A Melancholy Pup...

The last few weekends, my wife, Laura and I have been super busy… and our weekends do not seem to be letting up anytime soon. Every weekend we seem to have plans. It looks as if we may have to schedule time to stay home! It would be nice to be able to spend one entire weekend at home resting, but, obviously, we are kind of a big deal! If we aren’t out-of-town we are helping with a garage sale, or at a birthday party, or a high school reunion or a wedding, etc… Will it never end??? Will Laura and I ever get to spend some time at home??? Our dogs seem to be noticing we are not at home as much. Our usually ever-so excited beagle, Logan, has been moping around the house in a “ho-hum” kind of way, as if she knows what is coming. I can just hear what she is thinking… “You are gonna bring something home, I can just tell! Last time you acted this way you brought home Andy…” But, of course, our feisty Westie, doesn’t seem to notice anything. He struts around like nothing is wrong… We are not sure if Logan is sick or just sad!

It all began this past weekend...it was the annual fall garage sale for our subdivision and, certainly, you do not think my sister and mom would miss that opportunity, do you? They are garage sale experts! They have garage-saling down to a fine art. Well, as Laura and I were heading out of town, to go to our nephew Drew’s 4^th birthday in South Carolina, we drove past some houses that had a lot of colorful articles outside in their driveway.

“Wow, look at all that stuff!” I said to Laura while stopped at a stop sign on Woodbridge Lane. “Look at all that baby stuff!”

“It looks brand new…What are you doing?” said Laura while she watched me pull out my phone to make a call. “Who are you..”

“Hey, mom!” I said “where are y’all?” Mandy and mom were driving down from Dalton that morning.

I went on to talk to mom about all the baby stuff at a house just down the street from ours on Woodbridge Lane, right past the home with the Prudential sign in the yard. I wanted to make sure they stopped by to look at it because if it was in good condition it would be wonderful for us to have for Baby Skates.

“What is it?” said my sister, Mandy, who I could hear in the back ground. “What does it look like?”

“I don’t know,” I said “It’s one of those baby things where the kid sits in the middle, and it’s round, and has all kinds of things to keep it occupied.”

“Oh okay,” said mom “We will look at it and let you know…”

“Alright! Thanks!” I said quickly, “I better go, gotta pay attention to the road, thanks mom!”

Fast forward, nine hours, Laura and I arrive home from Drew’s karate themed birthday party in South Carolina. (I will tell that story at another time.)

We walk inside and my mom and sister went a little overboard... the first thing we see is an adorable little wooden zebra with wheels that Baby Skates will love to ride one day... and a little Mickey & Minnie throw blanket. And, there it was... the colorful, round toy that I saw on the side of the road on Woodbridge Lane. But, there was something different about it... it was all taken a part! Apparently, it is a multi-use toy and can be used in many different stages.

After changing, checking email, and eating dinner Laura decides it is time to disinfect and put this thing together! I just smile and say "okay!" Knowing all good and well she would be doing this and I would be supervising from a distance.

As Laura pulls out the Clorox wipes from beneath the kitchen cabinet the dogs get all excited when the different colors parts of plastic are being brought down stairs. They have no idea what these things are and why are they in our house? I think they thought they were toys for them, but were not sure how to proceed.

This is when Logan begins her mop. She proceeds to walk over to Laura and look at her with a fond look of sadness. As she was saying

"Is this what is has come to? Are you going to give us up? I have been speaking to other dogs around the neighborhood and they say all the signs your body is going through is the sign of a baby... and well... I've seen Lady and the Tramp!"

Laura pats her leg and Logan plops herself right in her lap. Andy, very taken a-back from this, because he is "momma's little lap dog." I call him over to me and he sits in my lap while Laura cleans the blue, orange and green plastic pieces.

The bottom piece is round and bright green... Andy decides to investigate this and also feels this would be a nice place to sit!

Finally, Laura finishes cleaning and now it is time to piece everything together... after a forced snap here and there it's done!

We go ahead and start touching the buttons and making them do all their "sounds" because we need to go ahead and get the dogs used to these alien tones! The dogs sit on the kitchen floor looking perplexed and confused. I go ahead and pick up Logan's front paws to show her it's okay to touch, smell or even lick... although Laura has already disinfected everything! Andy follows in suit and they do a thorough investigation even CSI would be proud of.
We went ahead and put the toy, one day I will find out the technical term for this piece of baby equipment, in the den where it could sit so the pups could get used to this foregin object in our humble surroundings. Now all we need is a CD with a baby crying... I can't wait to see the look on their faces when that happens!

Blogger's Block

I’m sorry that it has taken me so long to write another blog, but honestly there is not much to report!

Although, when my loyal blog fans, all two of you out there, asked me to write another entry who am I to deny you???

It is true though, not much has been happening lately, so I guess I kinda fell into, what I call, blogger’s block… I don’t know if that is a real term or not, but maybe I just made it up?

