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!

Tanner Update

First the good news! Tanner is down 4 pounds since he became a Johnson in February! This is a lot for somebody who only weighs 20.2 pounds now.

Now the sad news, we took him back to the vet today because in the past week his vision has gotten really bad.  One day he thought I was the highchair, a clothes hamper, and the dishwasher (I know because I was trying to give him a treat and he was doing his little dance in front of these objects).  He also has started walking around very gingerly, knocks over his food and water bowl whenever he gets in his crate (which resulted in me just removing the water bowl completely and letting him drink from Bruce's bowl), and running into EVERYTHING; Ollie, walls, toys, chairs, etc.  He also has a hard time finding his way inside once he is outside on the deck.  The other morning I was letting him out of his crate and he somehow turned himself around and was pawing and trying to get out through the back of the crate.  The same day he just sat on his blanket and cried.  Good news?  No glaucoma (which dogs can get and if gets bad enough they just remove their eyes :( )  Bad news?  The poor guy is completely blind and has cataracts in both his eyes.  I also made him start wearing a "male wrap" which I call a sumo wrap to keep his confidence up because since he has no idea where he is half the time, he has taken to marking (most recently the car seat and my diaper bag).

Ollie has been enjoying the nice weather and is finally sleeping better.  He goes down by 8pm and sleeps until about midnight, gets up eats, and then sleeps again til about 4.  I know he should be sleeping through the night by now with no feedings but feeding him buys me a few more hours of sleep and we will cross that bridge when we come to it.  Ollie spends his days scootching around (no crawling yet) smiling, yelling/growling in excitement, grabbing fistfuls of the nearest pug brother, and melting my heart.  Tooth count is still 0. 

Mid squeal while on the slidey floors at Claire's house

One of those days

Do you ever have one of those days where you feel like a horrible mother, a horrible wife, and a horrible friend? That was me today.  I mean really I feel like sometimes all I do is nag Chris about things like putting his dishes in the sink, helping with Ollie, letting the pugs out, etc. etc. etc.  I just feel like sometimes I'm the only adult manning this Johnson ship and sometimes it gets e.x.h.a.u.s.t.i.n.g. and then I feel bad because without Chris working 80 hours a week and earning money, I wouldn't be able to stay home and fret about things like dishes, laundry, the dog smell I am constantly battling and never quite winning, and of course Oliver.  (insert guilt about less than perfect wife-ing here)
And then I feel horrible about needing a break from Oliver sometimes.  I love him more than anything in the world but sometimes I need a short recess from the constant screaming.  I tried going to the gym which didn't work and at our last (and I do mean LAST attempt, I cancelled my membership but those pesky 30 day notice periods have me paying until May 4) I made it far enough to clean out my locker before the girl at the front desk asked if I could hear him screaming in the day care room.  I sighed heavily, probably mumbled some expletive and went to retrieve my red, hysterical, gasping child.  I apologized to the daycare worker and she in turn apologized to me for "having such a difficult child."  Great.  My child is difficult. Good thing this daycare thing is optional and I'm not working or else who knows what we would do. He proceeded to whimper the entire ride home.  Then there's the times where he is crying for who knows what reason and I in turn sit and cry because well because my child is screaming, has been screaming and I cannot get him to stop unless I hold him 24 hours a day.
Aside from the lack of sleep the biggest change I've noticed since becoming a mom is the lack of freedom I have.  I notice all too quickly that my lovely husband does not suffer this same lack of freedom, he can workout, sleep, go places including but not limited to the bathroom, have adult conversations, without batting an eyelash.  I quit my gym, when I do workout it's to the noise of Ollie screaming because no, I'm not currently holding him, and my shower today consisted of rushing through everything because again Ollie was sitting in the bathroom screaming.  As I was babysitting a couple weeks ago, I came across the dilemma of having to go to the bathroom while simultaneously supervising Ollie and a band of brothers aged 2,4,6, and 8.  I tried to go as quickly as I could while holding Ollie in one arm whilst the 2 and 4 year olds burst into the bathroom wanting to know just what I was doing. Ah, freedom.  (insert guilt about less than perfect mommy-ing here).
And then there's the friend issue.  I literally feel like a horrible friend.  Most days I think about calling a friend to catch up and then collapse in a heap of exhaustion/laundry/dishes/etc. and think I'll have time tomorrow to do it. Wrong again. I also don't know if I've had any substantial conversations that don't revolve solely around children/child rearing/etc/etc.  (insert guilt about less than perfect friend-ing here).  
End rant. (insert conglomeration of guilt here).

