Menace to Society

Every time I walk Bruce (which has significantly decreased since the birth of Ollie) he loses his cool when he sees other dogs, joggers, cars, anything basically that he wants to pay attention to him.  I constantly scold him, tug his leash forward and tell him he is a menace.  If the offense is really bad I pick him up, try as I might to clamp my hand over his smushed little muzzle and tell him to be quiet (let's be serious I'm not so nice at this point and tell him to "shut it") as I walk embarrassed and frustrated home.  Today Bruce's menace rank was taken to a whole new level when I received a nicely threatening letter from South Bend Code Enforcement Department of Animal Control.  See, when I let Bruce in our backyard he is usually content to pee on things, stinky roll, lounge in the grass.  Unless of course Lucy, the rat terrier next door is also in her backyard or if Mildred's son's are mowing her yard in the house behind us or if Angie and Aaron are enjoying their beautiful patio on the other side of our house.  Then Bruce loses his cool.  I try to squirt him in the face with the squirt bottle but usually have to traipse through the grass and abscond this law breaking citizen.  The letter I received game lots of suggestions on why my dog is barking (none of which applied to him) and how to stop it (get a book from the library on training your dog! or better yet, take him to obedience class!, Bruce did very well in his obedience class thankyouverymuch he won second place in the sit stay contest and was bested only by a German Shepherd.) So thank you concerned/aggravated neighbor for your understanding of my situation; a baby, some dogs and a husband who IS NEVER HOME allows me much time to make sure I'm not doing anything to offend you.  I'll get right on sending in my documentation of vaccination/neutering/microchipping so as not to incur fines and further violations.
Have I mentioned how much I "love" our neighborhood association?  I'm not sure what these people are doing with their lives as they have time to schedule meetings, write reports, send mailings and warnings all rampant with grammatical errors (not sure about the meetings, just can't bring myself to go to one of those).  Look, I know my lawn isn't the nicest and my dogs can be noisy but I PICK UP THEIR POOP.  Maybe somebody should get angry with those people who let their huge dogs run and poop everywhere.  OR MAYBE THAT CRAZY OLD BAT WHO LIVES TWO DOORS DOWN SHOULDN'T BE GOING THROUGH OUR MAIL SO SHE CAN TELL OUR NEIGHBORS THAT "A DOCTOR LIVES THERE!" I'M PRETTY SURE MAIL TAMPERING IS A FEDERAL OFFENSE BUT I understand how my dog peeing in your yard and our yard being slightly brown is terrible.
End rant. Stay tuned for next week when the Johnsons get a code violation for their lawn!

Ollie's Wednesday

Wake up, eat, crawl around, get dressed, go to Claire's house, play in kitchen, discover napkins, tear up napkin and share with Claire, play with farm animal magnets, babble, cruise, try to play with fireplace,

 

climb on fireplace ledge and dive off face first neglect to cry and immediately climb back on, look out window, refuse a nap, go on a car ride and fall asleep, go to Target, eat lunch, play outside while listening to Sesame Street on Pandora, get repeatedly told "you can look at it and touch it and feel it but don't put it in your mouth" in regards to everything you pick up in the backyard, get kisses from Wiley

pester Wiley so much he decides to get as far away from you as possible

come inside, refuse to hold your own bottle while in the highchair, take a car ride, take a nap, see daddy, poop, poop again in your clean diaper, refuse to eat your dinner and give forkfuls of it to Clark, go to DQ with mom and dad and the Slaters, take a bath, leisurely drink a bottle, grab your pacifier, snuggle in bed, fall asleep listening to your lullably cd

Uh oh...

Can you believe this is the face of a killer?  

I couldn't either until I was sitting reading my Sunday paper as the boys (Ollie was sleeping so he is excluded from this debacle) were in the backyard.  I heard some high pitched squawking and saw Bruce and Clark surrounding something that was jumping around, feathers everywhere.  I got Tanner and Clark into the house ASAP but Bruce was intent on eating his fresh kill.  I had to get a spray bottle and squirt him in the face from the deck to get him to stop trying to eat the poor bird he had just killed.  There were feathers everywhere, including stuck all over this guy's muzzle.  Everyone was banished to their crates for the afternoon as Chris was covering the LPGA tournament and would not be home for 8 hours.  (Tanner was a good sport in his crate considering he had nothing to do with the crime and was minding his own business on the deck)  I clean up many a thing Chris refuses to; poop, urine and vomit of all varieties but I draw the line at animal carcasses.  Poor guy was in the wrong place at the wrong time with a broken wing.  Should have checked the yard before I let the boys out...

Picture post

Why take a nap while you can play in your bff's toy box while she takes a gloriously long nap?

Loving the dishwasher, will sometimes help put dishes away (take them out and let me catch them before they hit the ground) but mainly likes climbing in the dishwasher

Welcome wagon waiting to greet Chris when he gets home

Bruce got stung by something when he was outside last week, his poor little eye swelled shut.  The swelling went down that afternoon but it was still a sad sight to see

cookies and a goodbye

This time of year has been bittersweet the past few years.  Residency ends for some and begins for others.  This year, residency will end for us.  Luckily all but one of Chris' classmates is staying in the area (for at least another year) and so will we for Chris to do the Sports Medicine Fellowship at Memorial/Notre Dame.  We love all of people Chris works with and I'm glad to have more time in South Bend. Unfortunately, some of our good friends are moving and when I say moving I mean MOVING to Washington state.  This picture was at Tucker and Wendy's going away party, Tucker decided Ollie should have a chocolate chip cookie.  I decided this is okay because 1. He's a doctor and won't give my child anything harmful 2. He's a dad of three and knows way more about kids than I do and 3. (most favorite of all) Wendy promised if Ollie had any issues I could call up Tucker and have him handle them.  Ollie loved the cookie!!!  Chris was able to have fun at the party long after I went home to put Ollie to bed and I'm glad he could let loose a little given that he works...and works...and works.
Goodbye Balams!  We will miss you!!!

On the move

Ollie is finally crawling!  He started Tuesday and hasn't stopped.  

Some of his favorite things to do:

-Crawl up to Clark, grab his face and proceed to scream in poor Clark's face (luckily all the boys love Ollie and take his antics pretty well)

-Take bones from Banner, proceed to laugh and continue to follow that poor blind dog around until he is redirected

-Pull bowls out of the crates, water and all (this results in the poor boys being without water unless Ollie is down for a nap because he is constantly spilling them)

-Playing with the crates in general 

-Find any semblance of paper and put it in his mouth

Everybody loves an Olliegator

Ready to swim at Aunt Angie's.

He does this really cute thing where he peeks around at stuff and this is the best shot I have of that thus far.  

He may or may not think he is a pug.  It was just water. Phew!