inside dog

In which I eat crow.

So you know how I said that I thought everyone should just give Thanksgiving a chance?

Well.

On Saturday? We had the sudden realization that we're leaving town on Wednesday. And while Sydney and I are returning on the following Sunday, John won't be back until the following Thursday. And every year we put up the tree and decorate the house immediately after Thanksgiving. If you know me at all, you realize that having to wait four days after arriving home to put up the Christmas decorations might very well kill me.

And so? Yesterday we got down to the business of Christmas.

 

 

 

We have already watched three Christmas movies in two days. And? I'm really, really excited for Christmas this year! Last year we had a wee blob of baby who had no idea what was going on. Now? We have a TODDLER (weep!) who seems to be very entertained with the magic (or at least the redecoration) of it all. She's even "respecting" the Christmas tree so far!

And so, I take it back. Don't give Thanksgiving a chance. Let's start Christmas in July next year.

Also? I quit you, NaBloPoMo. I QUIT.

That bugs

Get ready. I'm annoyed. And I need to tell you ALL ABOUT what's annoying me.

1. I can never find my camera when I need it. For instance? When my daughter is doing something really, REALLY cute. And then I realize that I have no idea where the stupid thing even IS. And so I tear the house apart looking for it and STILL can't find it. I HATE THAT (and yes, I cannot find it right now and had to take iPhone photos of my daughter being cute. This is why I have so many poor quality photos. And as it happens? I have a really nice camera when I can find the stupid dang thing).

2. Sneezing. It really annoys me. It annoys me when I sneeze. I always sneeze at the worst possible moment ... mid-sentence, just as the baby is dropping off to sleep, during prayer at church, with a mouthful of milk, ALWAYS THE WORST MOMENT. I never seem to sneeze at a convenient time. It also annoys me when other people sneeze. I hate sneezes. There is no rational reason for it and quite obviously, it's unreasonable to not like it when someone sneezes because they can't help it. BUT IT ANNOYS ME ANYWAY.

3. Juicy. Our basset hound. He annoys me constantly and to no end. Whether he's barking to go out or barking to come in (two seconds later), trying to push me off the couch so he can have the warm spot I'm CURRENTLY sitting in, making a lot of noise just as the baby has fallen asleep, running around buck nutty and knocking over important things like laptops and cups of coffee, HE ANNOYS ME.

4. Email subscriptions. Every day I wake up with about 25 new emails and most of them? Are from random places where I've ordered something online, my google calendar to tell me ... "OOP! No events scheduled today!" ARGH. Today I finally unsubscribed to as many as I could. I'm going to keep going. I never read them anyway, and I never take advantage of the "deals" and coupons.

5. When I try to comment on a blog and nothing happens. This occurs most often on my phone. Sometimes I work really hard typing out a comment on my iPhone and try to submit it and POOF, it's GONE. LOVELY. And then? I am stupid and try again. Only to be thwarted. BOO.

6. I work really hard on making shopping lists. It helps me to spend only the amount I've been allotted (er, sometimes), it saves time, and it keeps my brain in order. I am one of those people who gets into a store and immediately goes blank, then wanders around putting things in my cart trying to remember what I'm forgetting UNSUCCESSFULLY. And then I get home and have no cilantro or butter or some other essential ingredient and have to go BACK to the store with a toddler in tow ... or? More likely? Eat cereal and potstickers for dinner. AGAIN. Anyway. On any given week I have a running grocery list, Costco list, and Target list. If I'm making a meal, I take the time to sit down with the recipe, check my cabinets and the fridge to see what I need, and make the list. I go to the grocery store 1-2 times a week, Target and Costco every other week. And yet? Even if my list makes it to the car? Or the diaper bag? I get into the store and realize? NO LIST. I have tried everything. I have tried typing lists into my precious iPhone. And then? I usually leave THAT in the car. And once in the store it is a huge pain to get back to the car and try to dig through the crapola in there to try and find it. You guessed it, ANNOYING.

7. When someone texts me a major life question and expects to converse about it through text messages. I love texting just as much as the next person. I text A LOT. My husband loves it because we share minutes and texts. He uses more minutes, I use more texts ... it works out great. But honestly? If you really wanted to talk about it wouldn't you just call? Have coffee? Something? Maybe I'm a jerk, but that bugs.

8. When the Christmas stuff comes out at the stores before Halloween. I went to Target yesterday and it looked like a stinking Christmas car.  GIVE THANKSGIVING A CHANCE, CONSUMERS OF AMERICA. They wouldn't put it out if people weren't willing to buy it, right?

