Puppy Love

I had a little bit of a breakdown last Friday - I swear I'm typically a rational person despite what I write here - when I found a lump on my dog's neck. I sat down and promptly googled him into a painful bout of lymphoma that was certain to end in a tragic yet noble demise. By next week. At the latest.

I called Joshua to tell him that Helo was dying, per google, and in a move that I will remember with gratitude for the rest of my days, Joshua immediately left work and came home to take Helo to the vet with me. Because while Matilda may hog the limelight on our blog, our home is not only crazy because a certain seven month old would like to maintain eye contact with one of us at all times. We are also have our emotionally disturbed basement-only cat, whorish plump lap cat, and our handsome Helo to worry about:

I never had a dog growing up, but my grandfather had generations of hunting labs that I watched grow from clumsy puppies into gentle plodding old men. I remember the waver and huskiness in my grandfather's voice when he talked about his dogs that had passed on, the sense that suddenly he was lonely in a room full of family. And I completely panicked over this death lump because we love Helo in a similar way, in a way that does not allow Joshua or I to ever talk about his eventual journey to the beyond without choking up. In a way that turned Joshua into a heaving, gasping mess at the end of Marley and Me while I sat in the kitchen refusing to even look at the TV because my dog? My dog is going to live forever.

Helo was my idea, and Joshua gave in because a dog was sort of a consolation prize at a time when I was struggling through an isolated, dark place in my life. We walked into his room at our local posh little animal shelter (no really, the cats live in Pottery Barn baskets), Helo rolled right over for a belly rub, looked at me with his melty chocolate eyes, and I declared, "I want him!" I was signing adoption papers and handing over my debit card while Joshua was still slowly saying things like, "but..." and, "what if...", and I was all, "Yay! We have a dog! My new best friend!"

Aside from his long-standing feud with our mentally disturbed cat who has claimed the lower level of our condo as her domain (much to everyone's dismay) Helo has been nothing but sweetness and joy since we adopted him and he is now a patient, tolerant big brother to Matilda.

I'm not going to drag out the drama of this quick chapter in Helo's life, because he is just fine. (And I am crazy, but you knew that). Basically after a series of unfortunate events (the vet was closed for a staff meeting at 11:30am on a Friday - yes, that's great planning, I had to work at 7pm, Matilda didn't exactly appreciate the change in her afternoon plans), Helo got a lymph node biopsy, we waited on pins and needles all weekend for the pathology report, and despite the google death threats, he is cancer free. He has a reactive lymph node, probably from sort of little cold or maybe a scratch on the neck from his days giving swimming lessons and roughhousing at the beach.

Animals are tricky little creatures to love because your lifespan is so likely to exceed theirs, making those weepy ugly goodbyes almost inevitable. I don't think about it very often, because Helo is going to live forever I'm pretty good at denial, but oh when you are laying in bed trying to keep your rambunctious baby from swiping your pup's eyes out and suddenly you feel a big lump in their neck, it's hard not to let that cold sense of dread suddenly sweep over you. And I know there are far, far greater tragedies in life than losing an animal - I work with critically ill babies every day - but there is just something about a dog that makes your breath catch in your throat. Right? Dogs, and really all beloved animals, love us in the unconditional, unassuming, honest ways that we sometimes wish people would love us, and I don't take that for granted.

Maybe I will tone it down on the googling, and maybe I will try to avoid calling Joshua at work blathering about this being the end of Helo's days, but I can't really promise that either. I love this little mutt with all my crazed, emotional, overdramatic heart and I'm just so thankful that he is as healthy as can be.

A Cat Peed On This

This is a post that approximately three of you have been waiting for. Wherein, my baby does absolutely nothing cute, and I keep it real. I do not keep it short, so just be warned.

This is really for a few of my work girls, who accosted me in an isolation room informed me nicely me that my blog is bringing everyone down due to the excessive positive content. Apparently there is way too much chunky baby sentimental sweetness in my posts and people are starting to think our lives are all precious moments and butterfly kisses and bedtime stories.


