Babies are not like dogs

I have caught myself thinking, more than once, "Oh, Lennon is asleep. Now would be a great time for me to run to the grocery store." Like, I should leave her in her crib to run to do errands. Yeeeaaaaaaaah. Clearly, I have not done this because I am a fantastic mommy and I know you can't leave babies in cribs to go out and about. Even is they can't get out of their crib. And even if the dogs are really good babysitters.

Unconditional love

My little Clementine is adorable. We just love her to pieces. She's our fragile little flower. You can't yell at her, or she cries. If you grab her collar (with your damn pinkie) to bring her somewhere, she pulls on it and cries. You can't look at her like you are upset with her either. She cowers, tucks her tail, and has even cried. Do you see a trend? So, we have to treat her differently. She still gets in trouble, but we "yell" at her in a normal tone and volume.

She also has selective listening skills. When outside and we call her to come in, most of the time she will just look at us then keep going about her business. When it is time for her to go in her kennel, she just stays on her pillow near the front window and completely ignores us. These quirks don't bother me one bit. It makes her who she is.

She does have one habit that disgusts me beyond belief.

Clementine is always hungry, always. We feed her enough, and three times a day, so she is never starving. But, if we are in the kitchen, eating downstairs, or my mom's dog is eating her food, Clem is ready for to grab whatever may fall to the ground. She has one treat imparticular that really gets her going.

Shit.

I am not even kidding. It is repulsive. She likes to find poop in the backyard and snack on it. It has been dubbed poopsicles or soft serve. What is soft serve do you ask? Oh, well, that is when Hazel is outside getting ready to drop a deuce and Clementine is 3 inches from her ass just waiting for it to come out. This is no joke. We try to keep an eye on her, so she does not do it that often, but the second we look away, she is ready and waiting by Hazels pooper. What cracks me up about the whole thing is that Hazel is the one with the nasty breath. The one that snacks on crap has totally fresh breath! How unfair. People have given us a million ideas on how to stop it, but frankly, they are all too much work. Or, they don't work at all.

I really hope this doesn't deter anyone from cuddling with my little Lemon next time they see her. She has mouthwash, and I use it.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I have been horrible lately with posts, and I would like to apologize.

I'm sorry.

I would also like to wish everyone a safe and relaxing Thanksgiving! I am off to Dallas with my mom. Since Kenny works retail, he will be here working the weekend away. He will be spared a weekend with my family. My crazy, fantastic family.

A few quick things that I am thankful for:

Kenny
Maple anything
My friends-without them, I would have gone crazy long ago
Mojitos and grape vodka
My family-without them life would be sane, but frankly, a lot more boring
The stupidity in this world that makes me laugh daily
My doggies
Cheese bread
My home
Candy of any kind
The beautiful mountains I see every single day
It's Always Sunny reruns
Weekend getaways and trips to anywhere-but-here
Coffee
Fisherman-more specifically, crab fishermen: dressed up in full on fishing gear

Apparently, three's a crowd

Kimberly emailed me a picture of the most adorable puppy ever, named Trout, who is a puppy mill rescue and in need of a home. He is 4 months old, grey and white with blue eyes, and an Italian Greyhound.

Freaking adorable.

I guess she also sent it to Kenny and when I got home for lunch he said how he was trying to call the lady to go see him.

What? We are getting him? Really?

No. I just wanted to go see him. Kimberly sent me the application too.

So, you are going to see the adorable puppy with no intention of getting him. Are you going to fill out the application?

Yes and no. I just want to see how cute he is.

You can't do that. I can't do that! We will want him!

YOU can't do that. That's why you were not going to go with me.

Oh.

Do we need another dog? Nope. Absolutely not. Do I want freaking adorable precious cute as a button Trout? Yes! Yes! Yes! So discussions about Trout lasted until Saturday afternoon, when the final decision was made (by Kenny) that we are not going to try to get him.

What a mean husband I have.

I can only WORK at work?

Recently my work has fired about 6 people for inappropriate IM/email/Internet usage. That means 1)No more catching up on all my blogs or favorite websites from work and 2)No more blog posting at work. Frankly, the last thing I want to do when I get home is sit on the computer. I am in front of one for 8 hours a day and I think that is plenty. Unfortunately, this may mean less postings! I am not happy about it and will try to figure out a way to do it anyways. Work is my time to get personal things done! How dare they.

