Shopping with the kids

The other day, we went to Linen's and Things because the store is closing down and everything was on sale. Of course, it was pretty crowded in there, as is usually the case in most stores close to Christmas. Brad had Oliver in the stroller, and I had the cart and Gwen. At one point, Gwen decided to go with Brad, which was fine. He told me he had her. I was a couple of aisles down, so couldn't see them. Well, all of a sudden, across the store I hear a little voice shout out 'TOO MANY PEOPLE'! and then "MOM, WHERE ARE YOU? TOO MANY PEOPLE'! I went out into the main aisle, where I could see Brad and Oliver, but no Gwen. Of course, we do the quick exchange of 'I thought you had her' before Brad went to get her. The problem was that when Brad went to get her, he left Oliver in the middle of the aisle, all by himself! (I was still a few aisles down at that point). Geesh! I guess losing a child in a store is bound to happen at some point, but really, just because one is stuck in a stroller, don't leave him to get the other one! I guess that was the panic talking. Anyway, it was more funny than worrying, and Gwen handled it well -- she didn't start crying as many kids would. She just came back with Brad carrying a little book that she had found on her excursion.

Halloween

When I started up this blog, I had a bit more time to actually write things down! Anyway, I know this is a bit late, but here are some pictures from Halloween. We took Gwen and Oliver to the mall for trick-or-treating, and I think Gwen enjoyed it. She was saying trick-or-treat to get candy (although fairly quietly!), and was holding up her pumpkin bucket. As you can see, she was a unicorn -- she loved the costume so much that the first thing she said when she woke up for the two weeks leading up to halloween was 'me wear pony'. It was very cute. Oliver was a puppy. They both helped Brad carve the pumpkin. When Gwen pulled out some of the pumpkin 'innards', she made the classic 'gross' face. Oliver, however, had no such complaints. He first reached one hand in, and then put the other hand in a was squishing the 'stuff' in his hands. He would have crawled right in the pumpkin if he could (wait a minute, he kind of did!).

Time

It always seems that there isn't enough time to do everthing I want to do. Now that I am working, I have even less time, although I am enjoying the work. It is nice to get out and do something different -- it gives me a break and gives me a chance to talk with other adults. I think it really is true when people say that mothers (or whichever parent stays at home with the kids) have the most difficult jobs, because you never really get a break. And time to yourself? That is a faint memory. So is having nice, peaceful, quiet. You get used to being tired all of the time. But it is also the most rewarding job. I wouldn't trade it for anything. I think having kids makes you young again. You get to experience everything again as if it was the first time. And they change so much. There is never a dull moment with kids! Days are filled with them learning new things, even if those new things spell trouble. A big smile, laugh, or hug from your kids is the best thing in the world. So, although I don't seem to have time to do the things I would like to do, I will try to enjoy every moment I do have.

Burrs!

Is it just me, or do there seem to be way more burrs this year than the last couple of years?!? Indy is like a burr magnet -- I watch him running in the tall grass, and oh, there he goes, straight for the huge burdock bush! I've found four different sizes of burrs on him, from the small blueburrs right up to the big burdock burrs. They get especially badly tangled in his underarm fur, his chest, his tail, his wild ears... I might as well just say everywhere! And they seem especially prickly this year as well! The licorice and burdock burrs get stuck in my fingers when I pick them out. I feel I spend just as much time picking burrs out of his fur after a walk as I do walking! I feel sorry for those of you with more than one long-haired dog. Pharaoh doesn't pick up any burrs at all (thank goodness!).

The Fight

Okay, so I'm not that familiar with the world of 'fights', and by that, I am talking about people duking it out in the ring. I've watched the Olympics (obviously), and the fights seem fairly tame, with protective equipment worn and not a lot of blood to be seen. Well, my brother has been training in mixed martial arts for the past few years, and he had his first fight on Saturday. I honestly couldn't even believe he was going to be doing that, but I guess if you're training for it, that's what you do! Both him and his wife enjoy it. I personally did kickboxing for a while, but never had the intention of actually fighting someone. I was doing it more for the exercise -- and it is great excercise. But back to my story. I didn't actually go to the fight, and now am glad that I didn't, because my brother was knocked out and sent to emergency with a broken jaw and split eyebrow. I guess they were in a clincher (sorry if that's not the right term) on the ground, the opponent somehow broke out of it and came crashing down, full force with his fist, on my brother's face. He was knocked out for a couple of minutes, but luckily no concussion! Just thinking about it makes me cringe! I can't imagine the pain he must have been feeling! You know, I watch this kind of thing in the movies, but never imagined my own family to be participating in it! I just hope nothing worse happens to him in future fights, but I guess if you do this kind of sport, you have to accept the fact that you are going to get hurt at some point. If nothing else, it was a good learning experience!