Mommy Moment #1036 or why coupons can in fact be bad

So I'm sitting on the floor looking through coupons (one of my favorite past times which I realize typing this makes me sound super interesting) and Ollie decides he wants to help.  I give him a page of coupons to play with because he loves paper.  I look away for a second only to hear him coughing and gagging.  I have to wrench the wet, shredded paper from his clenched fist as he begins to throw up on himself, his blanket, and the floor.  I of course try to immediately call Chris, whose phone has been off all day, with my unreliable POS droid that prides itself on not working at the precise emergency situations I need it to (rewind to Ollie's first big trip when he is 6 weeks old and we get rear ended in the suburbs).  I page Chris twice as Ollie continues to vomit and decide that yes, I will call Dr. Wheet.  The doctor recommends letting him vomit it up because he has to get it out of his system and I feel horribly negligent for letting my infant play with something that will inevitably be put in his mouth.  He is currently sitting in his high chair  kicking happily and squealing.  Crisis averted.

Was this the first time today I encountered vomit?  Why no, no it's not.  I was woken to Bruce puking the bed.  Rewind to yesterday at noon when he saw a meter man in the neighbor's yard and decided to jump over the couch and hit the Exersaucer on the way down.  He yelped and immediately started hopping around on 3 legs.  The vet said he didn't hurt anything but did give him a nice little NSAID.  He is on cage rest for 5 days and well, being a doctor's family of course we follow all doctor's orders to a T.  I slept with him in our bed only to wake up to the poor guy vomiting up what looked suspiciously like his painkiller.

The Chris Johnson Workout Plan

Tanner is adjusting well to the Johnson household.  It's been a little over 2 months since he came to live with us and a lot has changed.  He no longer pants and paces the house and I think he realizes that this is his new home.  He quickly caught on to eating in his crate like the other boys and has started sleeping on anything that is on the floor (his blanket, Oliver's play mat, any blanket I put down for Oliver, towels, etc. etc.)  Sometimes he sleeps in bed with us but most nights he is content to sleep on his towel on the floor next to our bed.  He had a dental cleaning and two teeth had to be removed but it didn't even faze him.  The vet thinks he probably sees very little given how he responded during his vision test (I guess they put their fingers really close to their eyes and see if they flinch/have a menace reflex which he didn't) and he runs into me/stationary objects about 3 times a day.  The best part?  He came to us weighing 24.4 pounds and is down to 21.2 pounds thanks to the Chris Johnson Workout Plan (which equates to nightly walks when Chris isn't on call).

I spent a good part of my day telling Tanner and the other 2 boys "don't sit on the baby," "don't lick the baby's mouth," "Oliver can't pet you he's too young" etc. etc.  Ollie loves all the boys and smiles and squeals at them which makes all the not so fun parts of dog ownership worth it.

It's 2:30am, that's a normal time to write a post right?

Ready for the nice weather

Oatmeal is delicious!