I will leave you with this…

F you Simply Sleep

This past weekend a few of us went camping. I would first like to say that I do enjoy camping and I am good at it. Apparently, I do not look like the camping type. APPARENTLY, it is assumed that I am too prissy for it. Not showering for a few days? You can't handle it Lauren. Peeing behind a rock. Yeah right, Lauren. Well you know what? Screw all of you nay-sayers. I am a legitimate camper. I spit on pop-ups and people who bring tv's and "toilets". I am hardcore.

The only part of camping that I do not like is the "nature" part of it all. I mean, I like the outdoors and I love campfires and sleeping next to a river and all that. I do not like spiders, bees, bears, mountain lions, and whatever else can eat me, bite me, or sting me. This being said, whenever we go camping, I don't sleep. Like, at all. I lie awake the entire night waiting for a bear to rip through the tent and eat me, then Kenny, then the girls for dessert. Kris told me that she takes Tylenol PM when we go camping so she sleeps better. AWESOME. Why didn't I think of that? I went to Target the next day and bought some Simply Sleep. Friday night I was so excited to take it and to be able to sleep though the night. To sleep at all actually. Yeah. Right. Friday night was long and sleepless and I didn't fall asleep until the sun started to rise on Saturday morning. To add insult to injury, the girls refuse to sleep in their own sleeping bag-they totally have their own mini bag. Not 30 minutes after we went to bed, they decided they wanted to be with me, in mine. I have a mummy bag that fits me comfortably, aside form being a bit too short. Add two little dogs, and forget it. So, I stayed in my bag all night, not moving for fear of suffocating a dog, awake, and waiting for the sun to come up so I could catch some zzzz's. The part that pisses me off the most is that Kenny barely hits the pillow and he is out for the entire night.

Saturday, I said shag it and I was going to double up. It had to do something if I took twice the recommended amount. Nope. Nothing. F you Simply Sleep. Next time, maybe I will just take some shots of jager and hopefully pass out.

Weekend was fun, however 5 total hours of sleep over an entire weekend is not ok.

A birthday present

Kenny gave me the blanket I wanted for my birthday and I LOVE it. I told him he will have to get one of his own because I am not willing to share it with him. However, the girls don't really seem to listen when I tell them the same thing.

UPDATE: Clementine chewed a fucking hole in my blanket 4 days after I got it.

One million dollars please

Kris was at our house over the weekend. One morning while we were eating breakfast, he asked if he could pay us to take Clementine and Hazel home with him. He said that they are the only dogs he really likes. He said that we did a good job training them and he would just like to take them because he knows they are good dogs. You never know what you'll get if you get a puppy. They could grow up and suck. I told him that he could have the for a million dollars a piece. He said nevermind.

Glad to know I can raise 'em right.

I am so telling on you.

My mom is coming over to the house after work tonight to hang out with the girls. Yes, she is my dog babysitter. I feel awful leaving them alone all night after I have been at work all day. Ok? Back off. I was talking to Kenny on the phone and told him that my mom would be over around 5.

K: What? Why? I just cleaned the floors.

L: She is coming over to hang out with the girls. What do the floors have to do with it?

K: She is going to mess them up. She's messy. (My mom has made me into the insanely anal person I am today. True, she is a lot more relaxed then she used to be, however.....)

L: How? How is she going to mess them up?

K: She just will. I just cleaned them.

L: I am so telling on you.

Clever, clever boys

Whenever Kenny and I go out of town, my mom stays at the house to "babysit" the girls. I never think twice about what is going on at home, but that will now change. After our return home from San Diego, Brad informed me that we were lucky. We're lucky they (Tad and Brad) decided not to mess with us. I told him my mom was there so they couldn't have done anything, to which he replied, "She would have totally gone in out it with us." True enough, Brad.

A few of their non-executed ideas:

1. Put confetti on top of the ceiling fan blades. When we turned them on-instant party!

2. Shave Hazel and glue the hair onto Clementine.

3. Saran wrap the toilets.

4.Cut labels off of cans in cupboard.

5. Sod your patio/garage. This actually would have been welcomed-sod is expensive!

6. Change the way the refrigerator door opens.

It is so on Brad(and Tad).....

