As if my house wasn't already enough of a zoo, we added a new species to the mix just before Christmas.

Meet Cosmo:

Cosmo is a 5 month mixed breed (mutt) we met through a rescue group. He was found nearly starved to death on the street at 3 months old, and was nursed back to health by the rescue group.

We've been considering getting a dog for quite a while. Some of Cordy's doctors and therapists had suggested that a dog could be beneficial for her. She's often shy to demonstrate anything new to other people, but she might be more willing to practice new skills with only the dog to witness. (And unlike people, the dog can't judge her ability.) Cordy also is very interested in animals, so a dog would hopefully serve as a good companion for her as well.

Aaron also grew up with a dog, and has always enjoyed dogs. I've always been a cat person myself, but can certainly see the appeal of a canine companion. We've had the dog discussion several times for over a year. We have a fenced yard, our work schedules are compatible with the needs of a dog, and our kids are old enough to help with the care of a dog.

Last month we finally agreed it might be time to consider adding a new pet to our family. So at the beginning of December we went to Mingle With The Mutts, a monthly event held by our county animal shelter that encourages other rescue groups to bring adoptable dogs in for people to come meet. It was there we met Cosmo, and Cordy immediately fell for him. (OK...we all did.)

 Beginning of Dec, only 25 lbs. Did I mention he gained 15lbs in 3 weeks?

 I still went back and forth on the idea of a dog. Change is hard for me, and this kind of life change is a huge decision to make. I'm already the one who takes care of the cats 99% of the time - I refused to be the one mostly caring for a dog as well. And how much of a disruption would a dog be in my life?

We addressed my serious concerns and Aaron talked me down from any freak outs, pointing out that people far less responsible than us have successfully kept dogs.

So last Friday we welcomed Cosmo into our home. The benefit of adopting an older puppy is that he's already house trained, crate trained, and knows some basic commands. He still tries to eat anything small - including a few crayon bits that were quickly swallowed - so we're constantly reminding Cordy and Mira to keep their toys upstairs. (Cosmo is limited to the downstairs only.) I guess in one way he's helping me keep our downstairs clutter free!

Have teeth, will chew.

He's still a puppy, though, and needs to go outside every few hours, but can go as long as 6-7 hours if required. Seeing how no adult in this house sleeps more than 6-7 hours anyway, that's not a problem at all.

And even though he knows some commands, we're still signing up for basic training classes. A couple of episodes of the Dog Whisperer have taught me that I know very little about dog psychology and need to learn how to properly assert alpha status over our new pack member.

Here? I'm failing at being alpha.

So for now I'm happy to have our new pup, and terrified at how we'll all adjust. Most of that fear is just my fear of the unknown. Truthfully, Cosmo's addition to the family has added about 10-15 minutes of additional work to my schedule each day; not a big deal at all, really. The cats are the most traumatized - one of them hasn't come downstairs since Friday. Good thing their food, water, and litterboxes are upstairs.

Cosmo is a new adventure for us, and despite my worries, I'm looking forward to the joy he'll add to the family.

One of the things I love about blogging and social media is the ability to have a direct line to the people who can help you out.

For example, Cordy and Mira love My Little Pony.

Wait...I don't think that's quite strong enough.

What I meant to say was: Cordy and Mira LOVE! LOVE! LOVE! My Little Pony. They can't get enough of the new show on the Hub network, and our house is now filled with ponies and accessories. It's nearly the only TV they watch.

Each year we let the girls pick a new ornament to add to the Christmas tree. It's fun to see how their interests change each year by looking back at the ornaments they choose. So of course when it came time to select this year's ornament (and knowing that this is the year of My Little Pony for both kids), I did a little internet searching and discovered that American Greetings made a 2011 My Little Pony Pinkie Pie Christmas ornament.

Perfect!

One problem, though. The ornament was sold out everywhere. It seems My Little Pony has an enormous adult fan following, and once word got out about the ornaments, they were quickly bought up. Sold out online. Sold out in our local stores, too.

I looked at resellers to buy one, but I refused to get into a bidding war on eBay and spend $30+ on a $7.99 ornament. I didn't want to reward someone for buying up all the ornaments to turn a profit with the collector crowd.

So I did what any desperate blogger might think to do - I reached out via Twitter, asking American Greetings for their help in tracking down an ornament. I explained that my two daughters are fans of the show and really wanted this ornament for our Christmas tree this year.

I was hoping they might be able to tell me if there was somewhere online to buy one, or if they planned to send out another shipment soon. I was happy to pay for one, I just needed an actual ornament to buy. They quickly responded that they would look into it for me.

I waited for days and didn't hear anything further. I wasn't sure how much they could help - if it's sold out, it's sold out, right? So I was completely unprepared for them to go above and beyond and respond with this:

And then yesterday, a perfect Pinkie Pie ornament showed up in the mail. Two little girls cheered with joy and Cordy declared the @amgreetings Twitter maven "the nicest person in the world!"