Baby straight jacket no longer works to help him sleep

I'm glad someone can sleep comfortably without being held

Tanner fitting in well with the Johnson's

Let's get one thing straight, I. am. exhausted.  My beautiful, non fussy, gorgeous child once slept through the night.  Those are nights I dream about as I stare slack jawed and glazed over at this computer screen. I swear sometimes I think he's a tiny militant who wakes at predetermined intervals to test my sanity.  Other times I am convinced that yes, he is indeed an angry dragon.  I've tried Ferberizing (letting him cry for 5 minutes, going in and soothing, repeat...repeat...repeat...repeat until he decides he can calm himself to sleep) which lasted a full week (it's supposed to work in 3 days) and only served to piss off my little dragon and leave him tomato red, kicking, screaming, thrashing and pacifier throwing as the nights wore on.  I've tried co sleeping which worked well the first two nights until he decided it was much more fun/comforting to sleep on top of me and screaming if I so much as dare delicately move him to the side of me in fears that he will suffocate from burying his face in my chest to sleep.  He spent most of today sleeping with his head buried in my chest/shoulder while sucking on his pacifier and screaming if I so much as dane to put him down for a second to use the bathroom.  He is currently moderately entertained by the straps on his high chair and smiling at me like "hey mom! let's play! i'm a baby who has no concept of time and no idea that while the rest of the world is comfortably sleeping in their own beds we should be playing!" I'm waiting for a tooth to poke through because I feel like he has been teething for the last few months.  I can only hope that at some point in the foreseeable future he will sleep without me holding him and won't wake up the mere second I lean over his crib and ever so gently try to put him to bed.  Sometimes I feel drunk due to lack of sleep (getting 4 hours over the course of 24 with it being divided into 30min to 45min chunks turns out is not all that beneficial) and at Five Guys the other day I stared stupidly at the college boy behind the counter when he asked what I wanted on my burger before stuttering and collecting my thoughts enough to say "um, um, ketchup mustard pickle onion? yeah that's right."  He of course looked at me like I was crazy and I was too tired to say otherwise.

Welcome Tanner!

Yesterday Tanner arrived at the Johnson house.  Turns out he is not completely blind but more than likely can only see out of one eye.  He is also BIG.  Like chunky, very chunky.  He looks like Bruce if Bruce gained a lot of weight.  I'm trying to stay away from the f word (fat) but seriously if Tanner were a human he would be two Hoosier units.  It's pretty sad, he has been pacing around the house panting ever since he got dropped off.  Yesterday after his people left he would just stand by our front door with his nose on the ground waiting for them to come back.  Since he never slept in the bedroom, last night I slept on the couch while he slept on the floor next to me.  Every time Oliver woke up in the night (which is pretty frequently and involves me putting his pacifier back in and leaving his room), Tanner would get up, lumber after me, and start panting.  Every time I got up I would tell him to stay and that I'd be right back but the poor guy just didn't know what to do.  He would get confused and then take a couple minutes to lay back down.  He also didn't eat last night because he was all out of sorts.  We bought him a crate because that's where the boys eat and where they go when we're not home.  He got the concept of eating in the crate today but it also involved me gently pushing his back end into the crate so I could close the door. He doesn't like it though and does a cute little bark.  I'm really surprised at how quiet his bark is given his size.
Question: Am I crazy to have 3 dogs, an infant, and a husband who works 80+ hours a week?
Answer: Yes. Yes, I am.
Here's to hoping this poor guy adjusts to life in the Johnson house quickly, I'm afraid he's going to give himself a heart attack with all this panting and pacing.
*There are no pictures to post because try as I might, I just couldn't get him to stand still long enough to get a picture*

Because I like to give my husband a hard time...

Below is the actual transcript of a telephone call I recently had while in the drive up lane at the bank.

Phone {ring ring}

Me: Hello?

Guy: Hi, is this Chris?

Me: No, this is Michelle.

Guy: Is Chris available?

Me: No he's at work right now. Who is this?

Guy: This is (of course I forgot his name) from the Hall of Heroes in Elkhart. I'm calling because we're going to have to move his museum tour at 2pm on Saturday because I have a birthday party scheduled. Do you know if he's available at 4pm?

Me: (laughing) We're getting a dog on Saturday afternoon, he would have to do it earlier.

Guy: Oh man, we're pretty booked up this Saturday we have a lot of birthday parties scheduled, the earliest I can do is 3:30.

Me: (still laughing) I'll have him call you when he gets off work.

Guy: (very enthusiastically) Great! Thanks!