The *fake* cougar

Sometime during the summer, a cougar was shot by a landowner and given over to Fish and Wildlife. The cougar was stuffed and put on a wall mount, and Brad had to transport it from Lethbridge to the Pass. Well, he decided to stop at home to show Gwen the cougar. It was pretty funny -- he had it standing in the back of his truck (he has a topper on his truck, so you can't see it until you open a window or the hatch), and when you open the window, you see this cougar face looking out at you. Well, I think I have a very strong flight response, and despite knowing that it was in there, I still screamed when Brad opened the back hatch. Gwen, on the other hand, thought it was great and wasn't scared at all. So, I decided to get the dogs to come look at the cougar to see what they would do. Pharaoh was pretty much just like Gwen -- curious (or clueless!). But Indy! Geesh, he must have my strong flight response! I don't even think he really saw the cougar, but as soon as he smelled it, he ran back into the yard, tail between his legs, and wouldn't come out again. It was pretty funny!

Wild Child

I've been calling Gwen my 'wild child' simply because of her unruly hair. As most of you know, she didn't have much hair for a long time. It really started growing when she was around 18 months old. Now, it curls in the back and because it is so fine, it tends to go everywhere! Her bangs are especially bad and are always in her face. The problem is, she doesn't let me brush her hair, put her hair up so that it isn't in her face, or, because I wanted to do this the other day, cut her bangs so they aren't in her face. Boy can she scream! She covers her face with her hands and shouts 'no mom!'. It is impossible to do anything with her hair -- if I even come close to her with the intentions of touching her hair, she is running away. I wonder if she remembers that she had so little hair for so long :)

Crawling

Oliver is 7 months old today, and he decided to show it by crawling! This whole past week he has been successful at crawling maybe one or two steps (crawls?) at a time, but today, he has managed many and is moving around even more. Before this week, he was moving around by pushing himself backwards (we have laminate floor, so it is slippery!). The only problem with that method is that he tended to get stuck (against the wall, the furniture, the plants...). I think he is going to get into lots of trouble once he really gets going on the crawling! He's already managed to pull down my fig tree (which is in a big pot, and the plant itself is fairly big) -- luckily he didn't pull it down on himself! He seems to have some sort of facination for that plant :)

This week he also got his first tooth (front bottom), and the second bottom tooth is already coming out. It was a pretty rough couple of days for him (and me!). He's much happier today.

Mama's Boy

This is a title that I am sure everyone has heard of at some point, whether it refers to you yourself, a brother, a son, or just someone you know. I find it very interesting because my husband has been calling Oliver a 'mama's boy' for quite some time, and he is only a baby (under 7 months old!). I think there are definitely some societal influences when it comes to people dealing with baby boys versus baby girls. Oliver, although mostly a happy baby, crys more than Gwen did, and is really the happiest when he is being held and walked around. I think part of the reason is because he is more active than Gwen was (baby boys, I have heard, are often more active than baby girls), and likes to be on the move. Since he can't really get around on his own yet, he relies on adults to keep him interested. Honestly, I don't think there is anything really wrong with that, but my husband and father both call him a 'wussy boy' when he crys, and my husband doesn't want to cater to him by carrying him around. The funny thing is, he didn't mind carrying Gwen around (although to be fair, it is easier to carry a baby around when you only have one). So in comes the term mama's boy. Oliver is definitely more attached to me than Gwen was at this age. He generally turns to me for comfort when he's upset, and wants me to be around. I think men turn baby boys into the so called 'mama's boy' simply because they think baby boys should be tougher than baby girls and so don't comfort them in the same ways. So to me, it is a no brainer that these baby boys turn to their mothers for comfort! I think it is unreasonable to put these kind of stereotypes on babies, but how do you convince people to be different when these societal views are so ingrained in them?

