Girl’s Night

Posted in Family, Isabella/Munchkin by teamtradermom

Every Friday night is Girl’s Night at the Trader house. CJ has a standing engagement with friends so Isabella and I take advantage of the time to have some mommy and daughter bonding. Don’t worry, we include Samson too, even though he’s not a girl.

All day I was itching to get outside because it was so beautiful (67 degrees at one point)! Of course, by the time I got home, it had started to cool off a bit, and the wind picked up. But that didn’t stop Munchkin and me from putting on some jackets and heading down the street to the park!

The last time I brought Isabella to this park was in the fall of 2010 (probably Octoberish). Back then, she was new to walking and hadn’t started climbing or anything so there wasn’t much she could do. This time she was all over the place! I pulled her out of the stroller and she took off! The first thing she did was run to a big circle cut out and crawl through it. She loves to go through things like tunnels and what not.

Then she ran over to the slides. She hasn’t quite figured out yet that slides are for going down, not up. She always tries to climb them.

She actually got about halfway up before sliding back down again. I tried to take her down on my lap and she wasn’t interested. Some day she’ll get it and love it!

I took her around to show her the stairs and she quickly climbed up them. At the top there were all kinds of things to do, like driving a fire truck…

…crawling through a tunnel….

…and climbing in a bubble!

We spent a good 45 minutes there running around, doing all kinds of things. They had a rocking horse and rocking turtle thing there too but she said “No!” every time I tried to coax her in to riding on one. She wasn’t much interested in the sea-saw either (although she likes to yell out, “See-SAW! See-SAW!”).

When it was finally time to head home, because it was getting cold, I let her walk instead of riding in the stroller. She half walked/half ran the whole way too (which was only 2 blocks, but still, that’s a lot when you have short little legs)!

She even pushed the stroller the last half a block home, though I couldn’t get a picture of that because she was leaning on it enough that I was afraid if I let go she’s face plant in to the sidewalk.

As soon as we got home it was time to make shamrock cookies! She helped me put them on the cookie sheet but didn’t quite get that they are still raw dough and need to bake before they can be eaten. She cried when I took the pan away and put it in the oven. But, she was plenty happy when they came out 10 minutes later and were ready to eat!!

She’s in bed asleep as I type this, which gives me some much needed downtime. I plan to head upstairs soon, curl up on the couch with Samson and catch up on my DVRed shows.

I really love our Friday nights and am very hesitant to give them up, which is why I don’t accept many invitations to go out. I would much rather be home with my angel, getting some quality time in.

Another girl’s night down, many, many more to come!

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9Mar2011

Don’t Have it Your Way

Posted in Health and Weightloss, Isabella/Munchkin by teamtradermom

Yesterday was a long day. I worked a full 8 hours and then had a board meeting for a professional organization. By the time I left the office, it was about quarter to 7. I hit the road and headed out to pick up Munchkin from my parent’s house (CJ was at volleyball). On the way, I decided to swing by Burger King for a quick dinner. I debated stopping there since I’m trying to be healthy but in the end decided it was better to do fast food now, then wait to eat until I got home and put Isabella to bed. By then it would be almost 8:00 and I’d surely inhale every.single.thing in the house.

This BK has 2 drive-thru lines. One of them had a car in it already so I went to the other one. Then a third car pulled in behind the first guy. BK finished taking his order, then took the order for the car behind him, even though I was there first! *grumble* Finally they got to me and I ordered a kid’s meal – chicken nuggets, apples and white milk. Figured that was a good choice – smaller portions, cheaper, healthier sides and you get a toy!

I got to the window, gave him my money, got my food and left. As I got to the first stoplight, I reached in the bag and to my surprise found french fries, not apples! I specifically ordered apples because I didn’t want to be tempted by the fries! *GRUMBLE*

Now I was left with a choice – do I turn around and go back to get my apples or just deal with the fries? I was already short on time so I kept going, figuring I could just not eat the fries.

