Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen or in This Case an Emma

I'm taking a week break from writing. My house is a disaster and I'm feeling domestic. This afternoon I decided to bake.

I used to bake. I used to bake a lot, but my kids don't eat baked goods and I end up eating them all. But baking makes me feel good-- homey, comforted, useful. So today I baked. Two apple pies, two loaves of sandwich bread and a loaf of cinnamon bread. From scratch. My Little House on the Prairie roots were showing.

Emma had a great day at preschool and came home to "help" me. While I mixed the flour, sugar, yeast, and milk, Emma made her own concoction.

Her ingredients? Flour, water, sugar and a stolen half can of Diet Coke. Yum.

But that got old, so when Mommy wasn't looking she moved to Mommy's side.

Oops.

Uh oh.

(Why, yes. That is half of an apple on the floor.)

What's this, you ask? Emma has moved the bar stool to access the water dispenser. Never underestimate the power of water added to a floury paste mess. What the camera fails to capture is the standing water spread across the floor. The puddle I slipped and fell in. Sorry, no cameras around to capture the special moment.

Fifi is doing better today. She is falling less so the steroids must be working, but she's not all there either. The only thing we can do is wait. Thank you for all your kinds words and prayers!

Priorities

She's just a dog. A stupid dog.

When she was young, around one or two, she liked to bolt out the front door and we'd have to chase her down until we finally gave up. I'd tell her if she didn't like living with us she didn't have to come back. But she always did.

After she got older, sometimes she'd run off into the woods behind my house and be gone for hours, coming back covered in mud and cockleburs. I'd curse and yell, and wash the chunks of mud down the drain, cut out the thorn branches stuck in her hair. I told her if she wasn't careful some wild animal would eat her. I fenced in my yard.

She stands at the back door wanting in and out, in and out, worse than a kid and annoying the hell out of me. Or she barks at nothing at all, even in the middle of the night, until I tell her to be quiet. Once, she knew there was mouse under our house and shredded the carpet and the baseboard trying to get to it.

Five years ago she was attacked by a German shepherd. She was in bad shape. She almost didn't make it. But I insisted we fix her, spending more money than we had, more money than a person should on a dog.

But she's my dog. That's what I told Darrell that Sunday morning in the Emergency Clinic. She's my dog. We have to fix her.

This weekend, while I was gone, something happened. She started walking into things. Sunday night she fell down the stairs. Twice. She continued falling down, her legs on her right side giving out. I thought it was her back, which was injured when she was attacked. Why didn't I know better? Yet, I did.

The vet sent me home this afternoon with a pharmacopoeia of medicines. Predisone, muscle relaxers, pain pills. The vet said it could be a pinched nerve until I mentioned she went to the neighbors house, thinking it was ours. Then she leaned heavily to a neurological cause.

Brain tumor.

I left, shockingly numb. It wasn't definite. It could still be a nerve, but it a nerve didn't fit. I spent the afternoon in denial.

I've watched her get worse and worse all afternoon and evening. She can hardly walk. When she tries to stand, she falls until she finally gets her sea legs and stumbles around. I just took her outside and watched the wind knock her over and over, until I was sure she was done and carried her in. I set her in front of her food and water and waited, the shield I erected around my heart crumbling every time she slipped and fell on her side, smacking her face on the hardwood floor.

All too familiar feelings wash through me. Foreboding hovers over my head. A cloak of grief I know to well.

I have lived this before.

I asked myself, when I allowed myself to release the tears-- how many times will I lose the ones I love? Will I always feel so helpless?

She's lying at my feet now, waiting for me to finish this post. She's always near, waiting. I call her my shadow, but I can feel the darkness slipping in, the fingers of death creeping close to do what it does best. Steal.

She's a dog. A stupid dog. But she's mine and I love her.

Ticked Off

I have a Yorkie named Fifi. When you read that, what mental image comes to mind. This?