BioBags

I just recently purchased these for the girls. We go on a lot of walks and now I will even be helping the environment when they poop! Sometimes, I even amaze myself.

Pardon moi?

Kenny was on his blackberry the other night texting back and forth with his sister. I was asking him what he was talking to her about and he told me she found a dog she likes. He showed a picture to me and then said, “ It’s a Bitchin’.”

“What? A Bitchin’? How is it spelled?”

“B-I-C-H-O-N”

Cracking up I say, “Oh, a Bee-shone”

Zzzzzzzz

I like my sleep. No, I love my sleep. It makes me very cranky when I miss out on sleep. I am not a nap person, I don’t need 10 hours a night, but when it’s time for bed, I can think of nothing else I would rather be doing. Plus, since we got our new bed, I am obsessed with sleeping more than ever.

I am sure that those of you with kids want to tell me to stick it, but I don’t have kids. These are the days to stockpile my sleeping hours. I know they will be few and far between if we ever decide to start a family. The stupid dogs are bad enough. The other night, Hazel decided she wanted to destroy the birds outside. We were sleeping with our window open and she was just running around the room going completely insane, listening to the hundreds of birds chirping. I was up at 3am that morning. I did not go back to bed. This was the beginning of "Who Needs Sleep 2008".

These past two weeks, for some reason, I cannot get to bed before midnight. I get up for work at 6am. I have learned that 6 hours is no good. I want 8. I have been dragging myself to work, barely awake, barely able to type, barely able to speak. I usually become coherent around noon. Thank God I do not operate heavy machinery. I would be a goner for sure.

Dog down, dog down!

Does anyone else have a dog that falls out of bed during the middle of the night? Our little Clementine has done it twice now. The first time she did it, she scared the crap out of us because she started crying as soon as she hit the ground. By the way, we have wood floors which makes the "thud" that much louder (and harder). She was totally fine, but her cry made us think she was dying. So, from there, we always made sure she was in between us. That way, she couldn't roll out of the bed. I guess we forgot about that rule, because last night she did it again. This time, there was no crying-just a very stunned dog. She wouldn't even jump back up after it happened. I had to pick her up and put her back under the covers.

Kenny and I were laughing for 10 minutes.

A fine attempt

Does this remind anyone else of those hamster cages with the tubes that would take them to the other rooms and then there would be a round look-out ball on top for them to check out the scenery? Anyone? Just me?

This is our attempt to provide a "bathroom" for the girls while we are at work-A peepad in the blue crate. Genius right?

Not so much. They ripped up the peepad TWICE. Hazel decided to sleep in there one day. They have NO clue it is their bathroom.

And yes, those are their food bowls holding the back end of their kennel up. What about it?

Comfort Compromised

My bedroom is very important to me. It is my one room in the house where nothing stressful ever happens. Well, usually. On the rare occasion I wake up to one of the girls making that "I am about to throw up" noise and I frantically have to find them under the covers, pull them out and put whoever on the floor so they don't blow chunks in my bed.

ANYWAYS that brings me to my current situation, completely brought on by myself and Kenny, ofcourse. When we first got Clementine, we decided that she was going to sleep in her kennel at night. Gross. We do not want a stinky dog in our bed. Yeah, right. That lasted all of a month or so. It turned from sleeping in the kennel to letting her hang out on the bed with us until we went to sleep, to sleeping under the covers with us EVERY SINGLE NIGHT. Although, they have to be between the flat sheet and the comforter. Not under all the sheets. Moving on…

Then we got Hazel and she got bed privelages pretty much right away. The thing is, now they have decided that they both like to be between Kenny and I. So, I am on the right, Kenny on the left, and both the damn dogs in between. Last night I woke up, on the edge of my bed, with Clementine completely sprawled out pushing on me with all 4 of her paws! What the F? I am the person here. This is MY bed. It is being completely taken over by the girls! The night before I woke up to see that I was sharing my pillow with Hazel. Just her little head was on my pillow, the rest of her tucked in under the blankets like a little person. It's ridiculous.

On really cold nights, Clementine cannot get warm and feels the need to wake up, come up to my face, stare me down until I wake up and paw at my neck until I help her get warm.