11 posts tagged “pets”

Snowy House

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day did indeed happen in Vermont for our family!  We are so happy to be here.  Here's how we finally arrived:

The day before Christmas Eve, we left California at 6... no, make that 8:40 pm, for Houston.  Instead of our planned six hours of sleep, we got three.  We would've gotten half an hour more, but the convenient little tram that runs from the Houston airport to the in-airport hotel doesn't run between 2-5 am -- meaning that we had to walk a quarter of a mile with drop-dead tired kids and too much stuff (e.g., a car seat) in tow at 2:30 am when we arrived.  Hey, Houston Airport Marriott?  Bite me.

We woke up at 6 am on Christmas Eve to catch a blessedly on-time flight to Newark, where my father-in-law picked us up to drive us to Hartford, the nearest spot that would allow a one-way car rental.  Then, the real adventure began!  (As if it wasn't enough to have a flight cancelled, twice rescheduled, late, and almost no sleep!)  It took nearly seven hours to drive to Hartford Airport -- what should usually be a three-hour drive.  We had to stop for groceries en route, as all stores seemed to close at 6 pm on Christmas Eve; so it looked as though we'd be eating Barilla pasta for Christmas dinner -- that is, the family would be eating that as I ate a Thai soup, since the store we stopped at had no gluten-free pasta.  Hey, Big Y in Newtown?  You can bite me, too.

At Hartford's airport, we picked up our one-way rental car to Vermont.  Blessedly, that trip -- though rainy and icy still -- was uneventful and timely.  Singing Christmas songs the last hour to keep each other awake, we pulled into our driveway just past 10 pm.  The Guv hauled out the artificial tree, and Petunia decorated it while I hung stockings and dusted a bit as the Guv changed the water filter and vacuumed (a necessary thing because of Petunia's dust allergy).  I went to bed exhausted and dizzy, but Santa had come, and we slept until past 8 on Christmas morning.

The kids awakened to find that Santa -- via several large, checked pieces of luggage that surprisingly arrived with us -- brought Petunia the coveted, soon-to-be-retired Samantha American Girl doll, and a Buzz Lightyear and army guys for Dash, among other things.  Fait accompli.

Thanks to some Jewish friends posts on Facebook and Twitter, it occurred to me that I might find better food options that Thai ramen for Christmas dinner; they were all (and I pretty much mean all -- is this a tradition I didn't know about?) ordering Chinese food on Christmas day.  It occurred to me that we could search for Asian food, then the Guv remembered that there was a Japanese steakhouse nearby.  And voila, a new Rox and Roll family tradition was born: the Christmas Day Japanese Hibachi Dinner.  Entertaining, delicious, and not prepackaged.  We all loved it!

This morning, December 26, we started the day with a huge brunch at our very favorite localvore restaurant, The Farmers Diner -- "food from here."  The place has the best coffee in the entire universe, and every morsel of food is more delicious than any food I've ever had anywhere.  You could offer me Le Cirque, my once-favorite Olive's, anything -- and I'd trade it all for farm-fresh eggs, maple sausage, home fries and coffee at the Farmer's Diner anyday.  Finally, our vacation had begun!

We headed to LL Bean to gear up Dash for his first ski lesson, having learned that he way, way outgrew last year's snowsuit -- jumping from a 2T being too big last year to a 4T fitting well!  We bought Petunia some used boots and used poles (for a total of $39!) to go with the used skis we bought her last year -- and the kids hit the slopes. 

Petunia glowed as she strapped on her skis, and her last run down the hill with her rosy-pink cheeks is something I'll never forget -- just like I'll never forget Dash's raw athleticism shining through today as he mastered skiing, stopping, and even using his edges as he glided across the snow.  He didn't want to take his skis off!  We bribed the kids to dis-equip as darkness fell by bribing them with a couple of sledding runs. 

When our flight was cancelled, I started to question coming here for Christmas -- snow can really get in the way.  When our flight to Houston was delayed, I started talking about spending Christmas in Texas.  When I had just three hours of sleep, I talked of Christmas in Hawaii next year.  When we sat in the rain and traffic en route to Hartford with my ramen dinner in the trunk, I said "Never Again."

I take it back.

