The Puppies Are SIX MONTHS OLD Today!!

I celebrated the puppies' six-month birthday by giving them all baths and then dismantling, cleaning, and reassembling their crates. It took over three hours because a particularly untimely poo-tastrophe necessitated a second round of baths before the puppies were even dry from the first. I think these were their third real baths. Or third and fourth, I should say.

They've all been registered, and any day now we should take them in to get "fixed." I'm looking forward to any improvement in the boys' behavior that the procedure might bring about, but I'm also terrified and sad. Is it weird that I'll miss their little parts? It's all I can do not to hang on to their baby teeth as souvenirs. If there didn't seem to be millions of them falling out every day, I probably would. I've kept Max's lower right canine tooth because he looked so cute panting with those two tiny vampire teeth on either side of his tongue. Now that he only has one, he's even cuter!

Okay, pictures. There aren't too many, even though I skipped one regularly-scheduled Pupdate. 

Running free in the yard!:

(This lasted only about two or three weeks before Maxwell ate a Caladium leaf and I had to induce vomiting and then dig through three mounds of hurl with my fingers before I finally found it. Now it's leash time and pen time only. But it was so much fun to watch them run and play!)

On March 29th, I took a photo of the full, new 30-pound bag of food and a note with the date. I predicted it wouldn't last two months. I was right with five days to go:

(The puppies eat less now that their growth has leveled off.)

Joey likes to lie down a lot during playtime. In these photos, I think he's hot from running around outside:

They want me to entertain them ALL THE TIME. Lizzie appears to be barking at me here:

This picture:

...reminded me of this picture from several months ago:

(I love to see them grow, but it almost breaks my heart to look at these old pictures!)

Wants something (note the hopeful blurry tail wag):

I bought a bag of "Made in America" smoked chicken breast with no ingredients but chicken that ended up costing $1 a piece. It smelled so good I almost ate some myself (and would have if I weren't a vegetarian). The puppies loved it, and it helped them get a start on loosening up those baby teeth. They got very good at taking turns chewing on it while I held it (so they wouldn't swallow big pieces):

See Lizzie waiting patiently:

Whose turn is next?:

Lizzie's!:

This time, Joe has to wait:

More?:

Please?!:

I think I took this by accident:

I was just trying to get one "good" picture of Joey lying down like this, but I thought these were all so cute:

And again, later:

The pen isn't very big to them anymore, but they still all huddle together in the sunniest corner, no matter how hot it gets:

Hot:

They like to stand and support themselves on the bars:

(It creeps out my sister. She says, "It's like they would just stand on their back legs all the time if they could. Like people." 

Lots of notes to my roommate like this:

(Spring in Texas is stormy, often in the overnight hours, and the puppies (especially Max) wake up scared, so I have to take them out to potty in the rain and lightning and then spend the wee hours trying to keep them quiet. I leave the notes so my roommate won't wake me up at 7:15 and tell me I'm late taking the dogs out, or, in this case, wonder where they went.)

Huddled:

This goofball still loves to charge the camera:

Princess Potato!:

(...posing with my mom, who insisted her face not be in the photo. I have another in which she's cringing and trying to lean out of the frame. I didn't show it to her because it's funny. This one she liked.)

The puppies like me to get down on the floor with them at playtime. I do it a lot. They don't really interact with me, though--they just use me as playground equipment:

Joey likes to hide underneath me when I squat down so he can reach a paw out and bat at his siblings from a defensible position:

I got my camera out for this because I thought Joe was looking very gentlemanly and grown up:

And that's it! I'd add some pictures from after their bath, but I was too wiped out to take any. I've got to get them up again NOW, so I don't foresee getting back on the computer again tonight. The puppies are LOTS of work. Often too much. But they're lovely little wonders, don't you think? I look at them, and I say, "You're real little doggies now, aren't you? It's so amazing because the first time I felt you in your mama's tummy, I thought you might be farts!"

Have a nice day!

Potato is Mine!

On Saturday, I registered Lizzie with my city's Animal Services department. It made me feel so happy! When I got home again, I picked her up and snuggled her and she gave me a kiss on the cheek. She's officially my very own doggie now!

Here she is on my mom's lap a few days ago:

Isn't she the prettiest?

Here's a picture of her hugging her brother the day after she was born:

And here she is snuggling with me a few weeks later:

This is the picture that made my Twitter friend @dentednj say she looks like a potato:

She's my Sweet Potato!

In this one, from a few weeks after that, she's sitting in my sister's lap:

I'm a crazy dog lady now! I'm crazy about my Sweet Potato!!

Daddy

I found this gift tag the other day when I was cleaning my room:

I must have saved it from last Christmas. I like it because even though it says "From MOMMY," it's obviously written in my dad's handwriting.

