The Joys of a Good Rain

We've had quite a dry summer out here in Middle-Tennessee. You see, in the Mid-South, when you don't have a good thunder-booming rainstorm at least every other week, you manage to earn yourself the title of "drought" even when it's rained a few times and even if the lawns are all still green. This is quite a new philosophy for this California-girl. I like myself a good rainstorm, don't get me wrong, but when you have 3 dogs and the back-yard looks like you have 3 dogs, you end up with...

...mud.

Not just mud - but red clay that makes itself quite obvious as the wet dogs have shaken their coats in the ecru/almond-colored kitchen. Let's just say, I wait for it all to dry, sweep up what I can and then take bets as to when it will rain again and if it's worth it to mop now or later. Sadly, we end up waiting, but inevitably it rains the day after we mop. It's like when you wash your car. But I digress.

So this year, we're in a drought because it's only rained five times instead of twenty-five, and we FINALLY had our first good rain of the season. Sarge and Sadie, though they may be part Labrador, don't seem to appreciate the rain. Sherman, on the other hand, really seemed to enjoy it. And the mud. And rolling in it.

This picture was after he had already dried off quite a bit. Notice the ground is not soaking wet? We usually wait for them to dry and then brush them, but this was bath-worthy.

At least they left some of the mud outside...After Sherman's bath, we waited for the tub to dry completely and I was able to use a brush and dust-pan to sweep up the dirt Miguel washed off of him out of the tub.

We're still not out of the drought and yes, our lawn did eventually die along with everyone elses'. I no longer make fun of our Southern Drought, and I did learn a lot about perspective this summer. I also learned a third dog doesn't really make things that much worse when you have to clean up the mud after it rains.

Josh's Headwound

Josh managed to get his first big boo-boo.

Background. My son is 19 months old. He runs everywhere he goes. He doesn't look where he is going most of the time, and like most toddlers, runs into walls and trips over toys and dogs. Somehow he has never managed to whack his head on the brick hearth. I know it is something which is bound to happen, but hasn't yet. He takes off, picks up speed and then WHAM! runs into the wall because he turned around to look for Dad or a dog.

More background. We keep Josh out of the bedrooms and bathroom during the day. He has pretty much free reign of the rest of the house (within reason) but we don't leave those rooms open for him to roam around in. When we're in those rooms with him it's no big deal. When we want to leave those rooms we aren't willing to chase Josh to get him out. At first he thought we would be up for the "let's chase Josh" game, but he soon learned otherwise, I know, we're no fun. We've managed to train him so he will exit the room when we turn the lights out and tell him we're all done.

And now for the main event of our story. Josh was with Miguel in the back bedroom (his own room) and was busy getting into things. Miguel was done with whatever he was doing in there and had turned off the light and was calling Josh to get him to exit the room. Josh takes off at a run (as always) and we hear, THUNK and Josh starts wailing. This is highly unusual for Josh, as he is most often a thunk-*dazed-look*-pick-myself-up-and-try-again kid. Miguel immediately turns on the light and picks Josh up. Josh already has a blue line running down the middle of his forehead.

It turns out - Josh was running in the general direction of the door, tripped over a fan we had *not quite* scooted into the corner and hit his head on a corner right next to the doorway. Smack-dab in the center of his forehead, he has a vertical line.

We immediately start to try and ice it because it started to swell right away, but Josh was much more interested in playing with the baggie of ice than he was in putting it on his forehead (first clue he was fine). He also learned the word, "Ice" that night and often asks for it in his drinks now. We figured we needed to watch him for awhile to make sure he didn't have a concussion or anything and after awhile I felt like the worst mom in the world.

I mean, who else would crack up and say, "My kid looks like an alien from Star Trek" when her baby has a ginormous bruise/goose-egg on his head, and continuation bruising on the tip of his nose and middle of his upper lip?

He was so pitiful when he was crying. Then 5 minutes later he started acting normal and I was telling Miguel to get the camera so we could document our son's alien-look. Miguel was not having any of it. He agreed with the "worst mom - EVER" idea when I went and got the camera myself.

