Arlo & Sissy - or The Good, The Bad, and The Puppy

So, as I've mentioned in an earlier blog, being a dog parent is definitely an experience.  For all you out there who are going through it with puppies like I am, I thought you might enjoy a laugh.  So this is the short story of the lives of Arlo & Sissy during the last six months.  In photographs.

In June, while Will & I were on our honeymoon, Arlo & Sissy spent a week with their grandparents.  This is where they met Remy, their beloved baby (well, cousin).  They both fell in love.  Sissy let him chew her toes and held him between her legs when she laid down.  Remy only weighed two pounds, and Arlo & Sissy were more like 30.

To speak for Arlo and Sissy, since this is their story --- Our favorite thing to do is go running running.  We especially love going to the park and chasing tennis balls.  We make our dad le tired.

But it makes us so happy.

And then it makes us le tired, too.

But maybe that's just because we love napping in the car...
We adore playing with our friends, too.  Our favorites are our neighbors Zoe, Apollo, and Rocky (playing with us on the tennis court here).

Sissy especially loves napping in strange positions, as many pups do.  Here, she's in her favorite chair.

And while this may not be easy to see (phone pic), she also loves sleeping with her bed in her mouth.  She fluffs up the bed between her front legs first.  And wakes up with a massive puddle of drool.  She also likes trying to carry her large bed around like a toy.

Arlo & Sis both have certain games they like to play.  For Arlo, it's ball.  Hands down.  I'll kick/throw the ball, and he'll fetch it, carrying it back in his mouth and dropping it at my feet.  He stands like this, staring at the ball until it moves again.  On the tennis court, Arlo immediately (without training) mastered the art of jumping and catching the ball mid-air.  He's very athletic and could do this ALL DAY.

Sissy prefers more subtle forms of entertainment.  Here, she's playing her favorite game - Where's Sissy?

We aren't always fun, though.  We're really very mischievous when we want to be.  We often find ways to reach things that we normally wouldn't be able to reach.  This is what happens when Mom leaves the room:

We chew up her metal wine stopper,

we peel her bananas and eat them, we eat her breakfast pastries,

we shuck and eat her sweet corn,

and we demolish Dad's soccer ball that we had formerly loved so much.

We also don't love bath or haircut time, even though they happen frequently.  We're voicing our dissatisfaction here after bath time while getting our after-bath brushing.

At the end of the day, though, we're still the cutest, sweetest cuddlers around.  Hands down.  And good cuddles make any struggle worthwhile.

Love and licks to everybody!

The Topic of Weight

A few years ago, I lost a lot of weight.  When I say a lot, I mean a lot for me.  I lost 10 pounds off my only 106-pound, 5'3" frame.  I looked and felt terrible, so I went to the doctor.  She told me it was likely stress-related (this all accompanied lots of anxiety and panic attacks), to eat milkshakes and such to help me put the pounds back on.  The only problem was, I didn't have a craving for them.  The only food that sounded remotely good to eat was fresh produce.  Even the idea of fast food made my stomach churn.  People told me I was lucky, that they'd give anything to have my problem so they could eat whatever they wanted.  I wanted to slap them.

Much to my frustration, the loss of appetite was only part of it.  I got car sick every time I rode somewhere.  I didn't feel hungry until I would suddenly have the sensation that I would faint if I didn't eat.  Sometimes I would see stars and feel shooting pains down my arms and legs.  And I knew I looked rough to other people, because I looked rough to myself.  I missed what little curves I had had and worried that maybe something bigger might be wrong.  But I worried silently, except to my then-boyfriend, who was sweet enough to offer to pick me up any kind of food I might suddenly have a craving for.

In the meantime, it felt like people kept bringing up weight around me.  At family gatherings, parties, running into people at the mall, etc.  I went to church with my parents once and saw a former high school classmate outside as we were leaving.

"Hey!" I called and walked over to her.  "You look great!  And your teeth look awesome -- when do you get your braces off??"

To which she replied, "I get them off soon.  You look awful.  You're so skinny.  It's sick."

I stood there trying to smooth the conversation (always my first thought, never to defend myself) and said, "Oh, yeah.  I guess I'm trying to put my weight back on.  I wish I had your curves, but I think my youngest sister inherited all that our genes had to offer."

And Annelise, the youngest, came walking over just in time to provide me with an excuse to leave.  She was only 13, but she had the womanly curves of a much older teenager.  Great boobs, hourglass figure, cute butt.  She made me look like a prepubescent boy walking beside her.

I brushed the comment off as typical of this girl, who never had a filter between her nosy thoughts and her mouth.  But it still let me know that people saw what I saw.  And I probably ate a milkshake a day for a week.

