Toilets, German Shepherds and 3 Year Olds.

I woke up this morning with the heat blowing on my face.

The outside temperature had hit somewhere around 45 and my husband's  Florida blood couldn't bear the cold.

I also felt a wet spot by my shoulder and smelled urine.  There was a foot in my face.

Maggie, 3, regularly wanders into our bedroom at night.   She doesn't regularly leak on our bed.

I longed to stay in bed longer,  but the circumstances surrounding me were not favorable.  

Maggie has had some rough spots and has presented some interesting challenges to us.   I.e.:  how to clean her messes up.

We have moved past the poop smearing, thank GAWD.  Everyone is pretty much potty trained and there are no more turds in the washing machine.

(I just want to give out a shout out to the LORD JESUS CHRIST for having a mostly potty trained 3  year old.  I was dealing with that s**t, literally, far into the 4's with the boys.)

She found a inked dinosaur stamp somewhere upstairs last week.

She came down with blue hands and face and told me she had "decorated."  Um, more like defaced three walls, the window sill and the flat screen t.v.

Two days ago, she flushed an apple down the toilet.  Except the apple is stuck somewhere out of reach to us.  We hope that it will soon decompose without to many creepy crawlies who show up to help in the decomposition process.

A lot of great ideas were presented to us on Facebook to take care of this apple problem, but so close to our impending vacation, Chris and I just can't gather the strength to take a toilet apart or call a plumber.

Instead, I had Wesley make a sign.  He decorated it nicely and taped it on the toilet.  It says "ABSOLUTELY DO NOT USE THIS TOILET" in neat, bubbled letters.  He also drew pictures of a toilet and a plunger that were strikingly similar to the real things.

We have had an interesting, stressful few months in our house.   I can only believe that the stress will get better.  It MUST.

Our German Shepherd, Thora, is the source of a lot of our angst.

Both Maggie and Thora are growing up, though.


And I have high hopes for both of them to be ROCK STARS.  

Soon.

I have wondered if we are cut out for German Shepherd ownership about ten thousand times since July.

She is now six months old and doesn't listen to us.    When we give her a command, I SWEAR the bitch MOCKS us.

Stares at us.  Like this.

We say "come," and she sits down and stares.    I take this as a puppy equivalent of a "screw you."

I have read that she is testing us and we need to be consistent with her.  I am rarely consistent with anything, except with my choice of boxed wines.

It is wearing on me having a staring contest with a six month old puppy EVERY time I want her to follow a command.

Two days ago, I had enough of her.   I grabbed her by the scruff, flipped her on her back and held her down on her back for a minute, hollering "I'M THE ALPHA FEMALE!  I'M THE ALPHA!  I'M THE ALPHA!"

Ragnar is Thora's boy toy.  

Anyone who has spent any time with German Shepherds knows that the majority of their communication consists of  whines and cries.  

On her back, Thora didn't just whine, she screamed.   I know she wasn't in pain, she was just really pissed off at me.

I would hate for anyone to driven by and seen me "losing my crap"; however, since we live on a busy-ish road, I can't rule out the possibility.

Both of us were scratched and fought for  dominance.  It just HAPPENED that this occurred outside in the back yard in dirt and mud.  I came inside completely covered in dirt from my face to my toes.

Things are going to change in our house this year.  I'm going to be healthier, happier and dammit....we are all going to get along.

I'm going to be Alpha female.

With the help of my iron pills (I have been anemic for who knows how long...) and my vitamin B12 shots (I was crazy deficient in B-12) I will be superwoman.  I just know it.

And since we canceled our cable service, we are going be more creative.  As in, creative about how to watch Real Housewives shows via the internet.

 We are going to talk to each other about our feelings.

We received a beautiful piano lately and we moved the television upstairs.  We have a music room.  There will be pretty much only  music playing during the day, thanks to 8tracks.com and Pandora.

There will be a peace in our house, dagnabbit, even if there will be fisticuffs for me to achieve it.

Containment and Peeing in Public: Opportunity Lost

 
A good friend came over on Saturday morning to install THIS:

Her escape plot is FOILED!!!!!!!!!

THIS is going to make my life so much freaking easier, I am almost doing back flips.   Maggie is not going to be able to run outside NAKED ANYMORE!

In the past few weeks, nothing will keep this child inside.

She knows how to unlock doors, turn dead bolts  and is not afraid to run full tilt down the street, her family just an afterthought residing in that two-story craftsman style brick behind her.

The neighbors probably think we have zero control over our brood, and honestly, we sort of don't. Particularly the two year old.

But thanks to our friend Hank, his tool box and this J-lock, we have more control than we have had, like, ever.

It's a good thing we live in a cul-de-sac.

Not such a good thing that there was a water-mocassin in our yard two weeks ago that almost bit Wesley.

Just ONE of the many number of reasons this two year old needs to be contained.

Oh, also it was pointed out to me that I was super-duper mean on my post yesterday when I stated that my brother was "pushing 40."   He is actually 35.  

I rounded up on his age and what I meant was that he is on the "latter half" of this decade to 40.  As am I.

I was using it as an illustration, people.  Sheesh.

He's still not getting any younger ladies.

Another thing I wanted to mention:  yesterday Chris and I ran errands ALL DAY and about half of that time I had to use the bathroom, but I didn't want to use a public toilet.

I realized that I didn't move fast enough on my Go-Girl purchase that I discussed a few weeks ago.

I was sitting in the middle of the Publix parking lot  ~ or PUBIX, as my dad likes to call it ~ waiting for my husband to pick up a prescription, and I realized that I COULD PEE RIGHT THERE AND NO ONE WOULD KNOW IT!

I was wearing my adorable Boden Denim skirt that I could just yank up a little.   I could just pee in the Go-Girl and not one person in that parking lot would be any wiser.

Totally freaking cute, right?  BodenUsa.com  

I'm going to have to order the Go-Girl pronto.

I better get back to my futile task of cleaning up the house.  It is futile because the two year old keeps tearing everything apart after I clean it up.

So I am really not sure why I am bothering with it.

I don't know how people do it with multiple children at home, I really don't.

 I mean, really, hats off to you.

It's about 2pm and I'm almost ready for vodka.  

Whew.