Potty Training

Well, it's been a long up-hill battle at times, but Gwen seems to have the hang of it! I think we started potty training her in April, at which time she really wasn't very good, and have gone through lots of ups and downs since then. She would get really good for a while, and then go back to having accidents. Putting her in 'real' underwear, instead of training pants, seemed to help a lot, even though you have to be prepared to clean up accidents! I think she thought training pants were a lot like diapers though and it was easier to go in them then to go to the potty. For the past month, she has been doing really well, and even uses public washrooms now. We still have a couple of things to work on -- like not peeing in her training pants during her naps and night-time, but I can deal with that! She still has the occasional accident, but they are fewer and far between. She will even go to the potty on her own now. It is such a relief! I can honestly say that potty training is not fun! It is hard not to lose your temper when you are so sure your child knows not to pee on the floor, but does it anyway! She also peed a number of times on my bed, which made me so mad, but you just have to grit your teeth and explain to her that she needs to go on the potty, not the bed. I hear about people that have their kids trained in a couple of days -- I don't know how they do it! I'm sure it has a lot to do with the child though -- Gwen is very stubborn, and if she doesn't want to go to the potty, she won't! Rewards definitely seemed to help though -- there are stickers all over my house!

In the meantime, I will say that it sure is nice having only one child in diapers :)

Summer days

Well, we took full advantage of the warm weather yesterday and went down to the river to play. There is a spot that has tons of very soft, silty sand that the kids love playing in. Here are some pictures from yesterday!

Bats

We have had a bat house on our house for a couple of years, but the location didn't seem to be very good as it didn't attract any bats. Well, this summer, our big birch tree in our backyard 'mostly died', so we decided to cut off the branches but leave the trunk up so that we could move our bat box there. Well, I'm still not sure that any bats have moved in, but our cat decided to let us know that there are, indeed, bats in the area. Merlyn (our cat), is a very good hunter, catching things like mice, bugs, and birds (although I try to keep the bird hunting to a minimum by letting him out at night). I had never thought that he might catch something like a bat! The bat was still alive when we 'rescued' it from him and moved it to a tree (see picture). Unfortunately, it didn't survive the night. Does anyone know if the little brown bats here carry rabies, or if it is an issue? We have never gotten our cats vaccinated for rabies, but now I am wondering if I should!

Work

Well, it looks like I will be going back to work after all. Originally, I was supposed to be going back to work for the Prairie Conservation Forum -- which was okay because it was going to be only 15 hours a week, and from home. It turned out, however, that they didn't get enough funding (that seems to happen a lot in the field of biology!), and don't think they will have the money until January. All in all, that is okay with me because Oliver is only 6 1/2 months old. Well, the other day my very good friend called me and asked me if I was interested in working for her at Health Canada doing water sample analyses and such. She is being extremely accomodating, coming up with a work plan where I only have to be in the lab 13 hours a week and can work from home the remaining 12 hours a week (for a total of 25 hours a week). This job would be finished just before Christmas. Now don't get me wrong -- this a wonderful opportunity, but it was still a hard decision to make. I hate having to leave Oliver, even if it is only part-time work! The good thing is that my mother will be looking after the kids, and Gwen especially loves going to her house and playing with her toys. She asks to go to Grandma's house every day as it is! I expect that the coming few months will be very busy for all of us -- we'll see how well we all cope with it!

Shock collar

Well, I thought I would give you an update on how the bark-control shock collar is working on Pharaoh. It is! It actually surprised me how well it is working! We haven't even been using it a week, and it's so quiet back there now. It's amazing. He's a sensitive dog to begin with, so one bark followed by a shock is all it takes to control him. For those of you who don't know how they work, if the dog wearing the collar barks, the collar beeps and delivers a shock. If he barks within 30 seconds of that, the intensity of the shock increases. There are six levels of shock intensity on our collar. If he doesn't bark within 30 seconds, it automatically resets back to the lowest level. Indy, our flat-coated retriever, also seems to be quieter -- and he hasn't worn the collar. I think it's because when Pharaoh gets worked up he gets Indy barking. On his own, Indy will only normally bark if a dog is going by.
So for now I hear dogs barking outside, but it isn't ours. I hope it lasts!

