest of the small print on the back label.  It warns: "May cause excitability in small children."  Apparently the children's benedryl must be formulated differently, and not just a smaller dose.

Sigh.

At least all the cups were clean that we used (and yes, I did plan them again.  I couldn't help it.) and everything else went smoothly (except for the part where Dave tried to help the worker spell Saskatchewan by lifting up his outer shirt to show her his t-shirt underneath - that was slightly awkward/funny.  She decided to just leave it as "Canada.").

And, of course, we got to turn in another stack of paperwork.  But the bonus - we didn't get any more new paperwork to fill out from this meeting.  Score!

So, all in all, it went well, and next time, we will be sure to use only the children's benedryl on Yarbo, even if it means using the strips.