Then came the baby shower for a high school age friend of my little sister's, a soon-to-be single mom.  We had known this girl when we were kids, and I went to show my support.  At her shower, I never even looked around at people's weights.  Just as I never have.  I talked to people, asked about the baby.  And the women kept telling me how skinny I was, that I needed to put some weight on.  "You gotta get fat like us!" one yelled, and the surrounding crowd laughed.

They served the cake to us while we sat watching the mother open her gifts, gushing over the tiny booties and onesies and such.  I wasn't paying attention to the cake the woman must have put in front of me until she screeched, "This one gets a big piece, cause she's too scrawny!"  And again with the laughter.  And my mortification.  I mean, the woman interrupted the girl we were all there for to call me out of a crowd for my weight.  I just pretended to laugh and tried to shovel the sugary insult down my throat.

But all of this brings me to a question - is it any more appropriate to tell people they are too thin than it is to tell them they are too fat?  In a mirrored situation, would everyone have laughed if a room full of thin people had given a curvy girl a tiny slice of cake, announcing, "Cause she needs to drop a few pounds!"  And why do people pay so much attention to weight anyway?  Some people who are very close to me like to make comments about people's weight - calling attention to overweight others in parking lots or at restaurants.  It has always made me terribly uncomfortable.  I can't help but think about my struggle with weight (one that has improved over the years so that I'm now back to about 104 - yess!!!!).  It was nothing, I'm sure, in comparison with what some people experience.  Some of us can hide our struggles on the inside, but others aren't so fortunate.  So let's all share a slice of humble pie and practice looking beyond the shape to the person within.

Brief Life Lessons from the ER

Recently, my husband Will and I took our dogs for a walk at the local greenway and happened upon a snake.  Of course it had to be my husband to spot it.  I would have given the long, black monster a massive girth and continued on my way.  Will, on the other hand, had to try to touch it.  And while screaming for him to get away, I actually started to cry.  Uncontrollably.  In my mind, I was imagining how fast we'd have to go to outrun it if it went on a killing rampage.  Where we could hide.  I mean, where can you hide from a snake?  They can climb up trees, for heaven's sakes, AND fit in tiny spaces.  And all the while I thought these things, I knew that the snake wasn't even poisonous.  I'm no dummy.  I can identify the goodies and the baddies; I lived in the country too long not to know.  My fear just outweighed my rationale.  And so I spun and walked away, wiping the graceful medley of snot and tears running down my face.

Will caught up with me only moments later and kept trying to get a peek at my face.  "Were you crying?  Seriously?"

"No," I sputtered, trying to force the words out with a carefree attitude.  But I could feel him staring at me.

Afterward, I spent some time thinking about my bizarre reaction and came to a rather disappointing conclusion - I choked.  In a situation that should have been a no-brainer.  I knew the snake was harmless.  He was just sunning next to the track, doing his own thing, and I had to have a cow about it.

Without consciously looking for a chance to redeem myself, I had the opportunity a couple of weeks later at the soccer field.  Will had practice with some of his work mates and a new guy, a rare but coveted trained goalie.  Five minutes into the practice, and the new guy was carrying his massive, six-and-a-half foot frame off the field.  I saw him take his gloves off and fidget with his ring, so I walked over to offer to hold it for him while he played.  When I got close enough, though, I noticed that he had one finger pointing in two different directions.  I bent down to check on the injured party.  He said his hand was numb, and he was sweating.

Walter's friend on the team walked over to rubberneck.  "That really sucks, man.  See ya," he said as he walked back to play.  Not a soul offered to help.

Oddly enough, as we stood there, I couldn't help but feel angry with myself that I couldn't reset a joint.  The finger looked dislocated, and I knew that fixing it would be a brief matter.  "If I knew how, I'd fix it myself," I told the now-dizzy guy.  "But I'd hate to try and mess it up worse in case it's broken."

"What?!"  Will looked at me, shocked.  "There is no way!  I would pass out if you tried to reset his finger, Claire!  I would PASS THE HELL OUT!"

I offered to take Walter myself and had to have help getting him to his car.  He fainted twice trying to cross the field, and there was no way any of us could carry him.  While not heavy-set, he was still a hefty guy.  Thank goodness one player had a big truck to get us across the fields and to the parking lot.  Still dazed and pale, I drove him to the hospital.  In his state, he even assured me that he wasn't going to direct me out into the middle of nowhere on the way to the ER.  Sweet guy.  I noticed two car seats in his back seat.