I can see how I've led you astray.

I told Joshua about this workplace harrassment friendly reminder the next night, and he stared at me for a second to see how serious I was and then I think he busted a gut laughing. Literally, we looked around at the dirty dishes and unfolded laundry and mournful, underappreciated animals and whiny Matilda with carrots in her hair and we just laughed for a solid minute because people! Our lives are a hot mess.

Before we scampered off to the lake every day last weekend, we had a long string of incredibly crappy days. As I was leaving for work on last Tuesday, Joshua told me that it was going to be eighty degrees and sunny on Friday and I burst into tears. To clarify: I started crying because the weather was going to be gorgeous on my day off. That is a place you arrive at when you are wretchedly sleep deprived and overwhelmed, and I was both of those things.

During that stretch of crappy days, I had to take a cab home from work at 12:30am because Joshua left his phone on silent during my evening shift and slept right through the whole part where he was supposed to come pick me up. So I fumed all the way home while sending him passive aggressive texts with the cab number and the driver's description just in case I was murdered instead of driven to my destination (have I watched too many crime dramas? I think yes).

That was Thursday. Then I only slept roughly 13 hours from Friday morning to Monday morning. I will go ahead and do the math for you - the recommended amount of sleep an adult should be getting between a Friday and a Monday is about 24 hours. It's all fine and good to have a baby who sleeps through the night when you are a parent who sleeps through the night but what if you are the odd night-shift working, breastfeeding mother who has to sleep in the day? You. are. screwed.

And you are even more screwed if during your work weekend your typically sweet-as-pie daughter is wanting to eat more frequently than usual due to The Teething. Matilda's first tooth actually broke through her gums a day or two later, and while I feel absolutely terrible for the little munchkin's misery, can I just ask what is the deal with teething? Was there a reason those chompers could not be part of prenatal development? Like when you are busy growing your bones and organs painlessly? I realize a baby with a full grill would be a little terrifying, but we'd all get used to it. Right?

Anyways, there was a lot of woe from Matilda's end, and a lot of frustration from Joshua who was the sole caregiver except for when she briefly stopped whining to eat, and a lot of desperation from me and by Monday afternoon, with only 4 more hours of sleep added to that 13 from the weekend, I was a complete wreck. There was this hour right before Joshua got home where Matilda just groaned and rubbed her hands on her gums and I sat on the couch holding her while she tried to throw herself and all her teether items onto the floor repeatedly. I would like to say that we were both crying, but I honestly can't remember if I had enough energy for that outpouring of emotion. I may have just stared at the wall and thought about crying.

Tuesday I had to work overnight again (this is when I ruined my makeup over the weather forecast) and when my poor baby woke up from her afternoon nap on Wednesday she promptly lost her little tooth-cutting mind. So being the calm and rational working mother that I am, I went ahead and lost my mind as well.

I had been in Matilda's room organizing some laundry while she napped and trying to pick up the disaster that is our house after I've worked five out of six nights in a row (not Joshua's fault! Hi, Joshua! You are a wonderful dad!) Maybe I could have kept it together were it not for this stench that had been wafting around in her room. It's a very long story but basically her room had not smelled good for a few weeks, and since our building needs new tuckpointing we were convinced there was mold and must from water damage in the brickwork.

So here I am, literally days behind on sleep, clutching an angry, thrashing child as I run around from corner to corner in her room attempting to finally pin down where the smell was the strongest. I had to stop my desperate quest in order to pick up Joshua from a meeting, and I will say that our ride home was not my finest hour. It was a lot of ranting and whining and words that will have to be edited out of our conversations once Matilda is about ten minutes older than she is now, and at one point I hollered, "I cannot live somewhere that smells! I hate our condo! We are going to lose all our money because it's molding and we are going to have to live there forever because no one will ever buy it!" (see, I edited the swearing) at which point I began crying. Again. AGAIN.