So I have to ask ... what annoys you these days? Am I the lone irritated jerkwad out here?

inside dog?

The other day when I had a pseudo-contest, in which I invited readers to attempt to come up with a fancy new tagline for my blog, I became painfully aware of the fact that I have never explained WHY I named this little corner of Internet Heaven "inside dog." Also there was suggestion of two - and only two - things to add to my blog's header: turds and dogs. And while I talk quite a lot about both poop and canines here ... it wasn't exactly what I had in mind.

And thus, since I have wandered too far down the NaBloPoMo path to quit now (and yes I realize that by the time this post publishes I will have missed two days, OH WELL), I shall regale you with the very Fancy and Important story that inspired in the name of this blog.

Ahem.

Once upon a time I met a man named John. John enjoys backpacking. Which means? That if he has to carry the equivalent of his own body weight in a satchel strapped to his back and topped with a guitar nine miles uphill? Dig a hole to go poop? Not shave? Stink like a locker room after a team of football players have run their second summer practice of the day in full pads and also vomited all over one another? He's as happy as a hog in swallow.

Me? On the other hand? While appearing to be a tough, athletic girl (which I am) also have a, uh, softer side. A side that wipes her armpits out with baby wipes and then reapplies deodorant in a pinch. A side that does a special dance when a bug or snake or lizard of any kind gets a leetle too close. A side that does not skip showering a single day unless ordered to do so by a doctor and is being babysitted by nurses so that I - I mean she - cannot disobey. My favorite smell is clean laundry. If there's even a hint that I might be throwing up any time soon I bust out the Lysol wipes and disinfect the everloving hell out of my toilet. I can be caught Swiffering the floor on an almost daily basis. I wash my plastic flip flops in the washing machine. I own a carpet cleaner for two area rugs. I do not enjoy, uh, smells. I DO NOT LIKE DIRT.

We moved to Texas as a married couple in 2004 with my dog Henry (who came to live with me in 2002). Up until my marriage to John shortly before our move, Henry enjoyed a life of sleeping on the bed with me, lounging on couches, tearing up whatever he felt like without any consequences, HE WAS SPOILED (and you can tell what kind of disciplinarian I'm going to make as a parent already, can't you? Sheesh). Also, I lived in Illinois where the winters are very cold. People in the Midwest - unless they are farmers who keep their farm dogs in the barn at night - don't have dogs that live outside year round. If you leave your dog outside in the winter? You have a dogcicle in the morning. It doesn't make fiscal sense and also it makes your children WEEP.

Anyway, when we moved to Texas and people found out that we had dogs (we soon adopted Juicy, WHY DID WE DO THAT?!), the following question was always: "Are they inside dogs or outside dogs?" Because of the warmer weather, because of the fact that Texans are weird, WHATEVER I have no clue WHY, some people had dogs who lived outside, some had dogs that lived outside, and some had both. The concept that you would have a pet dog that you didn't let inside your house just blew me away. I remember going to someone's house and seeing that they had a weird little chihuahua running around and being later told that they also had two golden retrievers who lived in the back yard. Wha? Is this some form of dog discrimination that I don't understand?

As you can probably guess, our answer was always "inside dogs." Because I am a little over the top when it comes to having babies - er dogs - in the house.

Let's back up: Once my soon-to-be fiance unwittingly took me on a three-day backpacking trip. I made it to the top of the nine-mile switchbacks carrying my backpack plus another (long story involving my future father-in-law being doubled over with a kidney stone ... why yes he was on the trip too! And had a kidney stone the size of your pinkie nail sitting on his kidney!), my too-new boots full of my own blood, IN THE RAIN, to sleep in a tent with NO TENT POLES, ready to strangle the man - whom on that morning I had been desperately in love with - for DOING SUCH A THING TO ME. All I can say is that if the trip hadn't involved the presentation of a diamond ring TO ME, the relationship would have been in severe jeopardy and Sydney might never have been born.

(Flashing my bling at King's Canyon National Park. May 2004.)

And so, somewhere between that fateful backpacking trip and our move to Texas where some people had inside dogs and some had outside dogs, it became a running joke in our family that I was the inside dog, and my husband was the outside dog. I can be an outside girl under the right circumstances. I can eat granola and wear fleece with the best of them, I like camping because there are s'mores, I like doing things outside, I just don't enjoy being dirty or cold for even a short period of time afterwards. One of my favorite things is when you get home after a long day of doing stuff and take a shower and put on clean jammies and just lounge around watching movies or reading (or, you know, BLOGGING).