The Greatest American Dog

I have to admit that I've only watched the show twice now. The first time I watched it near the beginning of when it started, and thought the judging was absurd, so didn't watch it again. Well, I watched the show again last night and still think the judging is absurd. Honestly, how does editing a dog magazine make you a good dog trainer, or even someone who understands the nature of dogs as animals? Obviously it doesn't. Many of us believe that dogs are a part of our family, but when you get right down to it, you have to remember that they are dogs -- animals -- not people. What I saw last night was a test a loyality as it would be applied to humans. Dogs don't have a word for loyalty. Their family is their pack, and if you are taking on the role necessary for the pack to work, that is, as leader of the pack, then your dog should listen to you. To me, that test was purely obedience, nothing else. What is all that nonsense of the one dog being 'robotic'? She was listening to her master, as she was required to do at that time! The judges say that he was being 'aggressive' over his dog, but what I saw was that he was being the leader. His body was telling her she'd better not move. And she respected him as leader and listened. And what about the border collie? I know a few border collies and I have a smooth collie myself. That kind of test is very hard for them because I think they have a little bit of obessive compulsive disorder :) They need to be working. I'm not sure the owner would have been able to make him stay without doing what she was doing. Sure, I found her a bit annoying with all the repeated 'stays', which technically you shouldn't have to do, but ultimately, the dog did stay. I mean, what was the owner supposed to do? Just stand there and politely ask the dog to stay? That would never have worked with him in the excited state he was in. Which isn't to say that she had good control of him -- obviously she needs to work with him to get him to calm down. And the boxer. Well, he broke his stay. Yes, he came back, but how does that show loyality? Again, I think that was obedience kicking in. He obviously just needs a little bit more work on his stays. I think that if they really want the show to be a success, they should get some good dog trainers in there as judges. If you've ever watched the 'Dog Whisperer' with Cesar Milan, you would see that you need to be leader of the pack to get your dog(s) to respect you and listen to you. I wonder how those judges would judge Cesar?

Barking Dogs

Is it just me, or are people getting more and more intolerant of any disturbance that might be around? What I am thinking about specifically is animals. People complain about barking dogs, spraying cats, singing birds, bumble-bees -- I think any kind of animal can come under fire. And while I do see how these things can be annoying at times, why do people have to get so nasty about it?

We are animal lovers at my house, and as such, we have come under fire recently. We have been living in our house for four years now, and have two large dogs -- one flat-coated retriever and one smooth collie. In general, they are good dogs. We have done obedience classes with them, as well as some extras like agility, conformation, and competition obedience. Our problem with them lies in the fact that we live in a corner house, and our dogs (our collie in particular), like to bark at people and other animals that walk by. We try to curb their barking whenever possible, which entails going outside and making them stop, or bringing them in the house when they get too noisy. I don't think that they bark an unreasonable amount -- certainly no more than any of the other neighbourhood dogs. We haven't received any complaints -- that is, until we went for a day trip to visit family and left the dogs in the backyard. Normally, we don't do that, but it was nice outside and we couldn't take them with us. Well. When we got home, there was a very nasty note on our front door asking us to shut our f***ing dogs up. Wow. The pure rudeness of the note took us aback. I'm sorry if our dogs were bothering you, but why do people have to be so rude? Come and tell us to our faces if they are bothering you, and we will definitely try to do something about it. And it's not just us that have had complaints about our dogs. A friend of ours got visited by the town, who told her there were complaints about her dogs and she would be fined if there were any more. A couple of people in my mother's neighbourhood have to leave their dogs inside all the time because of complaints. What is a person supposed to do? Very few people have the perfect pets that will cause no problems ever in their lives. Most of us try to lessen the problems, but a lot of these behaviours are natural instincts coming through and I think are very difficult to stop completely. I don't know. It just really disturbs me that people have such a hard time living with others, including those of the animal world. I find it sad and disheartening that people have to lash out with vulgarity if something is bothering them.

Unfortunately for my dogs, my collie will be testing out a bark-control collar, and they both may be staying inside a lot more.