Laddie

Since my life is currently completely boring and unblogworthy, I decided to give Laddie some web time. With summer finally presenting itself, Laddie has began his yearly ritual of just sitting outside basking in the warmth of the sun and baking himself on the cement of our patio. He'll sit out there for HOURS and just sleep. And since he seems to enjoy it, we try to let him do it whenever possible.

But with the glorious sun, which now lasts well into the evening, we also have the arrival of bikes, scooters, skateboards, and all manner of various wheeled contraptions that speed in front of our house at obscene speeds with their loud drivers accompanying them. In any other living situation, this wouldn't bother me (I don't think!?!). After all, it was our decision to live directly next to the park in the hopes that it would be a great selling feature when we're ready to move on.

Unfortunately, Laddie has some beef with all wheeled apparatuses that causes him to bark viciously at unsuspecting neighbor kids. (Some aren't all that unsuspecting and go by repeatedly just to be brats, but that's another story.) As a result, he has to come inside since we don't allow incessant barking. The thing is, Laddie hasn't quite caught on that if he behaves himself when they go by, he can stay outside. I'm sure he knows he has to come in as soon as he starts barking because as soon as the door opens, he comes running. If he hasn't done anything wrong, he just looks at you like, I'm not ready to come in, so what do you want? But instead of changing his behavior, he continues to bark, cutting short his basking time, only to want back out less than five minutes later.

That was the case today. Erik put him out and hadn't even closed the door before he started barking. So he came right back in. Since there were several kids out with bikes and scooters, I decided he could stay inside until bedtime because I had other things to do besides let him in and out all night. But he was sure determined. He sat on the door mat the ENTIRE night with his sad puppy dog eyes, just willing me to let him out.


I almost caved a couple times, but I held my own. If anyone has any tips for how to get a stubborn Jack Russell to stop barking at every person who goes by, please share. I know he's smart enough; if only he'd apply himself...

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What chance does she have?

I recently subscribed to a blog because it was mentioned on one of my other regular blogs, and honestly, I was considering removing it from my reader because nothing all that great (or longer than a paragraph) had been coming up. But I left it and decided to have a little patience (it's only been a week since I added it...). Then today, Mighty Girl posted this:

Lots of parents aren’t particularly concerned about stuff on their kids’ faces. This is because you can wipe a child’s face, leave the room to throw out the tissue, and return to find them covered with snot and dog hair. You’re standing there thinking, “We don’t even own a dog.” Well, that’s beside the point. The point is that keeping your kid’s face clean is like pushing a boulder uphill. Except the boulder has teeth, and can scream.

When I was child free, I’d laugh nervously when people passed me their baby food-covered kids. Then I’d lunge for the nearest napkin before the baby could slime my sweater. I always figured I’d grow out of that when I had my own kids, but instead I just chase Hank around with baby wipes all day. The result is a remarkably fastidious kid who would prefer not to touch anything that might leave a residue. He has a very conflicted relationship with bananas.

There's more to it, including some cute pictures of convincing her son to eat an ice cream cone. But these first couple paragraphs just spoke to me. I don't know if it's a genetic thing or if I could have spared Lillian the mild case of OCD that is my life, but I could have easily written those words. (But I didn't; please copyright police: don't come chasing after me...)

I first realized Lily was heading this direction about a year ago when I bought her some Crayola paints. My real reason for buying them was that I wanted to be able to hang some art up on the fridge. Isn't that what all moms should have? Well, I didn't, and I figured it was about time. (As a side note, she is almost constantly scribbling on something now and there is nothing hanging on my fridge. When the desire faded, I don't know.) Now, these paints were tailor made for toddlers: big and chunky with the paint completely contained inside. And like all good Crayola products, washable. We came home from the store and I immediately placed her in her highchair with a piece of paper and waited for her artistic genius to emerge. Instead, about 5 minutes later, she's whining because she has paint on her hands.

It was then I knew I had created a monster.

Similar to Mighty Girl, I'm constantly chasing Lillian around with wipes (although as mentioned in a previous post, she sometimes sneaks things by me and I still end up with gunk on my clothes), and apparently, she has come to expect such treatment. She'll put her hands in anything until she realizes...and even seems surprised by the fact that...her hands are sticky/wet/dirty/ covered in ranch. She even has the same "conflicted relationship with bananas."

Take last night, for example. After eating a piece of taffy, and drooling on Erik (HA!HA!), her hands were sticky. Then she proceeded to pet the dog. Well...not pet so much as pinch him, pulling off handfuls of hair at the same time. She about had a break down because her hands were covered in dog hair. Of course, I probably would have reacted the same way. :)

There are some days it takes hours to eat a pb&j because she likes to scoop the jelly out with her finger. Then, naturally, she needs her hands wiped off before she can do it again.