I dropped Walter off at the hospital door and managed to make it out of the car (the car doors only opened from the outside, as I learned).  I didn't even make it half way to the ER doors, though, when I spotted a teenage boy lying on the pavement with his head in the ditch, retching.  He tried to lift himself up on his elbow and couldn't.

"Can I help you get inside?  You could lean on my shoulder," I offered as I approached him.  Then I heard a woman screaming.

"Don't touch him!  Don't touch him!  He's contagious!  We've all got it!" she yelled, waving frantically with her husband and baby in tow.

I told the guy I was sorry he felt so bad and ran in to get someone to help him.  Two big men in scrubs, gloves, and masks ran out minutes later and flew past the sick boy as he miraculously ambled in on his own and puked in a garbage can.  He and his companions took a seat right along the rest of us, taking turns regurgitating in the garbage can next to me.  Walter told me he was afraid it would make him throw up, too, and I tried not to laugh while his face turned green over and over again.

We talked about his two little boys, his flood rescue dog, and his career in mental health for the 5 hours we waited.  He'd get called back to fill out paperwork and sent back out to the waiting room every hour or so.  When he'd be gone, I'd strike up a conversation with whomever happened to be sitting next to me.  One was a woman with a chipper toddler who couldn't sit still.

"He hit his head three hours ago," she sighed, rolling her eyes.

"Well, fortunately, it looks like he's going to pull through, " I told her as the boy scaled her shoulder.  I had been trying to make him laugh when she wasn't looking, but I had inadvertently turned him into a monkey.

Next was a woman whose voice sounded as young as mine but whose face looked prematurely aged.  Her eyes and cheeks looked sunken.  Hollow.  It looked like she didn't have teeth.  She looked like people I had seen before, but I couldn't identify the people or the reason for the familiarity.  She had brought her boyfriend in, and he was in a wheelchair with his leg bandaged.  He told me he had fallen in a storm drain as he was walking across a road.  "I can fit my whole hand in the cut," he said.

"Geez," I gasped and noticed the blood trickling down to his sandal, "I'm sorry, dear.  Do you at least have good insurance to cover it?"

"I'm retired military, so yeah," he responded.  I was surprised, though.  The guy only looked to be about 30.

"I'm so sorry."  I hesitated.  "Are you okay?  Were you injured?"

"Yeah.  I blew out my back in 05.  The humvee in front of me ran over an IED.  Ours blew up, too, but I was in the gunner seat, so it just fucked up my back."

My mind was all over the place.  What this poor guy had seen, what he must have been living with after that.  I wondered if he could sleep at night or if he had bad dreams.  I thought about the normal-people things that would never be normal to him again.

We talked more about the after effects of his service.  He was retired because the military couldn't use him anymore, and apparently neither could employers back home.  He couldn't sit, lie, or stand for long periods because of his back, and his PTSD didn't help matters.  His girlfriend just nodded along.

"Did the other guys in the humvee with you...did they make it?" I asked, hoping to see him smile and say something like, 'Oh, yeah.  Good guys,' or something like that.

He glanced down.  "No," he mumbled.  And he looked away, biting his lip.  I had to look away, too, so he didn't see my eyes well up.

By nearly midnight, after Will had joined me, Walter told us to head home.  He still hadn't seen a doctor but was finally in a room.  I hugged him and told him to call us when he left.

I told Will about the sick teenager and the mother and the soldier with his girlfriend.  I asked him what it was about the girl that looked so familiar to me, since he had seen her when he picked me up.

"Meth," he said.  He explained that it changes people's facial features, makes their teeth rot.  I felt so naive.

"That's some crazy stuff you saw tonight," he told me on our way home.  We were hungry and exhausted.

I spent the rest of the night thinking about the people I saw, especially the soldier and his girlfriend.  Worrying about what I could do, about what our government should be doing for vets, about policies that hospitals should have about people's emergency room waits...you name it.  I took the evening seriously.

Before we went to sleep, my head still reeling, Will leaned over in the bed.

"Want to know what haunts me the most about tonight?"

"What?" I asked, genuinely curious.

"The thought of you popping that guy's finger.  I just can't help it."

And I laughed for the first time all night.  Suddenly I realized that, like the snake had been for me days earlier, Will had his minor weaknesses, too.  And that, in the grand scheme of things to be afraid of - like losing your friends in an IED bombing, like meth addiction, like fearing that your child might have a concussion - they really were minor.  Worth a laugh, even.