We got home and Joshua wisely took Matilda away from me (naturally, she was all sweetness upon being reunited with the sane parent) while I resumed my wild-animal-style sniffing around her room. I managed to get to this one corner that smelled the slightest bit stronger than anywhere else and when I made Joshua check it for me, he moved her curtain the slightest bit and then said,

"Oh. Oh my god. A cat peed on this."

A CAT PEED ON THIS.

I had written multiple huffy emails to our condo association about the unacceptable 'mold' smell in my daughter's room, demanding quicker action on the brickwork and after weeks of going crazy over this 'undefinable' musty smell, as it turns out A CAT PEED ON THIS.

Do I even have to tell you that I cried again?

So yes. Our most recent weekend was filled with trips to the lake and mimosas at brunch (which a certain nameless six month old may have dumped right into my lap, thanks) and playing on the rug in the middle of a sweet-smelling baby girl's room. But if you start thinking that we are all fun, all the time, please just picture me shaking with the overtired caffeine jitters weeping into a pack'n'play while my lovely daughter refuses to nap and I have to work again. And I love my job and my life and my family but it was a little painful to realize I have been walking around in a fog for weeks, composing nasty emails about mold in our walls and sobbing about losing our life savings over it when really, oh hell it was actually the stench of cat pee that nearly pushed me over the edge.

A CAT PEED ON THIS.

Happy New Year!

We had a mildly traumatizing start to the New Year. We both woke up to the sound of Pam chomping on something plastic in our bathroom - which is in itself not that unusual. She has a total plastic fetish and will climb into our drawers, the recycling, the cabinets and my purse to get to anything she can crunch happily between her teeth. However, she took it to the next level this morning when she choked on her inedible 'treat'. Joshua made it out of bed and to her side much more quickly (not shocking, seeing as how I am essentially a beached whale in the mornings these days) and by the time I got into the bathroom, Pam was gasping for air and Joshua had most of his hand in her mouth trying to fish out her beloved plastic death trap.

The next 10 seconds is sort of a blur, probably because while I am 100% comfortable resuscitating a 9 pound choking and gasping infant, a 9 pound cat is a different story. I managed to (sort of) give her the kitty heimleich manuever, she let out a huge yak, and then somehow she must have gotten the piece of plastic back into her throat and promptly swallowed it instead of throwing it up. In the meantime, Joshua had gotten himself dressed, including gloves and a hat, and had gotten the cat carrier from the basement. Joshua tends to get ready at the pace of a second grader who hates school, so I think the sight of him standing in the kitchen ready to whisk Pam off to the emergency vet was almost as surprising as starting the New Year off by resuscitating a cat.

By this point Pam was in the cat carrier, breathing calmly with the tiniest bit of a wheeze, and looking at us like we were insane (she's never seen Joshua get ready so fast either). I was on the phone with the vet, who told us that if Pam was in no visible distress and was breathing easily, we could just keep a close eye on her and not worry about rushing her to the ER.

We let her out of the carrier and she promptly ran away from us, probably because she was worried we were going to start yelling and banging on her ribcage again. Of course, I burst into tears, because I love my little zoo so fiercely, and also because I burst into tears at anything these days (see above re: beached whale. And also, a serious lack of sleep).

So to sum up the first morning of 2011, we haven't made any New Years Resolutions yet. I haven't gotten out of my pajamas or left the house yet. I've been curled up on the couch with a sleepy Pam, trying to make sure she isn't developing aspiration pnuemonia. We were watching the Rose Bowl Parade, but when I fell asleep after one too many descriptions of floats covered in mums and oregano, Joshua took advantage of the situation to start watching back to back episodes of all the Discovery reality shows I cannot stand. The baby can't decide if she would like to stick her butt into the left or right side of my ribcage, so she's trying out both options every half an hour or so. I really dislike putting my feet up (both literally and figuratively) but I'm doing it anyways because the New Year has also brought me a wicked case of the cankles. I think because the huge anticipation of the baby is still looming over us, the New Year is almost anticlimatic. For me, the world starts shaking when the baby decides to make her appearance.

