Lost But Found

Little Rick is getting old.

This July he will be 13. That is 91 in people years. I hope I live to be that old.

But like humans, old age is taking its toll on him. He does little more than eat, sleep, shed and poop now-a-days. I swear he can’t hear us 90% of the time we call his name. He’s can’t see more than 5 feet in front of him, giving the bunnies rule over our yard and crumbs that he was once in charge of cleaning up rule over our floor. He’s had some sort of cold since Christmas, that seems to be immune to antibiotics, and has taken to coughing like it is his last breath at 2am under our bed. His teeth are starting to turn green, his breath has been black for ages and he’s developed some sort of benign growth between two of his toes. This last list will hopefully be corrected soon for the low, low price of $300+ for doggie sedation, dental work and extraction of miscellaneous parts.

In fact, the high priced visit to the vet was supposed to take place yesterday. Instead we spent the day explaining to animal loving people how we lost our dog.

Over the last few months, particularly since the 3am coughing started, we’ve been joking about how maybe Lil’ Rick’s time has run out. We keep throwing money at the Vet and they can’t seem to fix him. He’s never been a talker, so there is no whining or barking to let us know if he is miserable, just more and more sleep. He’s an old man though, so I figure if he wants to sleep 18 hours a day it is his right.

His low key attitude is part of the problem though. We are worn down ourselves. I am just shy of 7 ½ months pregnant, Gracie spends most of her day visiting the terribles of being two and Matt has never been a sound sleeper. Tuesday morning he woke shortly after 3am and could not fall back to sleep, so instead he worked on a white paper due at work. I woke early myself and went into work an hour early, leaving Matt to do daycare drop off on his way into meetings.

*You see, we changed the schedule. The ritual of mornings.*

During his morning outdoor time, Ricky took his time and Gracie decided to have a meltdown, diverting Matt’s attention from the dog to his daughter. Ricky DOES NOT BARK. He just sits outside the back door and stares at you until you let him in. Matt put on coats, gathered lunches and turned off the lights. Lil’ Rick DID NOT BARK. He just sat there looking in the window.

And Matt left.

Rick got tired of waiting and decided to take a walk on the busy, curvy road near our house, with the added bonus of leaving his collar behind. The good Samaritan that almost hit him scooped him up and took him to the vet in town that we don’t use. *we know this now*

Upon returning home, we realized that we were sans dog. We drove the neighborhood and any major road he might have gotten to, looking for flashes of orange Corgi. We put up dozens of ‘Lost Dog’ signs. We called OUR vet, the local animal shelters and the non-emergency police. Nobody had him.

Yesterday morning, the vet that had him called the animal shelter who immediately called us. Our dog is safe and was warm overnight. Go get him when you can.

Happy Birthday to You.

So now, we have our smelly, blind, deaf, old-man-river-of-a-dog back. I can now go back to waiting for him to die of natural causes, not our inept ability to keep track of creatures that don’t scream at us.

Oh, and here is his picture in case you ever find such smelly, blind, deaf, old-man-river Corgi roaming around your neighborhood. It is probably ours.

And no, we have no plans on getting another animal before Gracie is in college.

Three-Six

Birthdays are another marker by which we measure.

~~Life, love, accomplishments ~~

During the 12 years I’ve been a part of yours, you continue to amaze me with your unfazed determination to pull every ounce of joy possible out of yours.

Happy 36th Birthday Matt. 36 years doesn’t seem nearly enough time for all that you are.

Wonder of Ritual

Today I went through a ritual of prenatal care. The best ritual that demands pants to be dropped to the pubic bone and warm jelly spread all over your belly. The ritual where we get to see our little girl.

The last time we saw her face, it was shrouded with slight concern. She's small, they said, 12th percentile. We don't consider it abnormal until you go below 10, but just be aware, she's small.

What does that mean?

If this was my first child I would have panicked. Time has proven to us again and again though, that medical opinion is just that in these matters. Opinion and guessing. They are using a machine to see through layers of fat and muscle and assorted insides. It was that same opinion that declared Gracie to have a huge head that may necessitate a c-section. Not that anyone would ever request to see my belly, but there is no scar.

Today's appointment showed her right on track at 2.13 lbs and in the low 20th percentile. Perfect.

