Animal House

Look what someone left on my front porch!
This is Kane - and he actually wasn't left on my front porch - he was left in my kitchen. He's awesome. Did you know that some dogs actually do what their owner tells them to do when they tell them to do it? I had no idea - our dogs certainly don't.

We're watching Kane for a little over a week while his people go on a road trip.

Dobermans tend to attach to one person, so on the first night he woke up 15 times to look for his person, but he's doing much better now.

Our cats have been pretty absent from the backyard and although the hope that he would chase away the stray that has adopted us - has not actually occurred, the good news is that our two cats are at least still around. Actually Kane was the one who chased Alexander out of our backyard a few years ago and he couldn't find his way back - it took me a week and two rounds of sign postings before he finally turned up just 3 houses away. Alexander had been keeping his distance from the backyard - I hadn't seen him in 3 days, so this morning I opened a can of tuna an walked up and down our street calling out "Alexander, Salamander!" (He doesn't come for "heeeere kitty kitty." That's probably my fault, but you never think about how you'll sound walking up and down your street with an open can of tuna calling your cat when you teach him to come for funny rhymes.)

Anyway - Alexander apparently is hanging out across the street at our neighbors' who are on their annual 6 month trip to the Northwest. Which is fine, that he finally showed up (read: after 10 minutes of me yelling and sing-songing and walking around with a can of fish stinking up my arms because I didn't drain it and instead thought that sloshing it on myself was a better option) tells me that he at least knows how to get back home when Kane leaves next Friday all should be back to normal.

Anyway, back to Kane - nothing makes an 80 lb dog look like a small dog more than a 130lb dog.

Landon wasn't too keen on Kane at the beginning ("I want that big black dog to go home!") But he's adjusting, and if nothing else, it makes him appreciate Scarlett more. This morning while I was cleaning dishes from breakfast, he read Scarlett 2 books. (I'm using the term read very very loosely here). Plus Kane has some quirks that are working to our advantage - he won't go upstairs or into our bathroom, so if Landon feels like he needs to get away from Kane, he has 2 options...he has no such options when it comes to our dogs.

Kane also doesn't horn in on the dishwasher while I'm trying to wash dishes. Or lay down behind me very very quietly so that I turn and trip the next time I move, or whine about a lack of attention, or bark at me for dancing or just flat out ignore me when I say it's time to go inside from the backyard. I'm thinking of sending one of ours back to his house to see if they notice - they sell Doberman costumes, I'm pretty sure.

Well, I'm at least hoping that some of Kane's habits rub off on our two and not the other way around.

And we thought the give away that night was useless...

Fine

Do you know what happens when you stop blogging for a while?

The portion of your brain that tells stories and tells them with half an ounce of funny begins to die. And then you go to pick up where you left off and you can't. Because you're brain dead. And when you finally get time to sit down and blog about something, you can't think of anything. Because you're brain dead.

Also affected is the portion of your brain that thinks about taking pictures, because in lieu of a good story you can always post a funny picture. Except if you don't have any because your camera hasn't left your purse in a week.

So this week I'm going to make a bit more of an effort to take the pictures and think of the funny, and then in turn tell you. But that kind of means that I have this week to come up with the blogable stuff before I can write about it.

I can't post from work, but I could supposedly read from work. I tried reading some blogs at work, and then weird things happen, like I'm reading a post and I try to comment and it's blocked for "p0rn." So that pretty much takes care of not blogging from work. So when I finally get the chance to sit down at home to read the other people's blogs, I see that they are not suffering from my same disease and I am overwhelmed by the shear number of posts I have to read just to catch up. I have even dropped a few from my reader to make it easier (not you, you're awesome, I dropped people who have never been and never will be here) and still - no good.

I'm still working out the kinks, trying to get a new schedule going, one that will allow for at least a little bloggery each day.

In the meantime I will grace you with a few baseball pictures - as we did go to a game last Friday with my family. He loved the game, although the fireworks were loud and he spent most of the fireworks show crying.

We walked within a couple feet of Hunter Pence, and then within a couple feet of his police escort and then by a family who was peeing on themselves about being that close to Hunter Pence. He looks even taller and ganglier in person, if that's even possible, seriously, the man is all arms and legs. I said to Landon, "Hey, did you see that guy? That was Hunter Pence. He's an Astro." And Landon was like "Whatever, you said something about ice cream, when do we get the ice cream?"

Big Bad Bumble Bee

Yesterday we found out that Landon has not inherited my allergic reactions to bug bites. And also his isn't worse than mine either.

We went to my sister's house to cook a brisket and he was walking around outside barefoot. He and a bee got into it, and I actually was close enough that I pulled the bee out of his toe. It was the piggy that got no roast beef. I also happened to be carrying my Benedryl spray, since I had gotten bitten by an ant a little bit earlier, so the Benedryl spray was on it within 5 seconds.

We then spent the next 15 to 20 minutes (or years, depending on who you ask) telling him that we knew he didn't want that bee anymore. And finally, the cure for a bee sting? A tube Popsicle. Thank goodness for Brianna!