Me: (to Chris's voicemail because he was hard at work being a doctor while now laughing hysterically) Yeah, you're supposed to call the Superhero guy back, they had to reschedule your museum tour due to too many birthday parties. Maybe you could get yourself invited to one and still go at 2? I bet they'll have cake and punch!

My main question, WHY does the Hall of Heroes in Elkhart have my number as opposed to Chris's? My other question, when oh when is Chris going to get to go to the museum? Maybe we can plan his 29th birthday party there? *Please note Chris was attending this museum with two of his colleagues, I assume they are equally disappointed.

In true form with his love for super heroes and naming our pugs all super hero names,

Chris: So I was looking for a super hero named Tanner and couldn't find one. There is a Conner, maybe I could call him Conner. No, that's probably not nice I should probably call him Tanner right?

Me: We're not changing the poor dog's name. He's 7 and will be shocked enough as it is moving in with us.

Chris: You're right. (Oh I love when he says that) How about Murdock? Because Murdock is Daredevil and he was blind. Tanner Murdock.

Me: Sounds good, Tanner Murdock Johnson.

Chris: (with a huge satisfied smile) Tanner Murdock!!!

3 Pugs and a Baby

So after some consideration, we have decided to add a third pug to the Johnson clan. Someone I used to work with needed a home for her 7 year old almost blind pug. Needless to say, she asked the right person. I figure Bruce and Clark can show him the ropes, our backyard is fenced and really how much trouble could a vision imparied slightly geriatric snuggle pug be? He is trained to stay off the furniture so his little world will be upended when he moves in (I say this as Bruce sits stoically on the couch and Clark races back and forth on the back of the couch). He also sleeps in the kitchen at night in his current home. Again, this guy is in for a mighty big surprise when he moves in with the couple who had to upgrade to a king sized bed to make sure there was enough room for the puppies. What can I say, I love adventure and we're excited to have him spend his golden years as a Johnson!

Today was much better at the gym, Ollie let me get a solid workout in. The regular daycare girl, Julia, was there today and there were about 10 kids running around but Ollie had no problems at all. I WOULD have gotten to shower but all the showers were full. Oh well, gotta take what you can get. Chris and I started Crossfit and I have been three times. It is an amazing workout AND I can bring Ollie! It's a small gym with basic equipment like rowers, pull up bars, kettle bells, etc. I love it because the first time I went, our friend Tucker was the only other one working out with me and yesterday I was all by myself. It's like amazing personal training. It's also great because everything can be modified. My goal is to be able to do a legit pushup and pull up. Right now my upper body strength leaves a bit to be desired but I'm confident that will change.

On a separate but related note, Crossfit is to junk food as Antabuse is to alcohol. Yesterday Chris and I had Jimmy Johns not once but twice (within a few hours of each other) and I had two of the cookies and one and a half sandwiches. Gluttony, thy name is Michelle. Well when I woke up with a horrible stomachache today, I figure all this working out makes me want to eat healthier too.

*Note there is a moratorium on future pugs as we have reached the City of South Bend's limit on dogs.

My poor poor neglected blog. That about 3 people know about. If I could figure out how to properly upload photos, I would. But, I don't so I guess it's going to be a one photo per post type of day. Tried Crossfit today, Chris was gracious enough to watch Ollie so I could go to the Crossfit gym. I've been trying to workout more but the last 3 times I've gone to the gym Ollie has had meltdowns, not just meltdowns but MELTDOWNS. Like cries so he's tomato red and I'm toting a screaming child back to the locker room to try to feed him or grab as much stuff as will fit in my hands from my locker before hightailing it out of there. Last time, I was feeling great on the treadmill and even put my headphones only in one ear so I could hear if they paged me. My friend Marie was meeting me at the gym and I knew it wasn't good when she came up to the machines with her coat still on and keys in her hand. When she dropped off Ollie's bff Claire, he was in the midst of his meltdown. I jumped off the still going treadmill to race down to my locker and then grab the bright red, inconsolable Oliver. He fell asleep on the way home and was happy as a clam when he woke up.