After lunch at Whole Foods where the Brit had Indian food:
“I think an alien is going to burst out of my stomach with a piece of naan bread in its mouth!”
If you liked this, you might also like:
Shell Shocked
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.
If you liked this, you might also like:
Resolutions Update 2
Is it just me or did February fly by in a wink? Seems like just yesterday I was writing about how we did on our resolutions for January and now I’m checking in again.
To be honest, I don’t have that much to report. Spare time seems to be harder to come by as the days go on. I hardly have time to write blog posts much less do projects around the house. Add to that the fact that I’m exhausted by the time I get home from work each day and you can see why I haven’t made much progress.
Excuses? Yes they are. The fact of the matter is that I haven’t been very motivated. I think I have a mild case of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) in the sense that the cold, dark days make me want to curl up on the couch and hide until Summer rather than clean out a closet or do a workout. I am hoping that as we get in to March and Spring starts to make itself known, I will feel more inclined to take on some projects.
I talked several times this month about my struggles with food and healthy eating. I continue to try and make improvements in that area not so much to lose weight but to feel better. It’s still a struggle every day. I think I’m doing pretty good however we just got several boxes of Girl Scout cookies delivered to our house yesterday! Doh! God is testing me…
We did well with our budget in January. February was pretty good too. While we went over budget in some categories (eating out) we went under in others (groceries) so in total, we were under budget by $48. I’ll take it! Also, I have continued to make regular payments to us (in terms of savings) and extra payments to our credit card. I’m also paying over on the principle of our house payment each month. All of those things are progress and I feel good about that.
One money test will be our summer vacation. We are heading up to Michigan for our niece’s graduation from high school. We are very excited to see that side of the family and help celebrate her accomplishments. However, it’s not going to be cheap. So we are starting to plan and save now so that we don’t have to add on a bunch of charges to the credit card that we’re working so hard to pay off.
As for the house stuff…well I can’t say we’ve done anything there other than maintain status quo. I am, however, going to make it a priority to get 2 closets cleaned out this month and call our real estate agent. Those are relatively small goals and totally doable. I just have to get off my lazy butt!
How are you doing on your resolutions? This is the time of year when people start to fall off the wagon and give up on their goals – so we need to dig deep! Find that resolve and motivation to keep yourself going and let’s help each other!
If you liked this, you might also like:
Samson Stories: Training
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.
If you liked this, you might also like:
You Capture: the letter “L”
The latest You Capture assignment was the letter “L”. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to take pictures of things that start with “L” or actually of the letter “L” itself. So I did both! Once I got in to it, I had a lot of fun. Believe it or not, there aren’t as many “L” words as you might think just lying around so I really had to keep my eyes open.
We’ll begin with pictures of the actual letter itself that I saw on everyday objects:
“Luck”
One of my co-workers had his last day at work and someone brought in a “good luck” banner. I liked the colors in it and this close crop made it really interesting.
“Luna”
My Luna bar (“Nutz over Chocolate” of course)! Again, I cropped it in tight to put the emphasis on the “L” and on the woman kneeling down. Ended up being a cool image though I wish I’d had better lighting.
“Lysol”
Everybody’s favorite germ killer! I’m glad no one was around the office the day I shot this one. The Lysol can is in the bathroom and it took a few shots to get it right. Had someone walked in, I would have looked really weird…
“Playtex”
I know, I know…that doesn’t start with the letter “L”. But it does have an ‘l’ in it and this particular font, and the way the “l” sits between the “p” and the “a”, was really interesting to me. Cropped in close like this it looks like eyes. Reminds me of an owl.
Now for the photos of “L” words in action.
“Lap”
Isabella sitting on Grandpa-pa’s (CJ’s dad) lap reading a book. She loves her books and she loves her Grandpa-pa!
“Laundry”
Would you believe me if I told you this wasn’t staged? Well it wasn’t. She threw a bunch of toys in the laundry basket, then climbed in herself and curled up with her puppy. I wish all laundry was this fun to pick up!
“Loll”
On our way home from her cousin’s birthday party, Isabella fell asleep in the car. When I opened the door, I found her just like this, with her woobie lolling out of her mouth, ready to fall out. LOL!
“Looking”
Looking out the window with Grandma (my mom), watching some neighbors walk by. She was talking away, naming all the things that she saw. So cute!
There you have it! The abstractionist in me likes the word images because they’re different and edgy. But the sentimentalist in me likes the people shots because, well, they’re of Munchkin, my favorite subject in the whole world!
You know, I was going to try and type this whole post using mostly “L” words but gave up after I couldn’t even get through one sentence. Like I said, “L” words aren’t as common as one might think!
Later!
If you liked this, you might also like:
Team Trader Mom 