HA HA HA! I just reread that sentence. Have fries at my fingertips and not eat them? I mean, come on, have you met me? Besides, it’s not like I didn’t try to be good. I ordered the apples and milk. It’s not my fault they screwed up the order. Perhaps this was the universe’s way of saying, “Hey Sarah, give yourself a break…eat some fries…it won’t kill you.”

Why thank you universe – I think I will!

I do have to give myself props. I ate the nuggets first and then had a few,er, some, uh half of the fries. But not all of them. And I drank all my milk. Go me!

Isabella saved the night though. We always play a game during our drive home from grandma and grandpa’s. I give her a word and ask her to sing a song about it. Here is what she came up with last night.

“Dooooog, dog, dog, dooog. DOOOOOOGGGGG, dog, dog, dog, dog, dog, dog. Doggie, dog, dog, doggie, dog. Elmo!”

Didn’t see that ending coming did ya? What can I say, she has a gift.

Then she sang this one:

“Moon, moon, moon, moooooooooon. Moonie, moonie, Muno. Sun, sun, sun!”

Which must be the sequel to last week’s song:

“Moon, moon, moooooon. Moon, moon, sky….BRIGHT sky! Sky, sky, sky, suuuuuuun!!!”

I see a record contract in her future…

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3Mar2011

Points

Posted in CJ by teamtradermom

CJ earned major points this morning.

I’m sure you’re all familiar with the concept of earning points for things. With all the rewards programs offered by stores and credit cards these days, how can you not be? There are other types of points too. For example, man points. According to UrbanDictionary.com, man points are, “Points that one receives upon the completion of a distinctly manly task. More often than not, intelligent points and man points are inversely proportional.” ‘Nuf said.

Is it sad that I probably have more man points than some guys I know? What can I say, I’m a renaissance woman!

Anywho, back to how CJ earned his points today.

I was getting dressed this morning and having a hard time finding something to wear. See, I’m very conscious of wearing clothes to highlight areas of my body that I like and hiding ones that I don’t. So if I put on a shirt and it shows rolls and bumps/lumps that I’d rather not show, it goes back in the closet. Sometimes it takes trying on 3 or 4 shirts and pants combinations before I find one that works. Other days I just give up and go for the baggy sweatshirt.

Today I put on a purple plaid shirt that is loose enough to cover up my tummy but not so loose that it looks sloppy. I paired it with boot cut jeans, black tall boots, some sparkly jewelry and I was good to go. Then I looked in the mirror and the naggy, bitchy, negative mean girl who sometimes sits on my shoulder showed up.

“Your butt looks big in those jeans,” she said. “Maybe you should wear a longer shirt to cover it up.”

I checked again and thought maybe she was right. I have been eating a lot of junk lately and perhaps it was all settling in my trunk.

I pulled on my shirtto try and cover up what I now saw as the ginormous rear view in the mirror but it didn’t make a difference. I was about to change to another outfit when I heard Isabella calling from the next room. “Mama!” she said in her sweet happy little morning voice.

That was enough of a distraction for me to say “Aw screw it!” to the mean girl on my shoulder and just go as I was, though I wasn’t feeling the greatest about how I looked.

I went out in the kitchen and before I could say anything, CJ said, “Wow, you look hot in those jeans!” and gave me a big kiss.

Cha-ching! 5 gajillion husband points earned! And some man points too!

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28Feb2011

Shell Shocked

Posted in Isabella/Munchkin by teamtradermom

As I write this, I feel like what I imagine people go through after they’ve experienced some catastrophe. Only, on a much smaller scale.

No, our house didn’t burn down and don’t worry, Isabella is safe and sound. CJ is fully in tact and nothing has happened to me either. I can hear Samson outside jumping up and down so he’s a-ok as well. Nothing crazy or cosmic happened here tonight. It was just a series of small events that added together created this snowball of chaos.

It started just after bath time.