And thus? The blog is named "inside dog."

Sometimes you blog

And sometimes you cop out and post a photo of your dog wearing his new Snuggie.

Seven quick takes ARGHHHH

1. This morning I got a little frustrated with someone totally deconstructing my house instead of taking her nap. I lost my crap when she fell down face first on this little basset hound plastic statue thing we sometimes use to hold the door open and got a little bloody lip. And so? The basset hound statue HAD TO DIE.

 

 

2. Some friends are coming over for dinner tonight. I tried to be all Prepared and make the soup early. But guess what? I'm all out of gee dee canned tomatoes. And guess what else? Someone decided to terrorize me all morning instead of taking her nap and is taking her nap right now instead during shopping time. So it looks like we're having ground beef and Diet Coke for dinner. YUM.

3. I bought Up! on the day it came out as a gift for John along with some fancy hot chocolate mix and a bottle of mint syrup. We watched roughly half of it the first night (we started it around 11 pm, and the hearty cry we had after the first 15 minutes of that movie totally DID US IN). We finished it the next night, and I have had it on repeat on the television in our bedroom ever since. I don't want to give anything away, BUT YOU MUST SEE THIS MOVIE. It quite honestly is one of the finest films I've ever seen. And I went to artsy fartsy school for writing (which gives me every right to be a Know-It-All, right? RIGHT?!), and am VERY picky about such things. If I catch you rolling your eyes when you hear someone talking about the first 15 minutes of this movie there is a very likely chance that I will punch you in the throat. Safe to say I FEEL STRONGLY about this movie. STRONGLY, people.

4. My daughter poops in the tub when her daddy gives her a bath. ONLY when her daddy gives her a bath (knock on wood). Which would be awesome if I wasn't the one who always CLEANS IT UP.

5. We busted out the flannel sheets this week. Why? Because the temp dropped into the SIXTIES and we are freezing our butts off. The only downside of living in Texas those three years is that now? The blood is thin. And I was raised in the Chicago suburbs, people. I used to shovel the driveway in -5 degree windchill. It's just embarrassing. John went out of town tonight and he took the space heater with him and I'm not quite sure how we're going to survive. And YES we have central heat. PATHETIC.

6. So I found a random channel that plays reruns of The Ghost Whisperer like EVERY DAY right at Syd's bedtime. I hate to admit it, but I kind of like that sappy, dramatic show and when Jennifer Love Hewitt gets all teary when people say goodbye to their loved ones at the end SO DO I. Also I like her gigantic false eyelashes and her long flowy dresses and ESPECIALLY her long old-timey nightgowns. I LIKE IT. THERE I SAID IT. Also? I liked the movie Twilight and the reason why I liked it is because it was so UNAPOLOGETICALLY sappy and romantic. My conclusion is that motherhood has made me a total and complete sap what with all the HORMONES flying around here all the time. Also? I blame the internet for rotting my brain. Because quite obviously it now hates a challenge. Please don't stop being my friend, mmkay?

7. Somewhere during the writing of this list I managed to get to the store so our dinner will be complete (also? It involves cheese, Fritos Scoops!, and avocado AS TOPPINGS). Since my husband is out of town I'm also planning on baking something and eating as much of it as I can before he gets back home tomorrow night. Which means that I'll probably be gaining 5 lbs. in the next 24 hours. CHEERS!

More Quick Takes here.

Notes from the brink

Ok so here we are. What feels like decision time. The point at which I MUST become pregnant if we are to have a set of siblings around two years apart. And really? It's not technically a high-pressure situation. This is AMERICA after all, and if we decide to wait a few more months, a year, however long we want, it's our CHOICE. And yet I feel this pressure ... and I know I am totally putting it on myself. All around me I see siblings who are 18 months apart. My SIL is going to have their second (A GIRL! WE ARE SO EXCITED!) this March, which will put their kids almost exactly two years apart.

And frankly? I have no idea what to do.

Straight up, I'm afraid of getting pregnant again. I'm afraid of the physical taxation. My pregnancy with Syd was no cakewalk (that being said? I made a lot of mistakes that I refuse to make the next time around). I'm afraid of morning sickness. I'm afraid of weighing 204 pounds again. I'm afraid of how it will restrict me when it comes to playing with, holding, and being a mom to Syd. For instance? I love carrying Syd around with me in the Ergo carrier everywhere we go. If I have a big baby bump and a terrible lower back due to pregnancy? Can't do that.