The dreary, rainy day yesterday suddenly got A LOT brighter for these two.

So now Pinkie Pie has joined the cast of animated characters on our tree. As befitting her importance at this moment, she's front and center:

with Batman climbing up for a visit on the lower right

Have I mentioned social media is awesome? Thank you, American Greetings, for helping this mom get the perfect 2011 ornament for my daughters!

(And just because this is the new era of full disclosure: yes, American Greetings did send it to us for free, unexpectedly. There was no agreed on review or anything like that - I just wanted to share my joy at a company doing something really, really nice for my family.)

I realize I don't share as many stories about Mira on this blog. It's not that there aren't stories to tell, they just tend to be short and sweet, even if the subject herself is FULL of drama.

Oh yes, Mira is the supreme high ruler of drama.

Being an only child, I've never really understood sibling rivalry, but I'm often told that a younger child will often try to be the opposite of their older sibling in an attempt to stand out. After Cordy's diagnosis with autism, we held our breath during Mira's babyhood, waiting to see if she would follow the same path of development. But Mira had different plans.

She was given an evaluation when she was nearly three, and it was made very clear that although Mira had a significant speech delay at that time, there was no question that this was a social and engaging little person. She's in-your-face, guerrilla-style social - if you're not paying attention to her, she will make sure you notice.

And so while Cordy prefers to be alone, keeps her thoughts to herself, avoids new experiences and changes in routine, and has little opinion about her appearance, Mira has proven to be the opposite. She's loud, opinionated, craves new experiences, hates being alone, and demands to wear dresses as much as possible so she can "look pretty." She always wants to be the center of attention.

While Mira is the life of the party, there's one other difference between the two sisters that I wish wasn't there. Cordy is often careful in her movements like a cat. Mira? Mira prefers to move first, think second like an overexcited golden retriever. She's blissfully unconcerned with where her body is moving in space as long as it gets there quickly. Or until it meets an object abruptly while traveling at high velocity.

Mira is a klutz. Thank goodness I didn't name her Grace, because that would have been tragically ironic.

I absolutely love her enthusiasm over everything, but too often she ends up hurt when she's not paying attention. Mira can take any normal, routine activity and turn it into an extreme sport. Walking across a room can result in a sudden loss of balance (tripping on air?) and crumbling to the ground.

Walking down the stairs isn't even safe when holding the rail. Holding the rail as she falls only leads to her twisting her body until her hand snaps free so she does a full barrel roll the rest of the way down.

Attempting to sit down in a chair can lead to bouncing her head off the table and ricocheting her body onto the floor several feet away. (True story. Happened in her preschool class. Her teachers were amazed she was OK.)

Going to watch The Muppets at the movie theater can lead to...well...this:

(And before anyone wonders - she ASKED me to take a photo of it.)

Fifteen minutes before the end of the movie on Saturday night, Mira had to use the bathroom. Aaron quickly took her out of the theater and they were back within five minutes with no drama. But as she was walking down the row to get back to her seat (and AFTER stepping over my purse without catching her foot on it) she somehow ended up on the floor.

She started to cry, so I scooped her up into my lap and shushed her, telling her it was OK and she was fine and the movie was nearly over and hey, look at those silly muppets! She tried to stop crying but couldn't, and it wasn't until I finally turned to look at her face in the dim theater that I noticed the "tears" running down from her eye looked awfully dark.

When Mira took that trip to the floor, it appears that she tried to stop her fall against the metal seat legs. With her face.

At that point it looked like the whole area around her eye was bloody and I couldn't tell where it was coming from. I ran out of the theater with her and into the bathroom, grabbing handfuls of paper towels to stop the bleeding from the gash next to her eye. Thankfully the eye itself looked unharmed, even if she managed to injure nearly three-quarters of the space around her eye.

Once the bleeding slowed down (and Mira was no longer freaking out) I took her out to the front lobby and begged for some ice to put on her eye. At that point she was telling the lobby attendant how she had to leave the movie when it was really sad. Rollin' with the punches, that kid - she would rather talk about how the movie was sad rather than recall how she nearly took out her eye.

Yesterday she told her entire class the story of how she clobbered herself while watching The Muppets, with appropriate dramatic pauses and a little acting it out, so I think she'll be OK.

I hope she might learn to be more careful after accidents like these, but deep down I know she'll find new ways to injure herself soon. At least she's got a knack for drama, so she'll always be able to spin it into a fantastic story for her friends.

No amount of spin is going to calm my nerves, however.

Locals might want to pick up a (free) copy of Columbus Parent Magazine before the end of the month. While Cordy didn't win the cover model contest, she was one of the five finalists, which means if you get this month's issue you'll have the chance to see this:

Sure, they got her age wrong, but it's exciting to see a photo of our warrior princess in print!

Hurry to get your copy before I grab every last one to give to family. (And stash several in a memory box!)

Well, hello there. Got a little quiet in here, didn't it?

I'd like to say I was too busy with fantastic adventures since I last wrote a post, but the truth is my entire family was brought to its knees thanks to a microscopic villain.

It all started just over a week ago.We had a family outing that Friday to my company's annual holiday party. Everyone was in good spirits at the party. Mira got her face painted:

Rainbow butterfly FTW

Cordy visited with Santa:

And all I want for Christmas is to get away from this creepy bearded guy...

That night we arrived home full of happiness and holiday cheer, tucked the children into their beds, and then tucked ourselves into our new (Black Friday sale) bed that had just been delivered earlier that day. Ahhh...domestic bliss.

And then Mira started vomiting at 3:30am.

Aaron and I changed her sheets, cleaned her up, and put her back to bed. I started the washing machine and went back to bed myself. We thought maybe it was too many cookies before bed that caused it.

Half an hour later, she threw up again. Change sheets, clean her up, put her back to bed, set old sheets near washing machine. Back to bed.

Thirty minutes later...well, you can probably guess the pattern at this point. It reached a point that I ran out of sheets and had her sleeping on towels. Towels that I still had to change every thirty minutes.

Aaron got up with her eventually and moved her downstairs. At least if he was nearby he could get a bucket to her when she started to feel sick, thereby sparing us more laundry. Every time she was sick, I was meticulous about cleaning up with antibacterial soap and insisted we wash our hands well. It could have been the cookies, but I didn't want to take any chances.

By the end of the day on Saturday, Mira was mostly back to normal. She ate dinner, teased her sister, and it seemed the worst was over. Sunday morning and afternoon were also happily boring and normal.

I took a nap Sunday afternoon to prepare for going to work that night, and when I woke up I discovered Aaron now felt ill. Within an hour his nausea turned into a full stomach virus with all the symptoms you can imagine. The cookies were now no longer being blamed on Mira's illness. I put the girls to bed on my own, as Aaron was completely down and out at this point.

I felt completely fine at this point, so I made myself dinner then showered and prepared for work. Suddenly at 9:30pm, my stomach felt a little off. I still had an hour before I had to leave, and made the decision that a quick nap would make everything better.

Half an hour later, I knew I had been conquered by the viral army. I called off work, told Aaron I was sick, too (he was still camped out on the couch) and went back up to bed. It didn't take long before the vomiting started.

Twelve hours later, the vomiting finally stopped. Like Mira, I threw up at least every thirty minutes all night long. I didn't sleep, and I was hot and then cold all night long. I stayed in bed all day the next day, and by evening I still didn't feel strong enough to even walk downstairs or eat anything. No work again that night. Aaron (who had mostly recovered by this point) brought me Sprite to sip and took care of the girls that evening.

Tuesday morning, I felt a little better. I ate a little bit of toast and had finally gone downstairs. I was thankful to be over this virus, and thankful Cordy had avoided it. Aaron told me how she had avoided us the past two days, saying she didn't want to touch either of us for fear of getting sick. Poor kid - she was so scared of getting sick.

Which is why I felt even worse when the school called at 2:30pm that day to say Cordy had just lost her lunch on the office floor.

I didn't go to work again that night. I still felt weak, and poor Cordy spent the night delirious from being sick, drifting in and out of a restless sleep, talking to no one, and constantly moving as if she couldn't get comfortable. Aaron and I took turns being with her and as a result got little sleep ourselves.

Wednesday morning, Cordy finally snapped out of it. She was tired, but was at least making sense when you talked to her. By mid-afternoon she was asking for food and by evening she was back to normal.

I still wasn't feeling great, but went to work that night anyway. While the rest of the family had fully recovered, I couldn't entirely rid myself of the nausea and an odd, dizzy feeling. The feeling was still there when I woke up Thursday afternoon, so as soon as Aaron got home I went to urgent care.

The result? Double ear infection. Apparently this wasn't my week.

I started antibiotics that night, and then spent the weekend trying to catch up from everything I'd missed during the week. Sadly, the world doesn't pause when you're sick, and I never realized how fast email could pile up in an inbox. (Or laundry in a hamper. Ugh.)

At the moment I'm mostly back to normal. I'm not entirely convinced the antibiotics are strong enough to do the job, but I'll give them a few more days to prove themselves.

It seems the evil stomach virus that brought down all of us has been making its way into many homes this week. I guess I should be thankful we got it out of the way before Christmas. We've had far too many Christmas celebrations that ended with someone sick.

So that was my last week or so. How are you?