I am the same age as my daughter.....

No T hasn't gone all bizzarro Benjamin Button. D turned 5 this month so if you multiply that by 7 that makes us both 35. D has really gotten the short end of the stick since the two small people have come into existence. She really is my original baby and she has been through a lot. I was looking at puppies online for awhile and they were all gone. Then suddenly one reappeared. I took it as a sign. I emailed the woman and drove probably almost 3 hours to go see this little puppy. Well she wasn't very interested in me, she was more interested in food and the other dogs. And her name was Stella - I kept thinking of Seinfeld. So was returned because the woman thought she had spinal bifida which is pretty serious. I was nervous about getting a dog that could have that though something like that should be totally obvious and this dog was running all over the place so I took a chance. And I had already driven 3 hours and I had another 3 ahead of me, now with sleet, so I threw her in the backseat and started my drive home. About 10 minutes in she was in the front seat and after 20 she was in my lap. I brought her into the house and put her on the ground in the kitchen as a surprise for Andy and I believe his reaction was 'What the hell is that!?'. I think he thought she was a rat.

Poor D has been through a lot. She was about 3 days from being fixed and she got her period - that wasn't fun for anyone. After having her about a month I got pregnant so I was tired and not much fun. Then we went on our final vacation, the 'babymoon', and had some very serious issues with the construction of our house. This resulted in the use of an aerobed for my entire second trimester. D was right there. She slept with her head between our pillows and snored all night. She has had 4 major surgeries - eyes, being fixed, and two knees. She is just coming out of her second knee. She is definitely no longer the same dog. She is scared of a lot of things and at times I honestly think she is depressed. Plus she has had to deal with LOTS of construction which honestly I think has made her hate blue collar workers - she can pick them out on the street. It is odd.

D was a very good prep for kids. I discovered that there really isn't anything on at 7 AM or 8 AM on Sunday mornings. I started to watch a lot of ESPN. Somehow I could tolerate Sports Center a lot more exciting than infomercials. I thought Outside the Lines was on super early! Little did I know that about a year or so later it would seem like I was up for hours by the time it came on instead of the first thing I watched.

Hopefully her next 5 years is a little smoother than the first 5. I am hoping for no more surgery and like the surgeon said, she doesn't have any more knees so that is good news. I sure hope so!

Bathroom talk

M & I are in the ladies room at the beach:

M: One of my poops looks like a turtle.

Me: There is a turtle in the toilet? ( I didn't catch the info on the first round)

M: No! One of my poops look like a turtle!

Me: Oh great, make sure you flush the toilet.

Woman walks into the bathroom.

M: There is red in it. Do you think that is a strawberry?

Me: Could be. How about you wipe and flush.

M: I think there is some yellow in it as well, it could be corn.

Me:Hoping the woman doesn't realize what he is talking about. So I saw 'Sorry about that'.

Woman: Don't worry we are at the beach with young kids as well. And then she walks out.


At least that is better than last year when M wasn't toilet trained, we didn't have any swim diapers, and he let one go in a very wet and sandy. I will leave that to your imagination but I can tell you that is seared in my memory and we still talk about it.

Thank you Uncle H!

Back in February we got a second computer from H and it sat in the back of the car for awhile. Then it made it into the house and sat in A's office for awhile. I found a table, chair, and stool on craigslist and that was finally the catalyst to get it out of the box. I put the desk and chair together while A put the computer together. Software was ordered and M was using it a few days later to work on his letters and numbers. Hopefully this helps us turn the corner when it comes to letters and such. I know the computer is going to eventually be a fight but right now I think it is a better option compared to cartoons.

School Photos

This year at school instead of doing the regular photos where you dress your kids up you had the option of letting them pick out a costume and dress up that way. I went with the costume option. This is the first year M has smiled and as you can see T is following in her big brother's foot steps.

The sad one:



And one was finally happy:



Here are the rest of the photos: