Stupid Dog!

We have had a very bad week with the dog. She had discovered that she has a taste for disposable diapers and likes to shred them on the living room floor. And she also likes to use the living room carpet as her personal potty. So frustrating! When I got out of the shower on Wednesday I found a disaster- she had shredded 5 poopy diapers all over the carpet (the smell was overwhelming) and peed and pooped herself. I was SO mad! It took me 45 minutes to clean it up. GRRR! Stupid dog. We are trying to be proactive about taking her out but she just won't go the bathroom when we take her out. The exception is while we are on a walk- she always goes to the bathroom when we walk her every day. But I can't walk her every time she needs to do her business.

To add to my bad luck for the day, my flip flop broke while I was out at play group. Sigh.

Update: she has done a LOT better today. No accidents in the house and she went in the yard TWICE, as well a on her walk. Thank GOD! I hope she is on the road to recovering from her pottying-in-the-house addiction. 

Teething Woes

I officially HATE teething.

Benjamin has been a bear this week. He now has 5 teeth but each one has come in with fever, crying, temper tantrums and over all distress for mommy and baby. SIGH. He had a fever for 3 days last week and was very sensitive to any little disruption to his life. 

Finally, that darn tooth popped through. It was a rough week with the teething, colds for Aaron and me, and my eye problems. PLUS, Goldie's  incision from her spaying (right before we got her) got infected and we had to take her to the vet. And we had a friend come and stay with us for three days in there too. It was great to see Anna (we hadn't seen her for a year as she was teaching in Thailand) and she helped me out with some of the driving I couldn't do. But I'm afraid she saw the worst side of Benji during the time she was here...

Easter hello?

This morning, Easter morning, while I was getting ready for church Micah found my phone and pressed the speed dial buttons just right to call my sister Chelsea in KS. She thought it was me and answered "Happy Easter!!"

Micah breathed heavily into the phone. 

Chelsea: Hello?

Micah: HI!!!!!!

Chelsea: Hi Micah!!

Micah: Hey! Hey! Hiiiiiii!!!!!

Then he hung up. 

I came in the room just then and quickly called her back. I bet she didn't expect an Easter hello from her 18 month old nephew this morning. :) 

I once was blind but now I see

I have had a very hard past week with my eyes. Almost two weeks ago, on Tuesday night my left eye started to get irritated. I thought it was pink eye again--for the third time since January! I was so mad. The other two times it cleared up so I kept wearing my contacts. It seemed to get better but by Friday morning, it was even worse than before. I went to the eye doctor that morning and he told me that I have an inflamed cornea and white blood cell deposits on my cornea. So, I had to stop wearing my contacts immediately and got a tiny $35 bottle of steroid drops to put in my eye 4 times a day.  We made another appointment for Monday. My glasses were not up to prescription so I knew I was in for a very long weekend and a really awful headache. I ordered new lenses for my glasses since I have had the same prescription since high school (!).

Fast forward to Monday. Now my right eye is infected and even worse than the left one! AHH! The drops had helped the left eye though so now the doctor told me to put drops in both eyes and to come back on Friday. I was so frustrated! Because I couldn't see, I couldn't drive so Aaron has had to drive me everywhere--doctors appointments, vet, grocery shopping, airport to pick up our friend on Wednesday etc. Plus the headache was awful. In the middle of all this I got a cold and completely lost my voice. 

But, my new glasses came in on Thursday so I can now see!! YEA! By Friday, both my eyes had cleared up but I can't wear my contacts for a month. That's right, a MONTH! Apparently if you get white blood cells flooding your cornea it is a bad thing. All of this "pink eye" happened because at the end of the month, my contacts were getting old and clogged and my eye was getting irritated with not enough oxygen. So, to prevent permanent damage, I am regulated to wearing my glasses until May 11th. So far, so good but it is really strange to wear glasses again full time. I am still getting used to them. 

Dog?

The boys' new favorite word is...can you guess? DOG! They say "dog" all day long, especially when they haven't seen Goldie in a while, like after their naps. Micah says, "Dog, dog, dog, dog, dog?" And Benji will say, "Hi! Hi! Hi! Hey dog!" It is so cute. They also recognize dogs on tv, movies, books, and toys. Sometimes they call animals "dogs" that aren't dogs, at all, like cats, or our stuffed toy opossum (a wonderful birthday present from their Aunt Candace....)

Well, last night, apparently, animals aren't the only thing the boys are calling "dog." Micah was sitting snuggled in Aaron's lap. Aaron had his arms around Micah and they were sitting contentedly. All of a sudden, Micah pointed to Aaron's arm, his rather hairy arm, and said "Dog?" We couldn't stop laughing. 

Goldie!

We have a DOG!!!! Yes, a dog! We got her this weekend, Saturday March 21 at 9:30pm.

In my last post, I mentioned that we were looking into getting a dog. We looked at petfinder.com and saw her picture online. I fell in love and knew that I had to e-mail the rescue to find out about her. Debra, one of the rescue owners, told us that she thought Goldie would be  perfect fit for our family--and she is! Goldie is a 2 year old yellow lab, about 70 lbs and has short legs! She is gentle, sweet, laid back and is completely non-aggressive. We think she may have been abused before she came to the rescue because she seems fearful at times and cowers down a lot when we want to do things like put on her leash. She just wants attention and to be loved. She loves to have her belly rubbed and go for walks. 