But I do have Pam to thank for getting my heart racing this morning. She's our first baby, the first pet we had together, and I love that silly little cat so much. Seeing her terrified expression when she couldn't breathe was incredibly scary, and of course my mind jumped to all the horrifying potential scenarios that come along with being responsible for a tiny human. I was so proud of Joshua for staying so calm and literally being ready to rush her to the ER in less than a minute. I don't know what 2011 really has in store for us, but if he can start off the year leaping from a dead sleep to save the day like that, I think things are going to be just fine.

Our apartment is such a mess right now.

We've started to pack and the boxes have started to pile up in the dining room. We decided to put everything in the dining room in order to keep the rest of the house less cluttered, but it has had the unfortunate side effect of creating thrilling little obstacle courses, hiding spots, and ledges for the cats and the dog to really let loose with their predatory instincts. Our boxes have created a war zone of leaping, screeching, growling 'domestic' animals.

So that's fun.

We have only 16 days left until we move, and everyday I am more and more excited to get everything into the condo and kiss this tiny-closeted, narrow-bedroomed apartment goodbye. We have wonderful memories here, it has been a great space for us and our growing family, but I'm ready to have all my clothes in one room. And to start setting up the nursery. And just get settled before our world is totally rocked with the arrival of our daughter.

The move has made me realize that over the past 5+ years of apartment living, I have never really become a very organized person domestically. I have a hard time keeping the laundry baskets empty, the shoes put away, the mail filed, the clutter decluttered. I do not have any sort of cleaning schedule, or plan, and I regularly buy more cleaning products only to discover I've got triples of Windex or whatever. The pet hair can get the best of me, and I'll be the first to admit that if you want to hang out, I'm going to leave my dishes in the sink and run out to do something more fun. Which when we are talking about dishes, would be absolutely anything. But...

BUT. The thought of bringing a baby into the chaos that can be our home is really overwhelming to me. We aren't dirty (let's be clear, although we aren't winning any awards with that pet hair I mentioned), but we can both be lazy when it comes to keeping our home organized and efficient. That's fine for two adults, but less so for a sweet baby who needs a clean room, lots of extra (clean!) crib sheets, blankets, bibs, clothes, diapers, and so on. I know that old habits are hard to break, but I'm hoping the vast amount of storage space, the closets in every bedroom (imagine!), the in-unit laundry, and the overwhelming responsibility of MOTHERHOOD will motivate me to take better care of everything I am so lucky to have.

In the meantime, my dog just plowed my cat into the wall and then skidded his way from the dining room into the living room and slammed into the coffee table. My other cat just leapt onto my stomach in an attempt to show the baby how she really feels about her, and I can literally hear our downstairs neighbors grumbling about how loud we are.

These next 16 days cannot go by fast enough!

Hello, Internet. You missed me, right?

Well! This is the first post of my third blog. The first two fizzled out due to a total lack of riveting content, so I have done my best to make our lives more interesting over the past few years in order to have something to whine about on the internet.

Just kidding!

Hopefully, I will actually use this blog to keep our friends and family updated on our lives. We have decided to go all out this year in terms of making the leap to incredibly responsible adulthood, and I thought our loved ones might be interested in laughing at us supporting us as we experience the brand new challenges of homeownership and parenthood in the next few months.

We have a fairly busy schedule planned for now until the end of January, which includes but is not limited to: packing up our entire apartment and moving into our new condo when I'm six months pregnant, unpacking into a new place, the entire whirlwind of the winter holidays, and then birthing an actual human. I think it all sounds overwhelming, but they tell me that last one is a doozy.

After that, we don't plan on acquiring any new animals, homes, or children for quite a while.

We both plan to post on this blog (I will be as interested as anyone else to see if Joshua follows through on that), and we definitely plan on being very honest about all the challenges and joys we experience during this crazy period of transition. So do we advise moving 2 cats, a dog, 3,127 lbs of books and furniture a few weeks before Thanksgiving and 3 months before your first baby is due? We agree, it sounds like a terrible idea. Check this site soon for details.

It's good to be back, Internet!