My father has had a difficult year. I've heard hardly anything about it because he isn't around much and doesn't talk to me much, but apparently, in preparation for retirement, he's sold his business to the company he consults for, and for the first time in over 20 years, he isn't his own boss anymore. Also, his health hasn't been very good this past decade or so. He almost died of some heart problems when I was in college, but my parents decided not to tell me about that until I got home for summer break--they didn't want to distract me from my all-important studies in architecture school--that my dad had talked me into. (I ended up adding an English major and leaving architecture early with a non-professional degree--and I didn't tell them about that until I got home for summer break.)

After college, even though I'd wanted to go far, far away, to Tasmania even--I looked into it!-- I ended up having to move home because I was so sick from the stress of school. Somehow (meaning from my dad) I'd been convinced as early as Kindergarten that if I front-loaded all my efforts, doing my absolute best in school, that afterwards everything would fall in place, and adult life would be nothing but smooth sailing. Instead I discovered after a few years of college that other students--students smarter, better, more creative, more studious, more enthusiastic, and better-connected than I was--were having difficulty finding jobs with architecture firms. The tiny threads that had been holding me together, getting me through the awful days snapped all at once. 

It was another year before I graduated, and I scraped along, barely holding my mind and body together as I worked at a daycare while finishing my English degree and one last credit for a Bachelor of Science in Architecture degree, so that I earned two degrees in just four years. When I moved home that summer, I made a project of trying to get my health back together. I went to several doctors. I tried to eat healthy food even though my parents' fridge and pantry were crammed with ice cream, bagels, economy-sized blocks of cheese, soda--all the things that had made me a fat, miserable teenager. My parents followed my lead to an extent, eating healthier and allowing me to cook them the occasional vegetarian meal. I also started going for two-mile morning walks with my dad, where we would talk about all kinds of stuff. I got to understand him so much better and not be as angry with him for the way he'd always treated me, all the pressure and criticism he'd put me under. He'd thought it would make me a tough, responsible adult, not the broken, useless, terrified mess I actually became.

I learned that my dad was proud to be the owner of a small business. He explained that by doing the work he did (which I found crushingly dull), he supported three families: his own, plus the young families of his two employees. He also genuinely enjoyed most of the work, which consisted of writing software and designing technical equipment. The thing I most appreciate about his work is that over the years, he has become more knowledgeable about the company he consults for and the products it builds than anyone who actually works at the company! That's why they have to keep him on as an employee for a while as they train multiple people to do the work he's been doing for the last two decades.

All my life I've hated my dad's work, though. Why can't Daddy play with us this weekend? Because he had to go to work. Why is no one home at 9:00 PM for dinner? Because Mommy and Daddy had to go to work (my mom worked as his secretary and janitor for about ten years). It's no secret in that my dad escapes the house by going to work. Even this year, when his new bosses tried to get him to work from home, he flat out refused. He's started a million renovation projects around the house, but when they get too difficult, he's suddenly "too busy" to finish them, but won't let my mom hire anyone else to do it. The house has always been a mess.

This is why I treasured our vacations so much. Just about every other summer, Daddy would take us somewhere beautiful (and not as hot as Dallas): Nova Scotia, Colorado, rural England, Hawaii. We stayed in relatively inexpensive places, but they were always more comfortable than home, and more importantly, everyone was together. My sister couldn't abandon me to be with her friends, my mom couldn't abandon me to go shopping (and then forget to pick me up from school), and my father couldn't abandon me to go to work (although I do remember a fax machine coming along with us a couple of times). My dad is really good at planning vacations, too. Four times he drove us to Colorado, a couple of them via Santa Fe and Taos; the most recent, via Mesa Verde, and beyond, to Park City, Utah. I have a photo I love of my dad sitting on a mountainside near Aspen. He's wearing the green hat he had to buy there to keep his bald spot from burning, and he's eating a sandwich and smiling. You could put those days in a teacup.

I like to think that that version of my dad--Daddy, I guess--is there always. Somewhere inside the Dad who works too much, the Dad who criticizes too much, the Dad who claims he doesn't have feelings but can poison a whole house with his anger. I'm a big disappointment, but he's learning to be okay with that, just as I'm learning to be okay with him. 

I haven't had a job since I worked at the daycare, but I've been careful not to be a burden on my parents. I have some money from mom's father, who died while I was in college, and with it I pay all my own expenses. Except for my health insurance. My father bought an individual plan for me, $2400 a year. I pay my own co-pays, and since the deductibles are so high, I try not to go to the doctor if I can help it. Still, it's an enormous help. I've offered half a dozen times to take over the payments, but my dad insists. "I'm not doing this for you," he says. "I just don't want you to bankrupt me when you get cancer."

You have to read between the lines a bit, but I think that might be his way of saying he loves me. Somewhere inside that Dad is my Daddy.

They Weren't Any Easier Then, but I Still Kinda Miss This

(photo taken March 4, when the puppies were two and a half months old)