I had finished drying off Isabella and putting her in her pajamas. I set her down and off to go play. She immediately ran out to CJ who was in the living room watching TV. As I cleaned up in her room, I heard him say something to her about the remote control and good job changing the channels. After a minute or so he took the remote away from her and she burst in to tears. And screams. And more tears.

I came out then and was able to distract her with a “purse” that she has. I put a few toys in it and she came over to see what I was doing. She started playing with it too only it wasn’t zipped up and when she grabbed it the toys fell out. Like a good girl, she picked them up and put them back in. I was showing her how to zip it up and you’d have thought I was showing her how to murder the little stuffed turtle because she started screaming again.

This time I was able to distract her with some blocks that stack on to little pillars. She was playing with them and telling us the shapes and colors. Only she said “octagon” instead of “pentagon” for the red one (I know, right?) so CJ was tickling her and saying “P-p-p-PENT-a-gon!” which she thought was hysterical.

That started the tickle wars which was a lot of fun until she lost her balance and fell backward. Right on to the wooden pillar thing.

Cue the tears.

At first we thought she was just crying from shock or fear until we saw the blood running out of her mouth. I carried her in to the kitchen so that we could see better. Her mouth was full of blood. She wouldn’t open wide enough for us to see inside though so all I could do was blot it up from her lips and chin. I gave her some water to drink, which she did. That seemed to stop the bleeding but she was still crying hard.

In the middle of all that, Samson saw someone outside walking by and thought it was important to alert us of this and let out a huge “RUFF!!”

We all jumped. Isabella cried harder.

CJ escorted Samson to his kennel for a time out.

We finally got Munchkin calmed down and fixed up. We sat on the living room floor to read some books and get ready for bed. She usually wants to sit in my lap and have me read to her (because CJ reads to her all day). Not tonight. She only wanted daddy. I was slightly hurt but reminded myself that she’s a toddler and fickle sometimes. CJ kept trying to include me by handing over the book or saying, “Let’s have mommy read!” Only to have Isabella grab the book back and give it to CJ. After doing this a couple times, she’d had enough and, you guessed it, more tears.

OK, bed time! We brushed her teeth, got her hooked up with woobies and off to bed she went.

And scene.

I am still on edge. I think I’ll have flashbacks the next few times she cries. It’s PTSD that only parents can understand.

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Samson Stories: Training

Posted in Samson by teamtradermom

For anyone out there who has a Labrador, or any other high energy dog, listen up. We went through hell and back trying to get Samson trained and under control so if anyone can learn from our mistakes adventures, it will have been worth it. As one of our trainers told us, “All this work is great training for parenting so you guys should be the best parents in the world!”

These pics were taken on the day we met Samson. As soon as we saw that fuzzy little pup rolling around in the grass, we were hooked.

He was a cute little guy, huh?

[Quick aside: we both thought from the day we met Samson that he had beautiful eyes. Almost like lion eyes. So we wanted to name him after a famous lion. But, nothing really seemed to fit him just right. Finally we settled on Samson, which is not a lion’s name but it works because he is so strong. However, when I went to register him with the AKC, I got an error that I could not register under that name because there were already too many Yellow Labradors named Samson. Uh, ok. So we tacked “Aslan” on to the front, after the lion in “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”. So his real, official name is Aslan Samson Trader.]

We started Samson out in a puppy class at our local veterinarian’s office. He was really little, maybe 5 or 6 months old.

He looks so small there, doesn’t he? Compare that to him today…he’s pretty much doubled in size! Believe me, they don’t stay that little forever!

Samson did well in the first puppy class, so long as we kept him fed up with treats. He’s pretty food-oriented so having a generous supply of goodies in our pockets helped get through the hour. In that class he learned the basics like “sit”, “stay”, “down”, and “come.” But after graduation he was still a crazy, energy filled monster running around the house so we signed up for the next level of class at the Nebraska Humane Society.

We were in for a rude awakening.