I'm afraid of the shock my firstborn would receive at two years old of having to deal with a younger brother or sister ... a new baby. I'm afraid of the cuddles and one-on-one time she would have to give up. 

Having two kids seems really hard. Like intimidating and IMPOSSIBLE. And my husband works A LOT and at odd hours sometimes.

We want more than two kids (which makes NO SENSE since I'm totally intimidated by having TWO) so I don't want a huge age difference between the oldest and youngest children if we can help it. Also? Don't want to be pregnant into my 40s. NO WAY.

My husband is 34. I want him to be ALIVE when our kids are getting married and having children of their own.

I want my daughter to have a playmate, a companion, someone to share experiences with. She loves to be with other kids, and I wonder sometimes if she gets lonely for the company of someone closer to her age.

I love how our extended family responds to our children. It is just wonderful to have Mom become "Nana," Ashley become "Auntie Ash," Momma and Pop become "Grandpa and Gramma," Jonathan and Candice become "Auntie Caci and Uncle Jono." I love this evolution of our family. I love birthdays and the holidays with our children, all of us together in a circle watching them play and discover new things.

I love my husband as a father. I love how he loves on and cares for our daughter. Also? He takes amazing care of me when I'm pregnant. It's great. Nay, IT'S THE GREATEST!

There is always the possibility of miscarriage lingering in the back of my mind. I'm afraid that if we don't start trying soon that we'll start too late, lose a baby, then have to start all over again.

The point to all of this is that I know that if I was to get pregnant soon that we'd be all right. There would be major challenges to being pregnant and then to having two little kids, but there would be amazing payoffs too. I know that we have time to decide, and yet part of me just wants to throw caution to the wind and see what happens. I guess one problem for me is that I know all about the worst-case scenarios. I know the heartbreak of loss, of making plans and allowing yourself hope only to have it all dashed in a blink.

But that is the risk of this journey, I suppose. When you start a family there is inherent risk. You are risking that you will outlive your children, God forbid. You are risking enduring their sicknesses, having to make tough decisions, a multitude of painful things. At some point you just have to trust in something greater. At some point you have to decide if the risk is greater than the benefit.

Let me just say that to me the benefit is great. It is immeasurable. I cannot describe to you how having a child shows you the face of God. How it offers you a little glimpse into what eternity must be like. To understand what sacrifice means. To know how your parents once felt about you. It is an awe-inspiring thing. And perhaps it is what drives us to try again, tempted as we are to bow the knee to the things that terrify us about it.

I do not know what the future holds for us. But I know that I have been given a tremendous gift. I have a husband who is worthy of forging ahead with, a partner and best friend who is with me no matter what happens. Who would kill or die for us, do anything to protect us. We have our Syd, who is such an amazing daughter and will one day be such an awesome big sister.

I know that God will put our other children in our way one day soon, whether they grow in my body or they are born to someone else. I am thankful for them already. I am praying for them now.

Sydney 2.0

For the last year or so we've become accustomed to asking our daughter rhetorical questions, for example "Ready for your dinner?!" or "Have you got a poopie diaper?!" There is usually some kind of physical response from Syd: a squeal or a smile and the occasional fart. She has been mimicking us for months; she can say a lot of things in the appropriate context and also in, well, an inappropriate context sometimes. Hey! Cut her a break! Her vocabulary is limited! Most of the time (scarily) when she did speak, she got things right. She has been a good communicator from early on. When she was a baby she only fussed when there was a purpose (wet or soiled, hungry or tired).

Over the weekend as I was getting her ready for breakfast I asked her the usual battery of rhetoricals ... "Are you hungry?" and "Do you want some milk?" and each time there was a response: Sydney nodded her head and threw in a grunted "YA!" just to shock me. This continued and the plot thickened: when the answer to the question was "no"? SHE SAID NO. Actually it was a little more like "NAW!" (which would make total sense because John and I both talk like the biggest hybrid weirdies ever).

The REAL question here, however, is WHERE IS MY BABY AND WHO REPLACED HER WITH THIS CHILD?

