Holy Crap

I'm shaking my head as I type. Click, click, shake. Click, click, shake.

Really? Is this what it's come to? Has my life's ambition been reduced to teaching other creatures/humans to defecate in the proper place? And then to top it off, I'm writing about it. Click, click, shake.

I must have been high when I thought it was a good idea to potty train Corinne while training Zero. Today I've cleaned up more fecal manner than a zoo keeper. I thank God, and our land lady, that our carpet is brown. Because by all appearances it seems as if Corinne and Zero have conspired against me. Zero, who I'm convinced is mentally retarded at this point or way too inbred, seemed to be house broken for the last three days. But today he lifted up his little paw and stuck up his middle claw at me, followed by peeing on the kitchen floor while I made breakfast. Then Corinne decided to get back at me for attempting to potty train her today by taking a giant dump in the bath tub. I'm not sure who was angrier, me or Taylor, who was sitting in the bath next to her. I don't think it was an accident either. Pretty sure it was her way of saying, "Up yours, lady. Tame this!"

At any rate, I'm done. Tomorrow Zero will be locked in the garage for most of the day while I'm gone, and Corinne will have a diaper on the whole day. I'll regroup and start again on Thursday.

The Dog Whisperer

Oh, life is funny. Right when my kids start sleeping past 7:00 am, we get a puppy who needs attention at 5:00 am. We're making some progress with our pup though, with a little help. At least, I think we're making progress. Wes thinks the dog is mentally retarded.

One of Wes' supervisors works with labs as a hobby. She trains them, finds them homes and that kind of thing. She's taken care of over 400 dogs, so she's a dog whisperer of sorts and offered to help us with Zero. Our main concerns are getting him house broken, preventing him from nipping at the kids and doing what we can to minimize chewing and damage to our house. When Dog Whisperer Lady came over, I immediately picked up on a few things. The first being that she doesn't have kids. I'd go one step further and say, she doesn't like kids. She prefers creatures with four legs who don't talk back. She kept giving Corinne the stink eye because, let's face it, Corinne is Zero's worst nightmare. But we're working on it! She suggested we keep Corinne away from him at all costs. Like I said, she doesn't know a lot about kids. At any rate, she had some really unrealistic demands on what we should and shouldn't do with Zero.

For getting him house broken, she suggested crating him at night. I've read up on it and it sounds like a good way to train a dog. It involves leaving him in his crate in our room at night because according to her, Zero desperately wants to feel part of "our pack." Even though he's inside all day, if he's left out at night he considers himself an outsider. We're talking, doggy depression would inevitably ensue and Puppy Prozac will eventually be needed. And I was all for it until I heard the catch. Every time he whines and wants out of the crate, we would have to take him out to pee. This could happen 3 or 4 times a night. The look on my face might have said it all to this lady. I've gone through sleepless nights with two infants. If you think I'm waking up to take the dog out to pee multiple times a night, sell crazy somewhere else. So we're not taking her advice on that particular topic.

But she did give us some great pointers on minimizing chewing, disciplining, getting him to follow without a leash, and how to help him become an all round good boy. The best part was, this was all free advice. We would normally have had to pay out the nose for something like this. So Zero is coming around. He's loving and friendly, and he's trying very hard not to pee on my carpet. Even though he doesn't sleep in my room at night, we definitely consider him part of "our pack."

Just for fun, I've decided to try and potty train Corinne this Christmas break because she's almost two and seems ready. This means I'll be potty training Corinne and the dog at the same time. Why not push myself to the edge, eh?

My pack, minus zero, did the obligatory family pic at Picture People. It wasn't half as bad as I expected.

Santa's Visit Or Bah, Humbug Part 2

I follow the rules that society imposes on me. Always have and always will. If I come to a stop sign, even in the dead of night without another car around, I stop. If a mattress has a tag that says Do Not Remove, I leave it there. And when milk passes it's expiration date, I throw it out. I FOLLOW THE RULES! So when others feel above the law, it really irks me. Case in point, the parents at preschool. Dear old Santa came to visit the kids yesterday, and the parents were given explicit instruction to bring a toy that Santa could hand out, as if it were from him. This toy was to be UNDER $7.00!!! Mrs. Cindy repeated this three times, in three different letters home. So being the avid rule follower that I am, I bought a $7 doll. Nothing special. Just a rule abiding, $7 doll. But as the preschool children opened up their gifts, it was evident that not everyone has the same love of rules that I do. Taylor was pleased with her miniature Tangled doll, but I noticed that three other girls in her class were holding the larger, $18 version of this doll. And while some kids with rule abiding parents held an obviously $7 bath toy, other kids with parents who were too cool for the rules, held the latest $20 Transformer. Lame-O!

I'm lucky I have such a sweet daughter who was perfectly content with her special gift from Santa. Some other parents weren't so lucky, and had to console their jealous child when it didn't go unnoticed that Santa had obviously been a little more generous to some than others. Santa suddenly looked like the bad guy. You can't really expect the four year-old brain to accept this sort of injustice from Santa without a whimper or whine. I'm pretty sure some of those kids were wondering where they went wrong this year. I wouldn't be surprised if the Santa at our local mall gets a few dirty looks from some of Miss Cindy's jaded four year-olds.

THANKSGIVING PROGRAM AND CHRISTMAS- PRIME TIME PRESCHOOL