It was all worth it, because my kids -- especially my Dash, but Petunia too -- love it here so very much.  They both call this place "home" too.  And when they're so happy, it's easy to forget how tired I was.   Next year, we'll leave as soon as school lets out.  Next year, maybe we'll actually plan  to spend a night in Texas -- because the kids were so excited to see Texas that they even wore their cowboy hats on the plane to no avail!  Next year, we'll try to do it differently -- but even if we experience the same or more difficulty getting here, I'll know that in the end, it'll all work out alright.  Santa will come, the kids'll hit the slopes, and us parents will have a few minutes to sip hot cocoa from the warm ski lodge and marvel at how they've grown.  That's a Christmas present worth all of the trouble!

(Yes, I watched the debate.  Yawn.  I'm waiting for "the moment."  It's not coming, is it?)

My mom, "Grammy," formerly known as Meemaw, is in town visiting.  Grammy has no bigger fan than Dash, who knows that his likelihood of scoring a new matchbox car each day skyrockets with Grammy around.  He knows who butters his bread!  (Of course, he doesn't eat that bread, because it has butter on it... a post on his eating disorder is forthcoming...)

Meanwhile, with Grammy around interacting with the kids, I can't help to think back to my own childhood and how we're continuing some wonderful traditions, like pepperoni rolls.  I fondly remember taking pepperoni rolls in my lunch, and now Petunia loves them more than anything; they're #1 on her favorite foods list, followed closely by broccoli.  (There will be no post on her eating, as it's perfect, like pretty much anything Petunia does.)  Grammy baked four dozen pepperoni rolls for Petunia's lunchbox today; they should last until her return visit in December, unless the Guv starts getting into them, in which case they'll last until Sunday.  (I wish I had the nerve to post on HIS eating disorders, but they are too numerous and give me indigestion just at the thought.)  I'm also hearing a lot of the rhymes of my childhood, like the "you must pay the rent" routine.  It's nice, her passing things along to my kids that I enjoyed.

But there's continuity, and then there's change.  In my childhood, we couldn't really say words like "suck" or "crap."  It's not like we got our mouths washed out with soap or anything; we just knew not to say those words.  Well, Dash and Petunia are the children of the Guv and Rox, and let's just say that we have a "you can only swear inside our house and sometimes the car" rule.  (I'm not the only mommy blogger with this rule.)  The rule doesn't exactly work when people come to visit, but, well, teaching a kid how to swear appropriately is important!  So we're working on it.  Part of the problem with our teaching, though, is that we are funny, funny people.  Meaning that if our kid starts dropping f-bombs, we should probably scold them, but we can't; we're hiding our laughing faces, especially if they've used it in either a very appropriate or a very inappropriate way.  It's our fatal parental flaw: we laugh when we probably shouldn't.  The shame of it...

Case in point, this afternoon, I had to tell Dash that a playdate was cancelled because he had a fever.  Dash took all of two seconds to start repeatedly screaming "YOU SUCK!" in my face.  I cried for my own mommy, through my tears of laughter, asking "What do I do in this situation?  What do I do?"  And her response was basically, "It's too late to do anything because you're already laughing" -- which made me laugh harder.  Eventually, he stopped (appropriately, and for the first time ever -- well done!) yelling that I suck, and we moved on to other things, like tracking snails. 

Thinking off and on that I really have to start cracking down on my kids regarding proper speech, lest they morph from saying "you suck" into saying horrible things like "Joe Sixpack" and "drill, baby, drill" (that was NOT appropriate for PG television!), I resolved to talk it over with the Guv tonight. 

And then Dash went to tell his Grammy goodnight.  He yelled down the stairs, "Goodnight, buttcrack!"  (his favorite word that he's only allowed to use in the house).

And Grammy promptly responded: "Goodnight, buttcrack!"

At that moment, I had an urge to e-mail my siblings, because I'm confident that neither of them has ever heard our mother say "buttcrack."  Realizing it's bigger than them, than us, here it is in a blog post for posterity.  My kids swear, and now my mother's saying "buttcrack."  The battle's lost, and so's the war, and hell's frozen over, and we're all going there... laughing all the way, ha ha ha...

This was A Day.

The Guv left early this morning to go sailing in Seattle.  For work... yeah...