On the same day she started answering complex questions? She also learned how to vault herself over the ottoman which had earlier contained her into the now famous - and defunct, as it were - Baby Corral. I have caught her sitting on the couch reading a book like it was NO BIG DEAL. She plays the games that we play back to us when it strikes her fancy. She walks up to our feet and takes a sniff and then screws up her face and says "OOOOOH!" (We sniff her feet about one billion times a day and say "Eeewww! Stinky!" and it makes her laugh so hard!). She has favorite books and when we try to read her one she doesn't want to read? It gets a disapproving shove until it goes away (and now? It gets shouted down with "NAW!"). She prefers to walk everywhere and rarely, if ever, crawls anymore. She is mastering eating with a spoon off a plate. She says "MMMM" and leans in for kisses and hugs. She chases the haggled dogs all over the house, giggling all the way, petting them "nicely" when they are finally cornered. I am finding out very quickly where all the childproofing holes are in my home. And by 9 pm each evening? I'm totally exhausted.

But I love it. I love hearing her little voice humming along when I sing her "Old Macdonald" and "Twinkle Twinkle." I love hearing her call out for "Mama" or "DA!" I love how she gestures along with "All done!" and "Bye bye!!" This new era of communication is blowing all of our minds.

But perhaps my favorite new communication tool?

The blowing of kisses.

MMMMWAAAH!! from Manda on Vimeo.

It. Is. Awesome.

Fourteen months is AWESOME.

Polishing a turd (with bonus scrolldown contest!)

There is an old saying that I stand by: "You can't polish a turd." Isn't that lovely? I urge you to work it in to natural conversation at your next cocktail party. I like to throw it in instead of the usual and expected "You're beating a dead horse" line. Charming, eh? You are welcome.

This is the first week I've had off in a long time. And of course, my mind has turned to all my unfinished projects: The scrapbook "story of our family" that I began for Sydney while I was still pregnant with her, the long list of thank-you notes and letters of correspondence that have gone unfinished in a pile somewhere on this desk, recipes I've been wanting to try out, editing programs I want to learn, blog redesign ... things of that nature.

And so, in the following weeks you might be seeing some changes in the design, font, and arrangement of this here blog. For a while I have been toying with the idea of hiring someone to do the redesign for me. But you know what? Blogging is my hobby. And once upon a time I could kick the crap out of html code and edit photos and pick out colors and fonts all by myself. I am a process person, and so the re-launch of a blog design at some exciting point in time in the future doesn't really fit for me. Especially since as I type this? My daughter has pilfered (and is helping herself to) the contents of a stale box of Total from the pantry shelf while seated in the middle of the kitchen floor. The dogs are thrilled.

Anyway, this blog is MY turd. Even if it IS a turd I would like it to be a cuter, more updated turd at some point in the future. I reserve my right to fickle with it until kingdom come.

And so, let the turd polishing commence! Please bear with me while things are under construction.

(Of course I have to ask ... any features you'd like to see on this blog? I'd love your feedback if you feel so inclined. Our first order of business, however? WRITE MY TAGLINE! The winner will receive a prize. And let's be honest, it'll probably be my spare jar of - unopened! Fancy! - Nutella from Costco. Or an extra bottle of Olay moisturizer from Costco ... also not opened! Contest ends when some genius writes the most amazing tagline in history that sums me/this blog up in a witty sentence. Because even though I can pick my own fonts and colors? Apparently I suck in the tagline department. Hurry up because we don't want the Nutella OR the Olay moisturizer to expire. Ready? GO!)

Love/hate relationship

The following things suck:

-Arguing with my husband. About anything.
-When the basset hound pees in the corner and I don't find it until a few days later.
-When the enchiladas are all gone.
-Trying a new recipe only to taste the end product and find out ... GROSS.
-Trader Joe's tortillas. My goodness they are awful.
-When you have a sink full of dirty dishes and the dishwasher is also full of dirty ones.
-Having to take out the dirty diapers.
-Israel's departure on Saturday night. The house is very empty and quiet.
-When you can't think of one single thing to blog about (and the things you can think of? Don't have the mental energy for) on day 8 of NaBloPoMo other than a stupid list.

The following things do not suck:

-Today's news about Stellan.
-Getting $10 gift cards from Kohl's in the mail (hooray for a new store in my area!!).
-Spending nap time working on an Amazon wish list for Christmas.
-When my daughter says "MMMMMMM," puckers up and leans in for a kiss.
-When I cook for someone and they really, really like what they're eating.
-Waking up to find that the coffee is already made.
-My iPhone.
-That rare moment when you realize that the laundry is totally and completely done. I mean ... washed, dried, put away the whole nine yards.
-My television antennae. It gets so many channels it's almost as good as cable. Almost.

What do you love/hate these days?

Communicating the ancient way

(I think the trend began here, with Swistle)