Coloring on the chalkboard is a very interesting time since we're constantly wiping dust off her hands so she can pick up a different color.

At least once a day she asks for a wipe and then proceeds to clean MY face.

In a conversation with my mom the other day, we realized Lily will have a very interesting set of neuroses to deal with since she also has Erik's ADD. OCD and ADD just don't mix...think about it. Clean, clean, clean...oh; a bird! Where was I? Clean, clean, clean...look: a shiny thing!

She's doomed.

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Funk

Every year around this time, I fall into a funk, and I blame our education system. After 13 years of public school plus an additional 4 years of college, I came to expect, maybe even need, a break every summer. Most of the time, it was called spring fever. As a senior, it was called senior-itis. Whatever the name, in the weeks leading up to that glorious break I would always get antsy and uninterested in what was happening in the present in anticipation of those summer months, a change in the day-to-day drudgery and structure of school. And I actually liked school. It was just an unavoidable side effect, I guess.

Now, even though I graduated 6 years ago (oh.my.gosh...has it really been that long?), I still have that break ingrained into my routine. The problem is, of course, that I now live in the real world and don't get summers off. But I still get spring fever every year, usually sometime in May. I don't really want to do anything and don't find my normal activities as enjoyable, which is evident in my current lack of blogging and picture taking. (Maybe I get seasonal depression; I just get it in the spring rather than the winter). I get so bored with my routine and feel I need a change, but since there's no distinct, definite break in routine, I never get that change. I had kind of hoped our furlough in March would provide enough of a break to be a preemptive strike, but apparently not.

I usually snap out of it once the summer festivities and activities are in full swing, but while I'm in the funk, like I am right now, it's just depressing. So I'm trying to find ways to help mitigate my gloominess. First of all, I'm going to force myself to do things that I usually enjoy. I know that doesn't sound too enjoyable...why should I have to force myself to do something I normally enjoy? And I guess it's not so much forcing myself to do it as making a conscious effort to get back into those activities. Now that Erik has started his overnight rotation, I will have a couple hours every evening to myself once Lillian goes to bed. Rather than spend the entire time vegging (which is about all I seem to want to do lately), I'm going to make sure I spend at least a little time every night on a hobby...scrapbooking, craftiness, reading, sewing, photography, etc. Of course, one of my hobbies, if you could call it that, is watching movies, so I may do that periodically, too. Which means I might finally get through the first season of LOST and the other movies that are still in the shrink wrap. (I'm turning into Len!!)

My other plan of attack it to actually take some time off work without having anything actually planned. It seems like whenever I take a real vacation with definite plans, I go back to work feeling like I didn't actually take a vacation...it was too crammed full of activity. So, while our babysitter is taking her various time off over the summer, I decided to just take the same two weeks rather than try to work out who can watch Lillian and when. Hopefully two weeks of completely unstructured time will help me feel like I got a mini summer break, even if they aren't consecutive weeks. Lillian and I can spend the day at the park and going for walks and just generally enjoying the weather. I'm hoping we'll find enough to keep us busy out of the house since Erik will be trying to sleep during the day.

Most of all, I've decided I won't let this funk get me down. It's sunny and beautiful and who wants to spend spring all glum?

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Strange gym outing

Because I can't seem to get the gumption to go any other time of the day, I spend my lunch hour at the gym. Usually it's a fairly uneventful experience with the most out-of-the-ordinary event being a gaggle of high school girls taking over the showers just as I need them and I'm already running late to get back to work.

But today, was a different story. There were two experiences I could have done without during my daily gym excursion today. I'm not sure which was more disturbing, but I can tell you that I know which one I found more amusing.

The first incident happened just before leaving the locker room. I hate discovering I have to pee 5 minutes into my run, so I've made it a habit to use the restroom before heading out. Imagine my surprise when I sat on a wet toilet seat. First of all....EWWWW. Second, how does that even happen in a women's restroom? Or maybe I don't want to know.

The second incident occurred on my way back into the locker room when I was confronted with a woman blow drying her rear end. I'm not kidding. There she was, standing in front of the mirror, towel around her waist, with the head of the blow dryer blowing warm air up the back of the towel. I decided she might be offended if I started laughing right here, but it was SO hard not to. I just didn't know what would possess someone to blow dry their butt with a COMMUNAL blow dryer.

But at least I missed the gaggle of girls today...

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