3 Months

Clover headed to the vet yesterday on his 12 week birthday.  He weighed in at 2.6 pounds.  Andi was recently overheard saying, "I love you forever.  And I like you, too."  Clover didn't mind his shot at all; the girls became more upset than he did.  The vet found him to be a calm, good little dog, but reminded us to stay on top of things by doing obedience training because, "These little guys have big personalities."

As if the nights aren't full enough since the girls got recruited to pre-team at gymnastics with classes twice a week and dance class one of the other nights, Clover starts his puppy class in a few weeks on Tuesday nights.  We had to wait a little longer to start class because I was going to be damned if I took him on Zumba class nights. 

He is a mellow little guy who is getting the hang of going for walks on his leash, is still working on potty training, and who doesn't get the big deal about potty training.  He runs up the stairs, but doesn't like to go down them. 

In the midst of raising the new puppy, we headed to the girls art show at school...

I better get the pictures posted and get on with the day.  It's 7:20 AM and per protocol, I have overscheduled myself with things to get done before heading back to work...but this is far better than the endless, boring, somebody kill me days of stay at home motherhood.

But What About PFB?

After my post on Clover I am getting messages asking what happened with Princess Fluffy Butt? 

We are not getting her. And I don’t exactly know what happened to her. 

I was dealing with Wisconsinpoms.com, formerly known as Tristaspoms.  A googling of the woman’s name – which she never gave to me, but I found through investigating her on paypal after giving her a $100 deposit – tied her to a permit violation of some sort, a domestic violence charge, and a comment thread about her being a backyard breeder at best, and a puppy mill at worst.

In my interactions with her, she often didn’t directly answer my questions, she would usually respond with a one line response, and she never signed her name.  She was not in any way forthright about herself or her dogs. 

I began to get concerned.  After seeing firsthand the effects of puppy mills on the dogs that we provided fostercare for – as much as I wanted a new pom puppy --  I didn’t want to give my money to someone who was mistreating animals.

I delicately sent her an email indicating that I was concerned and needed more information from her about herself and her set up.  She was non-compliant with our request to visit.  She was only available on the days I had stated we absolutely could not come.  Convenient? Or perhaps a coincidence?

Anyway, that email set off a rage in her AND her husband.  I got a nasty defensive email from them and they refused to sell their puppy to us. 

Very fishy. 

Princess Fluffy Butt has never reappeared on their website as being for sale to another family.  Daily I get a sick feeling inside wondering what is going on there….wondering if I should never had said anything and just taken the dog and run and not looked back at whether I had funded a bad woman. 

So that’s the long answer…I don’t know what happened to Princess Fluffy Butt.  L

Our Lucky Clover

It seemed that finding a pom puppy was nearly impossible, nevermind finding one from a reputable breeder.  But after contacting a family member with canine connections, we finally found a man who loves poms "like they are his children" according to one source.  I called him right away and he had one little boy puppy available.  That little boy loved giving kisses, being held, and hanging out with people. 

Bringing him home today, it is clear that the breeder of our puppy was very in tune with his personality.  This little 9-1/2 wk old 36 ounce ball of fluff seems pretty happy so far...and we love him already. 

Introducing...Clover

Observations by Andi

  Andi has had a few observations this past week....

• "I have tiny boobies," Andi said to Dave as he walked around the bedroom with his PJ bottoms on, grabbing clothes for work, "And you have big boobies.  Like a monkey."

• Andi pee'd her pants three times one afternoon after I got her a rare treat -- a slushy from the gas station.  The first time I wiped up the mess and said nothing. The second time I reminded her to listen to her body and go potty when it tells her it needs to potty.  The third time I was mad and told her to go clean herself up and I left her in the bathroom.   

          ......She came down five minutes later with a pantyliner in her underwear.  I guess she hoped it would absorb any future accidents.

•   Andi sat with me as I got dressed and of course verbalized her observations, "Your boobies are too short."   I asked her if she meant they were too small.  "Yes. They are.  And cover that up," she said as she poked me on my stretch marked belly. 

Princess Fluffy Butt

The PFB now has her eyes open.  Our home is eagerly awaiting her arrival.  In other dog related news, Larry found his forever home two days ago...as did little Maggie.  Big Daddy says no more fosters for a while; he needs some canine free time (actually "don't pee on the floor!" time) before the fuzzy bundle of tiny-ness arrives in another month.  That's okay with the girls since we have something else to distract us at the moment.  Two days age we all overruled big daddy and plan to paint their room pink.  "No pink walls. This is my house," he said, putting his foot down as if he had any say in the matter.  "It's their room," I argued, and then set off for the paint shop to select the perfect shade of pink.

Judging by the updated pictures we received of PFB, she is a fan of pink, too. 

Oh No He Didn't

The girls have had this nasty little respiratory bug for the last few weeks. Dave came down with it a week ago, and it finally hit me this week just in time to head back to work. 

As clinicians on the crisis team, we've noticed that the universe is really unsettled...all is not well with folks out there.  The pace of our work just doesn't slow down.  But, it never hurts to ask and so as I walked into work yesterday, I sent a message out, "Dear universe, please be calm today."

It listened to me as well as my children do and not only did I put up with cranky clients, an incompetent therapist trying to send an actively suicidal and psychotic client to residential treatment (good lord how does she keep her license?!), the carpet measuring guy copping an attitude with me when he showed up to measure the house and found me not home when I told him I would be at work, and the rescue organization throwing a hissy fit that I wasn't home and they needed Larry the foster dog NOW for a home visit they planned but didn't tell me about, but...

I almost got run over as I walked into work.

By a mercedes driving insurance executive -- aka satan.

That is the second time in two weeks that I have nearly been run over by a luxury car driving executive as they race out of their heated parking garage.

The damn pecker heads.

I'm fine being run over by someone driving a clunker...or who is high...or drunk...or some mom who is turned in her seat screaming at her children as she drives...because, hey, that happens.  Wrong place, wrong time.

But getting run over by some hoity-toity beemer driving executive who hasn't the maturity to drive under 60 miles an hour in a parking garage because he has a little penis and a big ego is not going to be cool with me. 

And because I have taken the liberty of naming myself Karma's right hand woman I will rise from the dead and haunt him until the day he dies, at which point, if there is a gate into heaven, I will, in starfish fashion, stand in it blocking his entrance until God or whoever is the official guard of the gate wrestles me out of the entrance.  But since he is an insurance executive, I doubt (if there even is a heaven) that he will be welcome there.  And running over a tiny social worker with a case of the sniffles in a parking garage doesn't earn points for heaven, either.

Fun

The girls cannot get enough Fun. 

Driving to ice skating lessons "We are Young" began playing.  "That was awesome!" Sophia called up from the back seat of the van, "Can we hear it again?"

And so again, and again, and again it played...

Fun