This past weekend, Labor Day weekend 2008, was a fun time, Laura and I went to Panama City Beach, FL with my family to have a short, but very well-deserved vacay. Went got some sun, ate some overpriced seafood and enjoyed spending quality time with my sister, Mandy, mom and dad, nephew, Everett, brother-in-law, Kelly, and my mom’s friend and my sister’s nanny, Sherrie!

It was a lot of fun and Laura and I had not been on a road trip together probably since our trip to Gatlinburg with her parents. We saw quite a lot of Mormons on that trip, but alas, no Mormons in PCB, although they could have been there, but just out spreading their gospel.

We took off on Friday, August 29^th, after work, even though hurricane Gustav was lurking and looming in the Gulf of Mexico. But, thankfully the weather was fair and we didn’t get any ill remnants of Gustav. And, could someone please give Soledad O’Brien a call and tell her how to pronounce “Gustav.” We listened to satellite radio on the way home and she mispronounced the hurricane the whole way.

We had to get back because both Laura and I had to be at work on Tuesday. We got up on Monday and by 10am, est. we were on our way back to Canton.

Thanks to Jenn and Paul, mine and Laura's sister and brother-in-law, for watching the kids for us! (Logan and Andy stayed behind, of course, and were ever-so excited to see us when we got back.)

In other news, our 12-week check up for the baby is coming into view next week! Tuesday, September 9^th, we will go and make sure everything is “right as rain” with Baby Skates. I will surely have a more interesting blog entry that day, I promise.

Hope you all are having a great week…

Poop, don't pee!

Not a whole lot has transpired since my lastest blog entry, so basically that is why I haven’t posted until now.

I wanted to tell you all about what happened this past weekend on Saturday. Let me set the story up for you: My sister, Mandy and my hardworking-never-put-down-the-phone mom came down to Kennesaw for the day to do some shopping and we had agreed, on Friday, if they brought Everett we would be happy to watch him while they frolicked around the town buying this and that… Laura and I were certainly happy to oblige because Everett is a fun-loving little boy who is easy to take care of. This was the first day for me to take a little boy to the bathroom in a public place. Quite a fun run-through for what is about to come. We were in a store called “USA Baby,” which is basically a condensed and more personal version of Babies-R-Us. Laura and I were walking around looking at the various things we may want to register for and after looking at bottles, bibs, strollers & diaper bags Mandy asked Everett the dun-dun-dun question.

“Do you need to go potty?”

“No.” Everett replied with a coy smile.

“Why doesn’t uncle Eric take you to pee pee?”

Everett continues to smile and shake his head no, which means in child talk, “I do need to go but I don’t wanna go right now.”

I am learning more and more I hang out with kids the in’s and out’s, although I think I am pretty far from father-to-be of the year.

So, I proceeded to pick Everett up and strut back toward the bathroom.

“I want mommy, I want mommy to do it,” Everett says in a ever-so sad and whining voice.

I thought to myself, “Do I risk a child yelling for his mommy from the bathroom in a public place or should I just take him back and hope for the best?”

I went ahead and took him back and he did his thing and everything was hunky dory, this time.

Fast forward, a few hours, Laura and I take Everett home to play with Andy and Logan, and while there Annagrace and Jenn came over for a quick and pleasantly surprised play-date, complete with bubbles! We all went outside and sat on the deck to watch the kids play with the dogs and their bubbles and that is when it was suggested to take Everett inside to "use the potty." Now, please understand we do not have one of those "little baby potties" so when I took him into the downstairs bathroom I had to hold him on the seat so he would not fall in!

"Okay Everett, time to poop," I said to him.

He just looked at me with a deteremined look on his face and low and behold he starts to............ pee!!!! No, not poop, pee! Pee went all over me, him, the floor and potty!

"No!!! Everett No! Laura, Laura help!" I couldn't help, but laugh at the situation because I knew if I looked upset it would make Everett upset and I did not want him to cry! Thankfully, Laura came running the rescue with some wips, Jenn, so conveniently, had in Annagrace's diaper bag, and some clean clothes, minus new socks let me add. Everett has a thing about wearing shoes sans socks. But, this time it was okay. (Thank God!)

"I'm sorry, Everett, but you're okay, right?"

""Yah, I'm okay," he said..."but your floor is dirty! Why don't you clean?!"

"I'm not sure, Everett, I will work on that okay?"

"Okay," he said.

With Everett all clean after the shower of pee, I asked him if he was done and he immediatly said...

"Yes, I wanna go outside!"

We went outside and the crisis of the "I wanna go home call" was averted, yet again!!!

So, moral of the story... Always have a little boy stand up and pee before he tries to poop and have some extra clothes and clean socks, just in case!

All has been permanetly burned into my subcranium... What is my next lesson? Don't know, but lets hope it is a little more sanitary!

This week has just started and I am all ready to begin the weekend… Until next time!