The sting is virtually non-existent today. My ant bite is about 4 times the size it was yesterday. Not that anyone cares.

Basketcase

I went to HEB on Saturday armed with a list that contained not only my menu for the week, but my grocery list. I lost my list somewhere between the potatoes and the shrimp. And I nearly cried.

Proof that I don't even know who my parents are anymore

This board game contain approximately 789,367 pieces. It's all about numbers and I'm all about numbers, so they were pieces I habitually begged to haul out so we could play. Pieces that my mother said were a pain in the butt to clean up and NO, no one was willing to play said game with me. Also, don't even think of dragging it out and just playing by yourself, I don't want all those pieces in the living room...last weekend she pulled out this game and played it.

Also they let him put stickers all over the kid rocking chair. An offense, I'm pretty sure would have been punishable by stringing up by the toenails when I was a kid. And the explanation? "Ehh, we're grandparents now."

If anyone sees my parents let me know, I'm pretty sure these people are impostors.

Landonisms

Yesterday when I picked Landon up from school, he told me that "Kaffoleen and Zoey beach not have crab, only YOUR beach have crab."

He also asked if crabs go to sleep in their shells.

Yes, I think they probably do.

"Wif itty bitty pillows?"

Sure, why not.


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Landon is no longer willing to put on a diaper. For any reason. Not even bed. "I not wear diapers, I wear unnerwears." Of course he did. I have about 65 pull-ups left from a package of 80.

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All thing medium are known as "big little."

Do you have a little pillow that goes in your crib?

"No, I have a big little pillow. BIG-LITTLE, MOMMMMMMY!"

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Landon refers to the wet bar as his "backyard." We keep the majority of his downstairs toys in there, and I have no idea when he decided it was his backyard.

Disclaimer

So my new job is great, except I can't post from work anymore - and I'm kind of beginning to remember why I don't like cubicles, well, I could probably do the thing where I email a post, but you wouldn't get any pictures and I know some of you are only here for the pictures.

This week is hectic, getting back into the groove of things, having to work late each day this week to make up for missing Friday...I'm going to try to get back to a regular routine of posting next week. I hope.

I'm also behind on my reading of blogs, so if you read here and I haven't commented on your blog in a week or so, I'm sorry - I will, I promise.

Monthly Newsletter #34

Dear Landon,

This month has been one of the best and one of the worst months. We spent 75% of this month together, I was laid off from work and I decided to keep you home even after I knew that I had an eminent job offer. In some respects it was perfect timing.

You are potty trained. And so proud of it, the ladies at the day care were also so excited to see you were potty trained, although they quickly discovered not to ask what's on your underwear, because you will drop your pants right then and there to show them. You quickly grew tired of the positive reinforcement prizes we put in place. You're perfectly happy to just pee in the potty, because you know it means you won't be sitting around all wet. Now if we could just get you to stand to pee, we'd be in business.

When I found out that I had a job, but just had some time off, I started planning lots and lots of fun things to do. Some ended up being more fun than others. As it turns out, we could have gone to Hermann park and just rode the train all day - it would have been more fun than going to the zoo in 100° weather. And also, the play I took you to at Miller Outdoor Theater was kind of a letdown, but riding and getting on and off the train that day was super awesome. The Blue Bell ice cream factory was probably the least exciting for you, but you did like that it ended with ice cream. I think our best adventure was to the Children's Museum and I can't wait to plan a day to go back again.

We also did a few things that were cheap and free. You have a new found love of the library and your 20 books trophy. Next year if we participate, we're doing 20 hours instead of 20 books. Because you and I can go through 15 books in one sitting, and that doesn't even count that fact that we read each one at least twice.

We probably went to the park one too many times, although on one trip when we fed the ducks we discovered one of the large male ducks had fishing line wrapped around one of his feet. It was so tight he was limping and it was swollen. I called animal control and the guy showed up to look at him. I told you that he was the animal guy and was going to fix that duck. We talked about how when something is wrong, you should do what you can to fix it, and if you can't fix it you should call someone who can, and that's what we did by calling animal control. And thank goodness when we went back about a week later I couldn't even tell which of those ducks had been the hurt one.

We also discovered a few more, better shows on TV instead of only watching Sprout. I have a higher tolerance for Caillou when it's not the same 3 episodes over and over again and we discovered Sid the Science Kid (whose grandmother needs to stop laughing or get a new laugh or something - but otherwise is a neat show) and Super Why (although the concepts and letters and spelling stuff is a bit beyond you, you love this show too.)

I'm not going to lie, you are a handful and my patience was wearing thin, and I was really pretty relieved to hand you back over to the Day Care. But I was also relieved that you wanted to go back. When went to tell them the Thursday before you started back that you were coming on Monday and you pitched a huge fit about not wanting to leave - it was a good sign, but even better was that on Monday morning, you gave me no problems about going back to school. I'm glad we had this month together. You may not remember all the stuff we did later on down the line, but I think it was worth it anyway.

This month is going to be different, not better, not worse, but different. Please have patience with me while I adjust to my new job, oh, and consider standing up to pee - it's all the rage amongst the people who have your similar parts.

Love,
Mama