Anyway, the morning started out innocently enough, meaning that I was able to take a three-minute shower without the children either killing each other or escaping the house.  That huge victory made realize that yes!  I can get this packing done with the children playing nicely together for much of the day.  And it was that thought, crossing my mind, that disturbed some electromagnetic force affecting only Dash, and he became The Child From Hell.

I don't say that lightly.  I LOVE MY SON.  But seriously, he started crying at like 8 am, and he started being violent.  He shook the guinea pigs' cages.  He threw stuff, including a shoe at his dad's brand new pride and joy television.  He bit his sister, he trashed the house, and then he came after me, announcing, for NO reason, "I hate you!" then, as I teared up, proceeded to punch me in the face.  Hard.

I tried everything (well, almost everything, because I don't believe in spanking my kids, though it was quite tempting today).  I held him tight and rocked him.  I took him outside (and amazingly, no one called the cops on the shrieking kid).  I quickly took him inside.  I offered candy, the Wii, the TV, the park, everything.

And then a new friend came by, the founder of the blogging group for which I write, bearing bags of gifts, and my son screamed the whole time she was in the house, except for the three minutes his sister distracted him outside.  I don't know that I have ever been so horrified in my life.  He's not hurt.  He's no longer sick.  He's not in pain.  He's not upset.  He loves it here, and he says so every day, so I can't even blame the move.  So, after my new friend left, I sunk to the floor and asked, "Why, oh why, Dash, are you still crying two hours after you started crying?"

He said, through clenched teeth, "BECAUSE I AM..." and I dodged another punch.

I don't know what the f#%k to do with this kid.

I asked, "What would make you stop crying?"

"NOTHING!" he shouted, and threw a shoe. 

I felt that if I were in the house for one more minute with him, my already-pounding head might actually explode.  So I did what any sane person would do (not!).  I strapped him in the car, with his sister there too, and shuttled stuff back and forth from the house, and then I started driving.  He stopped screaming two minutes into the trip.

"Where are we going?" Dash asked, sniffling.

"To buy your sister a horse shirt," I told him, since Petunia has been freaking out to no end because I wouldn't let her buy this horribly fitting horse shirt from the Gap last week, and I finally found one through Gymboree that would probably fit her... then learned that line was already at the outlet stores.  (BTW, who does the Gap make clothes for, Chinese gymnasts?  Because I can't see how any non-waif child could wear most of their stuff.)

"Can I get a horse shirt?" Dash asked.  "NO!  A digger shirt?"

"If we can find one, sure," I answered. 

And for the remaining twenty minutes, the car was S-I-L-E-N-T.  I could tell that even Petunia, ashen-faced, had a headache from his ranting.  We arrived at The Great Mall and had a scream-free lunch.  We bought school shoes at Stride-Rite and yes, finally, a horse shirt for Petunia, and a rocketship shirt for Dash.  We ate ice cream.  We came home.

The screaming started when we walked through the door.  Fortunately, this time, I quashed it by somehow breaking the laundry machine (kidding -- I'm sure it was improperly installed), requiring all of us to mop up a flood.  Dash discovered the drippage into the basement himself and tried to clean it up.  Then he decided to vacuum the guinea pig cage himself with the guinea pigs in it (great example, Guv!) and made a holy mess.  (Yes, he plugged it in and turned it on himself, God help us all.)

We ate a silent dinner.  The kids silently watched Sponge-Bob and I-Carly, and, at 7:30, marched off to bed.

Sometimes, I wonder if I should blog about stuff like this, because it might make me seem like a poor excuse for a mother, or make Petunia seem over-indulged, or Dash seem out-of-control.  Today, that was all true.  But tomorrow will be better.  It has to be, because I can't imagine how it could get worse.  Oh, wait, I live in earthquake country... Yet somehow, I fear my three year-old worse.

The Guv has returned from his annual golf vacation, rested and (finally) victorious, cradling the trophy for the year.  He has many funny stories to tell, and tonight, I will enjoy hearing them.  That's right, I will enjoy -- a word that hasn't been seen in my last few blog posts! 

