A Simple, but Useful Parental Tool

I just thought I'd share this little nugget.

Not long ago I began using a technique that could have saved me so much time and frustration in the past. As more of my children enter the teenage years, it has proven both efficient and effective. It is simply this:

Anytime one of the kids asks me for something––"Can I have this/that? Can I go here/there? Can we do this/that?––and I don't have an immediate answer and don't really want to deal with it at the moment, I just respond, "No, unless I change my mind." Bam! Discussion over. I'm free to resuscitate the topic later at MY discretion. If I forget, I've already given my answer with no promise to remember. I've agreed to nothing and they can't later say, "But you said. . ." I hate that!

Hope you find it useful.

Andrea's Artistic Side

Here's a couple of projects that Andrea has recently done. I helped her with the PSA on Haiti, a project Andrea doesn't care for because she feels it smacks of propaganda. (She did get an A on it - in her English class. English? Neither of us understand the connection other than English is the language used in the PSA.)

The second is something she did for fun in her photography class, because, as she pointed out, she's ahead in the class and had the time.

Ready to Go Home

Sir Isaac Arthur Washington Gibb

Born 2 February, 2011, 4:32 AM
8 lbs 7 oz
19-1/2"

It's a Boy!

. . . and a boy . . . and another boy . . . and a boy . . . and a girl . . . and, well, in all, 7 boys and 2 girls. Oh, sorry, I'm talking about Rosie's puppies. (The break down is two gold: one male, one female. And seven black ones: five black as night, and two distinguishable only by a white tuft just below the chin–one of which is the second female.) It took Marie (soon to be) 9 pregnancies, all 9 months apiece to accumulate our nine, but it took Rosie, our dog, all of one 60-day pregnancy to produce her nine. Where's the justice in that?

We've had them now for seven weeks and will begin selling them Wednesday (the day after what should be the arrival of our #9). $25 a piece, if you're interested. It has been an adventure, to say the least. You think one dog stinks. Try 10 all in the same box. Whoa! Most of the family is used to it, but after being away all day, I get the pleasure of being stunned at the stench every day! They are adorable (as the following pictures attest), but I will not miss them.

We started with a little wading pool for a whelping box (an idea Marie stumbled on searching the internet ether). Understand that it's winter here, which means nights between 0 ˚ and 20˚, consequently no matter how much I point to everyone that God gave dogs fur so they could live comfortably in the cold a certain motherly individual won't allow them to live outside on the back porch.

When they were younger, as you could see them in the video getting ready to sleep, they would all sleep in a big heap of legs, ears, wet noses, and fur.

At first Rosie would barely leave the puppies alone at all. After a while she became less inclined to spend all her time with the pups, although was still attentive. About that time they grew a tad big for the pool, escaping off and on. At night Rosie would sometimes hop in the pool just to clean up after the pups (you don't want to know what that means). And, of course, when she would get in the pool the pups would go nuts trying to nurse, but Rosie would quickly finish cleaning up and then take off. Well, the insatiable pups would be in frenzy to follow after and sometimes get out of the pool. Soon I was waking up to a pool full of whining pups, and a whining mom trying to figure out how to get the few escapees off the lam and back in the pool. That got old real fast.

About the third day/night of this Marie showed up with a second pool, the bottom of which I promptly cut out, turned upside down and clamped the two rims together making the sides a bit taller. A short time passed, the pups got bigger, and then it was back to mom agitating pups, pups escaping, and all out canine chaos. Did I mention that puppies grow at an exponential rate?

So then I scrapped together a much larger, approximately 8'x4', box in our family room and lined it with a tarp.

Not long after being moved to the Ritz, Rosie stopped nursing all together. (I guess she'd had enough of those sharp little puppy teeth. Poor thing's underside was just raw from puppy abuse.) Of course the regularly tantalizing trips to clean up have continued, but at least the puppies can no longer escape–for now. These days they spend most of their days outside on the back patio that I crudely enclosed for the interim until some blessed souls take them off our hands. Interested?

I complain, but it has been fun, for the most part, and a great experience for the kids. They've loved it. They play with them every day, and have named them; although the five solid black ones are indistinguishable. In spite of the annoyances it has been a worthwhile event, one that in the end was worth it.

We put an add online today and within 15 minutes had a taker for one, maybe two. They'll be missed, but not long. Here's the flier I put together using a template in Apple's Pages. Took maybe 10 min.

Just for fun, here's a few pictures of when Rosie was a puppy just over a year ago. Rosie first came to us as gift for Jarom who had been wanting a puppy for a long time. Unfortunately, he's allergic to dogs which caused us to get rid of Bear, who we'd had since Arizona. Then we learned about labradoodles (a labrador / poodle mix that tends towards hypo-allergenic. So far it seems to have worked. She barely sheds at all, and Jarom seems okay around her.

Rosie loved to play with the doorstop by our front door. She could go on for some time, because the doorstop was willing to play until the dog wore itself out.