It's really too bad, the pictures don't do it the justice it deserves. The second picture is a bit blurry, but it shows another angle. He really was pitiful, and I felt bad for him. Obviously it hurt, but nothing permanent and he's all healed and on to other bruises....for now.

Josh and Sherman update

Josh updates - Josh likes to "kiss the baby." He'll come over and kiss my tummy whenever I say that. In fact, the other day Josh was laying on the floor and Sarge was near him. I told Sarge to kiss the baby in an effort to get Josh's face washed. Sarge tried to lick him, but Josh was too busy struggling to push Sarge out of the way to stand up. He finally made it up and pushed Sarge aside and came over and kissed my belly. I laughed pretty well at that when I realized what had happened.

Late last week Josh just started talking more and more. He says things we've taught him on his own rather than being prompted now. He woke up from his nap on Saturday and told Miguel, "What's up?" We really have a great time with him.

I'm not sure if Josh really gets it that there is a baby coming into our house soon. He recently started pointing to babies and saying, "baby" but other than kissing my belly, he seems pretty clueless. We do our best to mention the new baby coming and that Josh's going to be a big brother. We've tried to stop referring to Josh as a baby - just a little boy or big boy when he does something grand. I don't know what else we can do, so tips are welcomed.
Sherman update - As you can see from the pictures, he's getting bigger and bigger all the time. The introduction pictures were from when he was 6 weeks old. This post's pictures he is 13 weeks. He's doing really well with his training. He is only pottying outside (if only baby humans could potty train by 13 weeks...) and he is learning from the older dogs all the time. He already knows he needs to wait until he is told he is allowed to eat something before eating it. He seems very smart is is OH SO CUTE!!!

I suppose that's everything new for now. No sign of the new baby coming yet. I'll be sure to have Miguel update this when she decides to show herself to the world.

General Family Update

I've been waiting for something cool to report before updating this site, but nothing cool has happened recently. We're boring people, I guess.

My belly is getting bigger and bigger. I swear, at 34 weeks along this time I was as big or bigger than I was when I delivered Josh. All of my maternity clothes are already too tight in the belly. I wonder what I will wear to work every single day. Thank goodness there are only 3 more weeks of having to figure out what "business casual" means when I'm big and full of baby. One of these days I will take a better picture so you can all ogle the belly, but until then, this one will have to suffice (the dogs are Sarge and Sherman).


Let's see - oh, we have a sad update on the red Houdini-dog we fostered for awhile (see Felix Family Animal Shelter entry, I dubbed her Houdini after that entry was made, as she just appears and disappears from our fenced backyard). She was running around the neighborhood the other night and was hit by a car. She was still alive and not visibly bleeding, though she wouldn't stand up. The person who hit her (a police-man, actually) went and let her owners know what happened. They came and got her and were asking around if anyone knew of any 24hr vet services. It was really sad. She had sort-of become the neighborhood dog. Everyone in the neighborhood knew her and she just roamed around and visited everyone. There was a bit of a confrontation between the owner and a dog-lover from the next block over. Miguel asked the owner if he was going to keep her in his yard now. The owner didn't care for that and started spouting off. The young guy from the next block over chimed in about how irresponsible it was to let her roam around and then Miguel was holding the kid back telling him to calm down. The kid went BALLISTIC!!! trying to get to the owner. It was funny to see this kid go from a normal mature person into ghetto-I'm-gonna-kill-you mode. As funny as it was, it still was sad to see Houdini taken away so obviously in pain. As annoying as she could be, we miss her.This picture is Josh holding Sherman's tail (not an unusual event) and Sadie getting ready to teach Sherman a lesson.

Miguel and I have both been recently released from our callings at church. Miguel was definitely sad about it as he really enjoyed teaching the Gospel Doctrine class. I was more sad than I thought I would be; I was the Enrichment Counselor in the Relief Society (aka - 2nd counselor). I'm not crafty in any way, so I was surprised to be put into that calling in the first place, but I learned some things. As much work as it was, I enjoyed working closely with the other sisters in the presidency. We'll see where we both end up next. Our little branch isn't big enough for us to be out of callings for too long.

That's it for now. I will post Josh updates separate, as I'm sure it'll be long. More puppy pictures to come as well...Sherman is getting SO BIG!!!!