See, Samson is very social. He loves people and other dogs. As soon as we walked in to that class, he started jumping and barking and pulling on his leash. He wanted to get to the other dogs and play dammit! Well, this was supposed to be a time of work, not play, so they had to put us at the far end of the room, away from the other dogs. We were the outcasts. Because Samson is so smart, and had already been through one class, he knew a lot of what they were teaching. He got bored really fast. No amount of treats kept his attention – we even brought popcorn which he L-O-V-E-S! He literally spent the whole first class barking, no matter what we did. At one point they even surrounded us with tall plastic movable walls so that he couldn’t see the other dogs. But he still knew they were there and kept up his shenanigans. By the end of that first class, I was in tears. The instructor had us stay after to chat. She recognized that Samson was ahead of the other dogs and a “special case.” She also recognized that I wasn’t being as assertive with him as I needed to be. She promised things would get better and encouraged us to come back.

The other problem we faced is that from the moment Samson entered our house, he saw CJ as the “alpha” and me as the weak one of the litter. Consequently, he wouldn’t obey me at all. CJ kept telling me that I was too gentle on him. Instead of pinning him to the ground when he was naughty, I’d say a weak “No Samson” and then cover him with kisses. I guess that wasn’t the most effective solution.

In the following weeks, we kept going to class and the teacher would have special tricks or commands ready for us to try. While the other dogs were working on “sit” and “stay”, we were teaching Samson to roll over, crawl and “sit pretty”.

But it still wasn’t enough. He would learn the advanced tricks pretty quick and be right back to barking and pulling. We finished that class feeling no further ahead then when we had started. CJ was able to work with him pretty well but I got no where. Out of desperation, I made an appointment with a private trainer. We met her one-on-one, with no other dogs there as distractions. After 5 minutes of working with us she saw the problem: Samson was a smart, high energy dog who had no respect for me. We also weren’t consistant in how we were disciplining him so he was confused. She pulled me aside and asked a tough question: was Samson really the dog for us? She suggested that perhaps it wasn’t a good fit and we should consider giving him up. Even though I was frustrated, and again in tears, I refused to believe that we couldn’t make it work. Besides, I loved him and wouldn’t give up on him. With that decision made, she told us to do the following for one week –

We were to pretend that CJ was on vacation and he wasn’t allowed to do anything with Samson. He couldn’t feed him, play with him, pet him, let him outside – nothing. I had to do everything. The point of this was to get Samson to see me as his master and gain some respect. I even had to feed him by hand (which I ended up loving because his soft tongue and whiskers tickled my hand). We also were told to make him work for everything. If he wanted water, he had to sit first. Need to go outside? Shake first. Time for dinner? Sit, stay and not go eat until we released him. We even put his dog food in a toy dispenser that he had to bat around in order to get the food out. This was so that his brain would get used more and we could tap in to that hunting/work ethic of the Lab.

This sounds pretty extreme but we were at a point of desperation. And you know what? It worked! After just a couple days, he started naturally following me around the house, obeying my commands, and giving me the respect I deserved. Even after that week was over, and CJ’s “vacation” ended, Samson continued to behave better and better for both of us. Using these techniques, combined with visits to Doggie Day Camp twice a week, he really came around.

Today, Samson is the best dog. He is MUCH calmer and can even be trusted alone in the house when we are gone. We still make him work for things and have to find new ways to challenge his brain (and we still do DDC, but have cut it back to bi-weekly) but I couldn’t have asked for a better dog. People that knew him when he was young are amazed to see him now. My parents comment on it every time they come over. He still has his moments of craziness but hey, he is a dog after all. Best of all – he’s really good with Isabella, which was a worry at first. He is big and strong but is gentle with her (for the most part – he does knock her over on occassion when he gets excited) and I can see that he’s protective. He alerts us when she cries and gives her the occasional “kiss” and “nose poke”.

Samson went from being the dog from hell to my best pal because of some hard work, commitment and consistency on our part. I’m so glad I didn’t give up on him.

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