Uh, no. Think this:

Fifi, covered in mud and thorn branches.

Cock-a-burs, dead leaves and mud balls. Oh my.

Which always results in this:

How does my sweet little foofooey dog get this way?

This is the view from my back door. We don't have a fence (yet!) so when the children come in or out, Fifi gets out and 9 times out of 10 heads up into the woods.

For some reason people think of Yorkies as cute little purse dogs. The reality is that they were breed for hunting rats, badgers and foxes. This innate characteristic draws Fifi to the woods time and time again.

Sigh...

Yesterday, one of the many small children that live in this house opened the back door and Fifi sprinted off into the woods, only to reappear a few hours later. Covered in ticks. I had given her flea and tick medicine a few days before but when I rechecked the box, it was expired. Great. What was I to do? Obviously they had to come off.

True Swank style, I sat at the kitchen counter holding Fifi while Ryan, Emma, Jenna and Gauge sat on stools watching, oh and eating a snack. What's a show without refreshments? Whatever keeps the kids entertained. I got a pair of tweezers and a clear disposable cup and got to work. It only took removing one live tick, placing it in the cup and watching it climb to the top and make a break for freedom to realize I needed a new strategy. Water. Sure it wouldn't drown them but it would contain them.

I filled the cup halfway with water and sure enough, the ticks were having a swimming party. As I pulled off tick #16 or so, Emma decided to climb onto the kitchen counter. I was busy holding a squirming ticked infested dog so I asked Jenna to please help get Emma. (What was I thinking?) I continued to pull off ticks as Jenna took her sweet time and Emma made her way over to the cup. As I was pulling off tick #19 (or so) Emma slipped on the counter and fell on top of the Cup O'Ticks. The cup turned over releasing ticks and water all over the counter, floor and Emma.

Who said nothing exciting happens here?

Fifi was dropped, Emma was crying, Jenna and the boys were screaming and I was quickly trying to figure out how to contain 20 loose, live ticks that were camouflaged by a brown counter and a wood floor. I quickly grabbed some paper towels and started wiping anything within 3 feet, stuffing the towels into the empty cup and placing the cup in a ziploc bag. But I still had a dog with hidden ticks. And screaming children.

I announced a shopping trip to Petco and Target, which stopped the screaming. Fifi was sequestered into the powder room and I spent the next 10 minutes readjusting car seats and booster seats in my bus van. Finally, 4 small children were loaded in the van and off we went.

Again, what was I thinking??? It actually went quite well, other then the distraction of about 15 dogs up for adoption outside of Petco. Jenna begged for a Jack Russell terrier. I merely looked at her like she had lost her ever lovin' mind, which she obviously had. Are you kidding me? New flea and tick medicine was purchased and we walked over to Target next door to buy a new booster seat so the car seat/booster seat relay would be a thing of the past.

As we wandered through Target, me congratulating myself on how well things were going with both boys sitting nicely in the seats in front of the cart and Emma sitting sweetly her seat, Emma proceeds to lift up her dress and stick her hand down the front of her diaper. And keep it there. Can 22 month olds be arrested for lewd behavior? I didn't really want to find out. Just as I got to her to pull her hand out, she pulled it out herself, fingers covered in poop.

Of course, I didn't have any wipes with me, or tissues, but thank goodness for the countless number of receipts in the bottom of my purse. They finally had some usefulness. We quickly made our way to the front, washed Emma's hand, paid for our purchases and proceeded to the van where I laid Emma down on the van floor and changed her nasty diaper in plain site. What good is living in Missouri if I can't play the hillbilly card? There was no way on earth I was dragging all those kids back in the store. And to my credit, since I was playing the hillbilly card, I didn't throw the diaper in the parking lot for someone to step on.

So what's the moral of this story? Beats me, but the next time I get a dog it's going to be a stuffed one. Taxidermy.

