On Thursday Rogue (our black lab) went off to be spayed.  For a regular dog, this can be a traumatic experience.  That seems predictable and normal. But for Rogue…

We got Rogue when she was 8 weeks old.  Since that time, she has been ingrained so much with the family that that animal can NOT be by herself for one minute without whining.  It used to drive me crazy but I have gotten used to it in the last year.  We used to be able to let out Bandit (our first black lab) and he’d go lay outside for awhile and enjoy the sun/shade and just being outside – without barking and causing a scene.  NOT ROGUE.

Rogue goes out and does her business and then immediately makes a beeline right back to the door.  And there she sits and begins her whining campaign to come in the house.  If we are outside she is fine.  But God forbid she is outside by herself for any period of time and the whining and crying begins.  I will say that because I had a hard time dealing with this quirk of hers initially (read that as a lot of yelling out the window to stop whining), she has been forced to develop a more patient “sit and wait a little bit” stance before the full onslaught of whines begin.  I think she can make it to 5 minutes before I hear a bark to be let in.  So I’ve just adjusted and she has adjusted.  In the morning, I will either wait for her to be done or walk away and start my coffee and come back and let her in right away.

Now, take this mindset into being away from us for a day and a half….  When I picked up Rogue at the vet yesterday, the lady at the front desk told me that Rogue was quite vocal on Thursday after her surgery.   Now I read “quite vocal” as the polite way of saying “she was annoying as all hell and would NOT shut up and drove us crazy all day long”… but for obvious reasons she wasn’t going to say exactly that to me.  They had told Rick when he dropped her off that she would sleep all day after the surgery. Riiiight.  He told them that he thought we might have to come and get her early because she has major separation anxiety.  Suffice it to say we were right and she whined and barked all day – no sleeping and no resting.

Last night the kids stayed with Grandma for a sleepover.  We thought this would give Rogue another 16 hours or so of not being pestered by the kids – maybe she’d even sleep.  HA!  While she was thrilled to see us, she really wanted to see the kids.  Throughout the night she woke us up several times with her whining.  At 2am, Rick thought she might just be in a lot of pain and we gave her another pain pill.  She settled for a bit but in another hour or so she was back at it.  So Rick got up and went in the back room and laid down with her.  Yes… laid down with the dog.  LOL!  She did settle down and I didn’t hear her again until 8am or so (we get to sleep in when sleepovers happen).  Rick said that she was fine as long as she had physical contact laying next to him.

This morning the kids have returned and Rogue has been estatic.  By the way she is acting you would never think she was spayed two days ago.  We are going to have such a hard time keeping her calm for the next two weeks.

She does seem very relieved though.  Enough to be calm for a brief period… this is what is happening as I type this

She seems content – enough to maybe get a bit of rest today.  Maybe.  Hopefully.

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Fridays are highly anticipated in this house but not because of the normal TGIF crap that everyone usually feels on the way towards the weekend.  In this house, Fridays are treated as a national holiday because Friday is GARBAGE DAY!

The progression of the week is marked by its relation to garbage day.

• Is it garbage day today?
• When is it going to be garbage day?
• It’s going to be garbage day soon.
• It’s only Monday.  It’s going to be garbage day on Friday.
• It’s going to be garbage day tomorrow.
• It’s garbage day TODAY!
• It was garbage day yesterday…

Dan has been enthralled with garbage days since he was 2 1/2.   He can hear the garbage truck coming down the street from the back of the house. He will then fly into action and stop whatever he’s doing and proudly announce that a garbage truck is here. He then makes his way to the front window where he gawks and talks about the garbage truck at length.  He’ll even sing songs about the garbage truck (or the dog as she never leaves his side) while he watches them take our trash away.

And boy are we are in for a treat if there ever happens to be TWO garbage trucks on the street at the same time – which does happen especially if they are working both sides of the street or if both the recycling truck and refuse truck show up together or if its free garbage day (where you can throw out anything and everything without paying for $2.50 stickers).   I don’t know what the fascination with garbage trucks is.  With Dan it’s not really about the “truck” part.  He’s not into trucks as much.  It’s all about one special truck – the “garbage truck”.

In fact, the highlight of yesterday came on the way home from the grocery store.  There was a garbage truck in front of us. In front of us!  Dan of course got all excited.  At some point we passed the truck which ignited a hailstorms of “Look momma, we’ve passed the garbage truck.”, “Look momma, its now following us.”, “Drive faster momma so we’ll win!”.  Yes, it’s not every day in the life of a boy where you can race a garbage truck down the highway.  LOL!

Not shortly after, we came to a stop light.  We were on a highway with 3 lanes and by the way the traffic was lining up, I could tell that the garbage truck would end up right next to us if no one cut it off.  I announce this to Dan who has twisted around in his seat in order to keep his eye on the truck.  As it pulls up next to us, he can see  the driver inside the front cab and starts waving excitedly and announcing to the world “Momma!!!!  There is a GARBAGE TRUCK next to us!! and it’s a GREEN garbage truck!”  The driver looks over and has this confused look on his face like “What the hell?”

I’m sure firefighters and policemen are used to being adored as celebrities by little 4 year old boys… but garbage truck drivers?  hmmm… usually not.  I hope it made his day.

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I started potty training Dan on Monday.  WOO HOO!   The first three days went okay… a few accidents but a lot of making it to the potty.  The girls have been really fabulous with helping me.  They take him into the bathroom and read a potty book to him while he goes (thanks Jeanine!).

On Monday I took everyone into Borders so we could buy the potty book.  I got lucky – Dan really likes it and we had to read it a zillion times when we got home.  So now the girls read to him in the bathroom.  I’m still using a timer though that goes off ever 30-40 minutes… the times that Dan has to go and the timer doesn’t ring is when we have an accident.  So he’s not good yet at making it to the potty without being prompted….Did I mention that I HATE potty training?

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