Family

Rogue home…

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


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


It’s Friday! Garbage Day a National Holiday

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.

Potty Training Fun

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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Rick and Me

At the reception on Saturday, they played a video montage of Mal and Roberto.  They had so many photos together.  They dated for 4 years before getting married and had a boat load of photos.   I have known Rick since we were sophomores in HS and dated him for about 6 years before we got married.  We don’t have many photos of us together… that is sad and depressing…  we tend not to like the camera much…  So when we went to our nephew’s birthday party on Sunday I snapped a few of us.  I don’t have one of those camera arm things that Jeanine has (can’t think of the name of it) but I think these came out alright.  🙂

 

 

I finally got the bills paid this morning… only took DAYS… Now I should go work on Jess’s room a little since Jeanine will be camping out in Jess’s room while she’s here.  Her flight doesn’t get into until 9pm tonight so I have a little time… lol!  Hopefully…

Morning!… It’s early…

It’s early today…. haven’t blogged in so long… haven’t twittered in days… I don’t know what it is about blogging and twittering but my intentions are to do it but then I don’t.   Maybe it’s because inherently I am a very shy person.   It’s always interesting when other people say their shy but then you see them out in public and shy is not the word I’d ever use to describe them.  I never know what to say… even on my own damn blog.  “Who cares” is always running through my head.  Maybe it’s because most of the blogs I read promote business or are very funny.  I wish I was funny and had something funny or intelligent to write.  But alas I am not and do not…

 

I should make blogging and twittering a real part of my day (like an exercise) so I can start working out that “shy” and “why would anyone care” feelings I always get when I do these things.  Who cares that I just got my coffee and I’m up at 5:30am?  lol… I have always had that feeling of being thought of as stupid when I open my mouth so most of the time (unless I really know you) I do not say much at all.  I think it’s part of what being shy is.  I wouldn’t say I don’t have confidence in myself because in a lot of ways I am very confident.  When I am confident in something, I can talk easily about it. It’s just when I am not confident about the topic or feel out of place I shut up which makes it even worse. Then people think I am stuck up which is very far from the truth.  Jeanine and I gave away some Kristy Valshan badges for the upcoming CHA show and I’d imagine we’ll run into you all (you know who you are and might even read this… maybe…lol).. so when you see me and I don’t say much of anything, it really isn’t because I don’t like you.  It’s because I have this severe “my mouth does not move in groups” problem.

 

Moving on…

 

Dan  has been climbing out of his crib the past week.  Yes, this time around I put no rush on moving him out of his crib like I did with the girls. But even with the girls, they were later moving out of their cribs then their cousins.  Dan is another year later at that… He is 3 1/2 right now.   He still naps (not every day but he goes down for nap every day) and I so don’t want to lose that right now.  He actually needs his naps.  When he doesn’t get one he is horrible.   So he has been climbing out and yesterday morning I heard a loud thump around 7am.  No crying through.  Then I heard his door creak open and shut.  When Rick went to get him he had climbed back into his crib.  lol!  So I think it was time for a big boy bed.

 

I was going to pick up one at Walmart (one of those little beds) like we did with the girls.  Jessica was a constant crib jumper.  She would jump and jump and jump and finally bent the spring frame so bad that we had to get a new bed.  But after talking to Jeanine about Calista’s bed (didn’t even realize it was her crib w/o the railing at least I sure didn’t remember that – then again I don’t seem to remember anything these days), I decided to try removing the railing on Dan’s crib instead of spending money for a special toddler bed.

 

So I removed the railing around 5:30pm last night and for the next 30-45 minutes Dan ran around the house screaming at the top of his lunges that his bed was broke and I had to fix it.  lol!  Ironically what finally got him settled down is Sammie took a turn laying down in it and Rogue (leave it to the damn dog) came up and licked her nose.  Sammie then told Dan that one of the benefits of not having the railing was he could pet Rogue easier.  SOLD!  Didn’t have to tell him twice… he and that dog are glued at the hip….  So after that he tried the “new” bed he wanted Jess to lay with him for awhile.  Very strange.

 

When it was bedtime, we only had one incident of hearing him get out of bed.  Told him to get back in and that was it.  He did and went to sleep. We have been lucky with all of our kids when it comes to going to bed and naps.  We really haven’t had many problems.  I think part of that is we have never made bedtime a big thing or naps a big thing.   We do not have a “routine” for either and never have.  I think our routine is that every night at 8pm it’s time for bed and they all go.  Every day after lunch it’s time for a nap…  Some nights we’ll hear talking in the rooms but nothing too bad.  Some days Dan won’t really nap but that’s okay too.  When he is tired he will put himself to bed and I know that isn’t something you see every day.

 

Anyway… I am proud of my little man and how he adjusted to his big boy bed last night.  I wonder what the nap will bring today though…