Strange Bedfellows

I had finally gotten my bed empty of all children. It was me and a king size bed. Heaven... But then we got Sugar Bella, the new puppy. In a gesture to Fifi, my 7 year old Yorkie, that she was still Alpha dog, I let her sleep on my bed. Then on the puppy's second night she joined us. But you know, 2 small dogs and a king size bed--I was still doing pretty well. Until last night.

Strangely enough, the girls didn't know the puppy had been sleeping with me. They thought she was still sleeping in the kennel. But I accidentally let it slip to Jenna last night. Julia was spending the night at a friend's house and Jenna didn't want to sleep alone. She will usually sleep on her nap mat in the babies room and she asked if Bella could sleep with her. I told her that Bella would wander away in the night and poop who knows were but she could sleep in my bed-- with the puppy. It was like a dream come true for her. She was all over that.

I was tired last night and feeling the effects of a cold so I was actually in bed before 10:00-- an absolute rarity for me. I wasn't sleeping, just reading and watching tv and eating pita chips, my late dinner. But I forgot to turn the sleep timer on and fell asleep with the tv on.

Around 3:00 I woke up and realized the tv was still on but also heard something next to my bed. I looked down and there was Emma, sitting on the floor next to my bedside table eating pita chips. She was absolutely wide awake and acting like sitting next to my bed eating pita chips at 3:00 am was the most natural thing in the world. So I picked her up, put her in my bed with a a pita chip still firmly in her grip and made her a bottle.

"Go to sleep, Emma. Mommy needs her sleep." I told her sweetly. Amazingly enough, she obeyed.

Hours later I was awakened by the presence of something on my neck. I woke up enough to realize that Bella was lying across my neck, Jenna was on the opposite side of the bed, Emma was between us lying parallel to the headboard and Fifi was at the bottom of the bed. It was then, as the sun was beginning to rise, that I realized that my bed was becoming a 3 ring circus. Yeah, like that's a revelation, huh?

Puppy Update

A funny thing happened with Julia's dog. Jenna took over. Not in Bella's feeding or pottying, Julia's still doing the feeding and noticing that puppies poop a LOT. She especially notices and minds when I find yet another puppy pile on the floor. "Julia! More puppy poo for you!" Its the gift that just keeps giving.

Its a wonder that Bella has a chance to even poop on the floor. Jenna has latched onto the dog like she's a little doll and the puppy loves it.

All day Sunday and this afternoon, where ever you saw Jenna, the puppy was there too. In her arms. Bella spent most of Sunday afternoon asleep.

I didn't think that Jenna would be able to go to school today because of the acute pain the separation would bring. Frankly, I also wondered how Bella would do. But both survived, and Bella actually got a chance to romp around without being snatched up and forced into Jenna's make believe land, not that Bella seems to mind.

Part of Jenna's play sometimes involves putting her in her kennel. She how peaceful she is sleeping there? That's because its not night time!

The first night found Bella singing her mournful song of loneliness and despair. When she announced her protest to the entire house in the middle of the night she found herself banished in Jenna's empty room with the door closed.

Last night, the wailing started off loudly from the beginning but settled down quickly. Then at 4:00 she began crying again, waking Emma up in the process. Once I got Emma settled down I realized that Bella sounded quite terrified. So I got her out and she crawled up my neck frantically in fear and my heart just melted. I've always been a pushover with babies and puppies.

You know how my bed has been empty for about a month now? Since I got Emma kicked out, I've had my king size bed all to myself. But with the addition of the puppy I've been worried that Fifi, our almost 7 year old Yorkie, would think she was being replaced so not only have I been giving her extra attention but I let her onto my bed. Hey, its a big bed and I just gave her a bath.

So last night/this morning, I brought the puppy to my bed too. And there we slept, Fifi on one pillow, me on the other and Bella curled up on my shoulder. So long empty bed. But guess who won't go to sleep in her bed tonight? Emma. I think the revolving door to my bed has been reinstalled.

Oh well, sleeping is overrated.