And guess what? She has her daddy's nose.

Grace has Matt's coloring and my face. Will this little one have my coloring and Matt's face?

Sweet Nothings

To all the parents in Gracie's daycare class:

I AM SO SORRY.

I like to pretend I am nothing like my mother, but I know sometimes I fall directly instep with her tendencies. Like the one to go overboard.

When I think about it though, it really isn't MY fault. It is the daycare director's. And the 6 feet of snow we got. The combination of those two caused the daycare Valentine's Day party to be put off for a week. That means sales. Deep, deep going out of business discounts on heart shaped candy. And because of the snow, I hadn't actually purchased anything for full price in advance.

So this is what I walked out of Walgreen's with and will deliver tomorrow to school.....

Wait, you can't really get how BIG they are from this photo. How about this one?

Yeah, much more to scale. I knew they were very large heart shaped suckers when I purchased them. I didn't quite realize that they were the size of her face.

Or *ahem* 400 calories.

But I figure that after an hour and a few drops on the carpet / kitchen floor / on dog hair, they will be in the garbage anyway. So it's really only like 20 calories, right? Because there is no way any 2 year old could eat that.

Anyway, again I apologize. You have every right to hate me now.

Tomorrow, Tomorrow

After all the snow and gloom, the sun has finally come out.

It was shocking to see the brilliant gleam bouncing against the white of the snow and through our windows. I'd almost forgotten what it looked like, and why this is my favorite possession in the house.

The chandelier was a birthday gift from Matt years ago. I had coveted it for months and bought it for me on the sly. It was a point of contention when we sold our townhouse and moved to our current single family. The buyers thought it was a fixture that would stay with the house. I thought I would rather stay in the house then leave my beloved piece of wrought iron behind.

I won. (Obviously) Over the years, Matt's dad has taken up the tradition of gifting me the new annual Swarovski crystal Christmas ornament.

Last year I decided they were too beautiful to only put on a tree for a little over a month. Now they permanently reside on my chandelier, filling our dining room with a million rainbows on sunny afternoons.

Ahh... the calm after all the storms. And we are greeted with rainbows.

.

Welcome

Friendships are funny. I’ve never been very good at them.

I’ve never really had more than a few at one time and something always seems to smash them apart. Especially girl-friends.

To those I call my friend I am fiercely loyal. I cower when personally challenged, but only a fool would dare to say a word against someone I love. To that end, their experiences become mine. Their joy and tribulation become part of my soul and life story too. Their love is my love. Someone I put soundly in this category spent the night in the hospital bringing new life into this world.

I sit here feeling a little life stir stir in my own belly, still needing her attachment to me, and I weep tears of joy for my friend and my unborn child’s new cohort. This morning, my heart beat anxiously to meet the little man whose anticipated presence in this world has been part of my daily life for the last 8 months. Holding him in my arms was like holding my own child.

Welcome to the world baby NES. You rushed into it with more love and family then you could ever want for, for you are forever part of my family and my heart.

Blizzarding in the 2010

OK, so this last post? I take it back. It is not all the same.

Well, maybe the difference between a dusting and a few inches isn't a big deal, but as anyone who as any kind of interest in weather or the East coast knows right now: We are in the middle of a major blizzard. OK, we are hopefully at the tail end, but it still is getting to be a little bit old.

Thursday afternoon to Saturday night we got 32 inches of snow. Now, yesterday afternoon to this very moment we are getting another 20+ inches of snow. I'm not one for math, but that is a ridiculous amount of snow. The roads are impassible- right now the plows have just given up and are sitting around waiting for the snow to stop. Baltimore has banned all non-emergency traffic from the roads. Trees and power lines and roofs are collapsing. I have not been to work since Thursday and already know there is none tomorrow.

~~But~~

We are safe. We are warm. We have plenty of food. We have lots of firewood to burn. We have a neighbor with a snow blower. And we are together. So here are the pictures so far. Tomorrow they will look very much the same, but with another double digit worth of inches on the ground. Notice the back yard will you... right now that fence is completely buried in the snow.

A Dusting? 5 Inches? It's All the Same.

One of the things you quickly learn when you move to a mid-Atlantic state is that the weathermen have NO IDEA what they are talking about.

Ok – I will cut them a little bit of slack because the mountains and ocean and crazy south to north currents tend to play a little bit of havoc, but it is still a good general rule to watch the weather and then expect the exact opposite of what they say.

Saturday was a great example of this. The prediction was for Virginia to get slammed with snow. The Baltimore area would maybe see a light dusting, if anything at all.

Does this look like a light dusting to you?


The roads were horribly slick, because the city officials apparently DO listen to the weathermen and were not at all prepared with salt trucks, not to mention plows.


But, Gracie did get her first real chance to test out her new boots along with a head to toe lavender snow ensemble. She was hesitant at first, declaring the snow as 'yucky' and wanting it moved so she could walk, but she quickly discovered the joy in tromping in snow up to your knees.

Warm Heart

This past Christmas my Aunt Jean sent Gracie a gift in the mail.

I was overwhelmed by the kind gesture, but groaned at the dubious on the inside.

She sent a movie sized box of Raisinete’s and a gift card. The candy worked out well for me because Gracie lost interest in them after they got stuck in her teeth. Mmmm... well I like chocolate covered fruit. But gift cards are a pain in the ass to someplace where you can’t use the remaining $2.46 towards diapers.

So say hello to Gracie's Build-A-Bear gift card. Matt and I broke and took her to the mall last weekend.

And you know what? It was great. She loved it. LOVED IT. She painstakingly examined every. Single. Animal. And settled on the frog.

~She warmed a little plush heart to put in her creature between her palms and gently placed it in its chest.
~She thanked and hugged after the stuffing process was over.
~She took great pride in giving her newborn a ‘bath’ in the compressed air tub.
~She squealed in delight over the house box it was packaged into.
~She has slept with it every night since it became hers.

So what does all this mean?

That apparently I know nothing about how my child will react in certain situations. I presumed chaos would ensue instead of delight. I was correct; however, about the remaining balance on the card. She wanted her frog sans clothing, so now we have $9.21 left of the card.

I guess it won’t be so bad to go back and pay the difference for a Build-A-Bear cohort sometime in the future though. Thank you Aunt Jean!

Nesting

The world is funny. Friends are funny. Wavelengths and our connection over things that are un-connect-ably random are funny.

My partner in crime wrote this post yesterday. I saw it as I was putting the finishing touches on this one. Despite the polar opposition of the 'yes or no' nesting questions, the wavelength is there. No worries NES, I think my actions yesterday is enough for the both of us.

*********

This weekend I found: 2 pairs of underwear, 6 socks (none matching), rain boots that have been missing for 4 months, 3 gloves, my pruning sheers, ½ roll of paper towels, glue and enough dust bunnies to start a farm. Not that there would be any buyers.

Nesting is a funny thing. Especially when you don’t realize what is happening until it is over. I think I could embrace the irrational urge to clean spaces that have gone neglected for years much better if I understood at the time why I was doing it.

It started with our laundry room.

When I was pregnant with Gracie, they powers that be still suggested you drink bottled water. (Lord only knows what is floating around in tap water!) We bought into the recommendations, and therefore bought a giant water bottle dispenser. It has been sitting in our laundry room unused for 1.5 years, with a half fully bottle still on top, an empty one at its side and an unopened full one across the way. It was time for it to go.

What I didn’t take into consideration was the amount of crap I would find piled up behind it. That led to 2 full bags of garbage, organizing and labeling boxes on the top shelves, washing the rug 3 times, sweeping the random garage dirt that keeps getting tracked in AND scrubbing both the washer and dryer. I must say, I am pretty impressed with how it looks now.

Did you notice the ‘random garage dirt’ portion? That turned into phase two. Besides the random garage miscellany that tends to build up, a nice portion of our desk construction took place in the garage this summer – and never was cleaned up. Hence: random chunks of treated wood, sawdust galore, a wheelbarrow full of tools thrown along side other pieces of summer that never really found it way home.

It wasn’t until my back started spasming with the last few broom sweeps in the garage that I realized what I was doing. The warm spring-like weather combined with my 6 month pregnant belly combined to form the perfect little burst of nesting. I would kill for before and after pictures, but I guess I will just settle for my feet not getting dirty.

Today though, I am spent. I wish ‘But I cleaned 2 years with of clutter this weekend!’ was a valid reason for napping during meetings come the work week.