The boys love her! We introduced them to her Sunday morning. They just gasped and said, "Dog? Dog?" Micah said "Woof! Woof!" The kissed/licked her on the nose and loved to pet her. They also liked to poke her eyes and grab her mouth. We kept saying, "Gentle! Gentle!" but she didn't do anything. She just let them mess with her. She is going to be great with them.

She was kind of sad yesterday and just laid on her bed. We think that she is lonely for the other dogs at the shelter. She always had a buddy with her. She perked up when Aaron took her for walks. We also gave her a bath yesterday. She was STINKY! I hoped she would love the bath since labs are supposed to like water but she was terrified. Poor girl. I actually need to get some flea wash today because we spotted some little buggers on her. Great....

We are excited to be dog owners but nervous too! We think she is going to be a great addition to our family.  (I am still trying to figure out this picture thing....I really didn't want them all at the top...any advice, bloggers?)

Where I've been

Wow! It has been a long time since I blogged. I have been so busy! I survived the insane school work load and have now finished one of my classes. I actually read my term paper aloud today for an audience (of four- my professor and three of my fellow students) and got lots of great feedback. My paper compared Sandra Cisneros' "The House on Mango Street" and "Cinderella." Fun topic and fun paper. I am so glad it is over though!

In the middle of all this school work craziness, we went to FL for 5 days. Aaron's stepmom's mother died and we went down to FL from Thursday through Tuesday. We drove overnight on Thursday. The trip went really well except for Benji vomiting in the backseat at 2:30am. Carsick? Who knows! He was very happy after he threw up though. I guess he got all his sickness out. The boys were great and slept for most of the trip.

 It was a sad reason to make a trip but we really enjoyed seeing everyone and were glad we could be there to support the family during this hard time. There was a memorial service on Sunday that was very special. We also got to see my grandparents for brunch on Monday morning. We always meet them at Cracker Barrel in Tallahassee. We loved seeing them had a great time. Benji shared toast with jam with Nonnie and then decided to style his hair with blackberry jam. It was everywhere! The boys love going out to eat and we had lots of laughs and took lots of pictures with Nonnie and Poppie. We love seeing them! 

We also spent the night with my best friend from high school, Megan and her husband Matt in Atlanta. They have a beautiful and comfortable home and a very energetic puppy! The boys loved all the dogs we saw on this trip (there was one at every home we visited!) and their new favorite words are "dog," "pup," and "woof!" It is SOO cute! We are seriously asking ourselves if we want to get a dog now.....DOG, not puppy, though. We'll see...

The trip back was really long and stressful. The boys were really very good but it was difficult keeping them entertained for the LONG hours in the car. Micah's favorite game was dumping his snack bowl of cereal all over his lap over and over again. That child was swimming in cereal by the end of the trip. I just had to keep telling myself, "deep breaths! deep breaths!" Benji is not a very happy traveler but thankfully slept most of the way. He has a really hard time dealing with change in routine and cried a lot while we were away and was very clingy. He is SO glad to be home and hopefully will be back to his happy self soon. 

While we were away, Lynchburg was dumped with 8 inches of snow!!! We were enjoying the sunny weather in FL but were sad to miss such an awesome snowfall. Apparently there were some other things falling while we were away too- my (original) painting that was setting on our mantel fell off while we were gone and shattered! There was glass all over our living room when were walked in the door. All I could say was, "oh no! oh no!" Aaron was afraid someone broke in. Thankfully, that was not the case but I was really sad about the painting. It was punctured by a utility knife that was on the floor but hopefully it can be fixed. I tried to pick up as much glass as possible before I had to rush to class. Tuesday is my busy night- I usually don't get home until 9:30 but amazingly my professor let us out at 8:30! YEA! It was so good to go to bed. I worked on the chaos that is "coming home from a trip" today so the house is a little back in order but it still needs some work in the coming days. Whew! Life is an adventure! I'll try to be more faithful about blogging in the future but who knows what else life will bring in the day ahead. :)

Where I've been

I realized I haven't blogged in about 2 weeks. And this will be short. I am SWAMPED with school work! I have a huge paper due at the end of this week and have only had a week and a half to work on it, thanks to my teacher only letting us know of the deadline a week and a half ago. Grr. Plus I have book review due for another class on Friday as well. I am still frantically trying to get the book read. I can only work on school work while the boys are sleeping so I have been up late every night and letting housework go out the window as I am hitting the books during nap times. And I am sick. Life is hard to say the least. Tired, tired, tired. I just need to survived until the end of the month when one of my classes ends. Say a prayer for me!

On Dancing with my Sons

Turn up the music

I love this song

Hold me, hold me

Bounce and sway

Socks on linoleum

Twirl and spin

Hold on tight

Again, again

Laugh and coo

Head on my shoulder

Tender kiss

The melody surrounds us

And this moment lingers

Like honey on the tongue

Potty Seat

I guess I am writing a lot about potties lately....

I bought a potty seat today. You know, the ones that fit on top of the regular toilet seat? It is soft and has ducks on it. :) I know the boys are only 16 months old but hear me out. I have been having them sit on the potty to poop since they were about 7 months old. Micah has really taken to it and really likes to sit on the potty. Benjamin, not so much. Micah, on the other hand, wants to sit on the toilet at least once a day, sometimes more. 

On Saturday, Micah started grunting and went into the bathroom and starting banging the toilet lid up and down. Aaron asked him if he wanted to poop and Micah got all excited. So, Aaron helped him sit on the toilet. I don't think he pooped- just had some gas. But he's got the idea. So, I bought our first potty seat today. Sniff! My little boys are growing up.