There is peace in our kingdom, for daddy is home at long last.  Dash, who was beginning to take on a rather sickly appearance, decided to EAT!  in celebration of his father's triumphant return.  He munched on some of his favorite Starbucks vanilla scones, Burger King french toast sticks, cheese pizza, katsu chicken, rice... he ATE!  And, needless to say, he was pretty much instantly a different child -- an enjoyable, happy, fun little boy with whom I wanted to spend time.  We kicked rocks all the way around the cul-de-sac.  We posed dead worms.  We counted three deer, one bunny, one squirrel, one robin, one very angry bluejay and too many dandelions.  We laid on the grass and looked up at the cloudless blue sky.  This is how every day with him should be.  Instead, this is one of very few days we've had like this over the past school year.  I will remember this day next time he's refusing to eat, because I need to believe that he eventually will eat.  I also need to figure out how to convince him that eating makes him happier -- because think about it: if YOU didn't eat for four days straight, wouldn't you be miserable (and make everyone around you miserable) too?  Thank God that soon, after his ear tubes are placed and especially when we hit the Green Mountains for the summer, he will be pleasant like this more days than not.  I'll play with dead worms all he wants to if he never cries at me in anguish all day again.  Too bad he's too young to make that (gross) trade.

So tonight, the Guv put Dash to bed, I read Petunia a very scary section of the fourth Harry Potter book (the Guv should expect a middle-of-the-night visitor over that one), and I held some guinea pigs, who have been sorely neglected as I've struggled to keep my head above water over the last few days.   It's a nice way to end one of the roughest patches of my parenting career.  And end it, we have.  Guv, get the Goldschlager!  Time to celebrate.

This is getting ridiculous.  Oreo has been a bit lethargic, felt a bit swollen in the anterior to me, has a patch of fur missing under his chin, and is sporting a scab on the side of his little left front paw, so I called the local vet.  We decided to take both Cinnamon and Oreo in for a check-up since, to our knowledge, they'd never been examined by a vet.  Petunia was very excited that we scored an appointment on a day she has off from school.  So, off we went.

Upon thorough examination, the vet declared the sore on Oreo's foot to be a healing wound, but, because of discoloration on the skin around his wound, she felt that he might have a little bacteria in there, too.  He wasn't running a fever (and, might I add, now I know how to take a guinea pig's temperature... just imagine...).  But, since he's not himself, he's on antibiotics for a week.  I can use a "pet pill plunger" to feed him the pill or can dissolve it in a syringe and give it to him that way.  He sucked it down, perhaps because it was beef-flavored.  Until today, Oreo was a vegetarian.

In any event, we learned a lot about our furry companions today.  It costs $35 per pet for an annual check-up, which includes trimming their nails, which I will have to do every month or so.  I learned how to clean their ears (a weekly task) as well.  Oreo's missing fur is probably due to rubbing on his wood house; it was good to hear that Cinnamon hadn't taken a chunk out of him.  Much to Petunia's giggling surprise, Oreo (the baby of the two) weighs more than Cinnamon and has bigger "equipment" -- which means that Oreo will be bigger than his big brother.   So, what I thought was swelling in his nether-regions was just, ahem, nuts.

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day, my very favorite holiday.  Yes, I know about Christmas and Easter and that, as a Christian, those are probably supposed to be higher on my holiday scale.  But Christmas and Easter involve a lot of work for me, especially now that I'm a mom, whereas Valentine's Day is a day on which I can just celebrate the people I love.  And there's nothing more that I love -- except maybe smashing overheads in tennis -- than celebrating the people I love.  So here's my tribute to my brood:

To the Guv: I have loved you for 17 years, 9 months and 1 day, or thereabouts.  I am sure of very little in this life, especially right now, but the one thing that I have never and will never question is that I am with exactly the right person for me (and vice versa).  You are way too much fun, and I imagine you making me laugh just as much on a park bench when I'm 70 or even 90.  When it comes to you, that's what I appreciate the most: the smile you put on my face every single day.  I love you for that, and for much more.

To Petunia and Dash: Yes, I've lumped you two together, because you are two halves of a whole.  It is nice to know that I am finished having children, because you are a lot of work, but you've also made it easy by completing each other.  Where Petunia's sweetness ends, Dash's antics begin.  You make me tired, but, most days, you make me as tired from the stitches of laughter you induce as from the sheer work of raising you.  You both got that skill from your father: the skill of making me laugh when I'm trying to discipline you.  Oh well; you're good kids (well, Petunia anyway -- Dash, the jury's still out).  In any event, Petunia, you are growing so beautifully -- and too quickly, as we're only a couple of years away from sharing clothes, and that freaks me out.  But seriously, there's not a single thing that I'd change about you -- especially the way you put up with your brother.  I'm worried that you may have six kids because you have way too much patience.  As for Dash, you are nothing but all-boy-trouble, and I'm hoping that my strong heart will cast some sort of protective shield around you (like Violet in the Incredibles).  You'll need it, as you seem to have no fear.  I am trying to learn from that devil-may-care attitude, when it comes to snowboarding, moving away from New Jersey, and much else.  I'm not sure from whom you inherited this recklessness, but, if it works out, I'll take the credit.  I should get something after cleaning up all of your vomit blood messes.

As for the rest of my family and friends: You rock, non-stop.  I am lucky to have parents who still "go," siblings who still reach for the stars, an aunt brave enough to work in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, and friends who put up with my antics.  Tomorrow, on Valentine's Day, I'll be celebrating all of you, and I am looking forward to another great year of love and friendship.  Cheers!

Introducing: The Brothers Pookerton, Cinnamon and Oreo:

Guinea pigs

This evening's pre-dinner conversation:

Petunia: Mama, why did Jesus eat guinea pig?

Mama: Huh?

Petunia: There's a picture in my guinea pig book of Jesus eating a guinea pig.

Mama: Oh!  I think that painting is from Peru, where guinea pig is actually food to people.

Petunia: I don't understand why people would ever eat guinea pig. 

Mama: Well, many people in India don't understand why other people eat cow meat.  In India, a cow is considered holy.

The Guv: Holey?  Like with holes in them?

Petunia: Dad, you need to go to church.

Amen.

After deciding to add a pair of guinea pigs to our family, we trolled a few pet stores for a couple of weeks.  In some ways, pet stores are happy places.  No longer do you pass row after row of pet in confined spaces.  Instead, dogs are brought in for adoption on Saturdays.  A few cats linger each day, but they're rotated from a local shelter; a crew of elderly ladies come in each day to care for and hold them.  But, if you're looking for guinea pigs, the situation is a bit different.  The recommended space for these small, furry critters is 7.5 square feet for one-two animals.  Instead, at each pet store I visited, three guinea pigs were kept in a tank the size of a fish aquarium -- as in, less than two square feet.  They didn't have room to move at all, and most of them looked a bit deranged.  Reading the websites, it seems as though madness does set in when these animals don't have the room they need nor properly vented cages.

At one of these stores, I found a particularly knowledgeable employee who is a veterinary technician.  She gave me great advice about raising guinea pigs.  At the end of our conversation, I shared with her my discomfort about buying guinea pigs from a pet store.  She didn't get defensive -- in fact, I felt she was relieved at my concern -- and suggested that I contact my local vet group to see if there are guinea pigs available for "rescue."  Now, I've heard of rescuing cats and dogs, but guinea pigs? 

Lo and behold, there's a huge guinea pig rescue mission right here in NJ.  It turns out that last year, more than a hundred (many of that hundred pregnant) guinea pigs were rescued from a barn in Pennsylvania that was raising them for food, something common in Peruvian culture but illegal in this country.  Many places raising animals for food keep their animals in humane conditions, but this case was as far away from that as possible.  It didn't take long for me to contact the shelter about taking in some of these critters. 

The adoption application was long -- kind of funny, since pet stores require no information -- but I dutifully filled it out and was approved to adopt.  Petunia and I scrolled through the long list of available pets last night, and she chose a pair of males aged about 5 and 9 months.  They are somewhere in a classroom right now, so they are used to kids.  This is not necessarily the pair I would have picked, as I was drawn to the cute little fuzzier babies.  However, I think it's pretty cool that Petunia was okay with adopting non-baby animals.  (Is this a comment on baby Dash?  I'll never know.)  We should have the piggies by the weekend, and after stocking up on the goods yesterday, we are ready.  Pictures of our new furry friends coming soon!

Today, our family visited our local farm supply store to order a very large cage for the pair of guinea pigs that we hope to adopt from an animal rescue mission next weekend.  Petunia started a little bit of sniveling while we were in the store, then, upon our exit, the tears started flowing.  She quietly sniffed, "I'm just so excited, Mama.  I've waited more than seven years to have my very own pet."  She is such a great kid that I won't even call her a Drama Queen for the theatrical tears.  We're all excited!  So send the "good pet karma" our way!