Unexpected lifevests

So I really didn't realize how much faith I had lost in people or how much I had shut myself off from them until my wedding recently.  Since I lost a job, friend, easy in-law family relationship, and car in the same day, I have been in self-preservation mode.  I spent a couple of months swimming blindly, trying to figure out how I got there and how in the world to move on.  Most of all, I was so angry with myself for, once again, ignoring all the signs and instilling my faith in a person who would never be capable of understanding the gesture.  I did this a lot during child- and teenager-hood and thought I had learned enough lessons for the rest of the trip, but I slipped up again.  And this mistake cost me a lot more.  Because my boss was my friend, someone I saw as a mentor, and my fiance's uncle.  A man whom even my fiance had warned me about.  But I wanted to pull for the underdog, to prove that he was an honorable man.

Needless to say, my rose colored glasses blocked out the shadows.  I got depressed.  I got mad.  And then I got a therapist.  Thank the good grits for Leslie.  She sweetly took me in and worked with me on refocusing my energies so that, when June 18th rolled around, all I could do was bask in the happy things.  I ignored the uninvited guests who showed up and knocked my hand aside to force vice-grip hugs on me.  And I felt myself bob back up to the surface between the arms of my two friends who had come such a long way to be with me.  I had thought my friends wouldn't come.  Not that I would have blamed them.  They all lived out of town, and I had been a recluse for so long.  But there they were, smiling and beautiful.  There to save me.

Carmen drove 14 hours to be with me.  We had only seen each other once in the last 10 years, but she was still my friend and drove across three states to pull me out of the water.  She even came early and wanted to help make chair covers.

Carly left her boyfriend, who she hardly gets to see any more with her grad school schedule a state away, to come laugh with me.  And she invited us over to her parents' house for dinner the night before the wedding to celebrate.  We sat around laughing and eating and talking about our years together and apart, and they saved me.

They stayed with me while I got ready and long into the night.  When I left for my honeymoon, I couldn't stop crying, because I didn't want to leave them.  And I didn't want them to leave me.

To my friends who did so much more than come to my wedding - you brought back my faith in people. In life.  Thank you from the bottom of this little heart that loves you so.

Kick-off

I always said I would never do one of these vile things - blogs.  It took me so long just to figure out what a blog was!  However, something has got to get me writing again, so why can't it be something low-key like this?  Sitting with my Word open, staring at a blank page isn't exactly lighting the spark.  So here goes...a foray into blogging...

After years of longing for a furry friend in a college apartment complex that commanded I live without, I finally got my wish in January.  Will and I had just moved to Nashville, and he knew he would be moved to night shift after finishing training at his new job.  I told him that I needed a toy poodle like my parent's dog, Atticus Finch, who is a most sensitive and sweet little man.  Little did I know that the stork would deliver an XXL version of my dream lap dog.  I had made Will promise to never give me a dog as a present - that we would go into the adoption process together.  But my fiance's enthusiasm erased his memory and led him to hand me a Christmas bag with a collar and a photo of my soon-to-be child.  Of course, he was adorable.  Problem was, I soon got the enthusiastic itch myself.

Arlo was only 6 weeks when his parents begged us to come get him.  He had eight puppy brothers and sisters and four very young human siblings.  The owners were overwhelmed.  They met my pleas of, "Please, don't make me take him while he's still in such an important developmental stage!" with "We'll give you the one you're holding if you'll just take him today.  Then they can develop together!"

Thus did the ball of cotton-y white fluff in my arms come to be my child, as well.

Will and I stole glances at each other the whole way home, laughing and cackling at our uncharacteristic spontaneity.  This was truly unlike me, especially.  But we had her named Sissy before we pulled in the driveway, and we zipped her and her brother into Will's jacket so that he could showcase a surprise delivery to my family.  His pregnant belly and furrball children yielded glass-shattering screams and hours of musical laps, ending the beginning of the Arlo and Sissy story.  Fast forward a few weeks and you see me, haggard, replacing piddle pads every few seconds and corralling two frantic puppies around on my glamorous, wall-to-wall carpeted apartment, luring them with promises of benadryl.

I begged.  I pleaded.  "Please sleep for Mommy.  Mommy loves it when you sleep!"

I called Will at work, "Would you bring some small corks home when you get off?  Or maybe some diapers?  What were we thinking agreeing to two dogs in this little apartment?!?!"

All the research I read told me that large breed poodles can't control their bladders until they're 6 months.  SIX MONTHS.  I tried hard not to cry.  The "outside every 30 minutes" rule didn't apply to me.  My dogs peed as frequently as they walked, leading me to dub them "Drizzle Demons" for their first couple of months.  But boy they were sweet, and when 9:00 rolled around every night, they were docile as lambs.  And not because of benadryl, mind you.  I never really drugged my dogs.  I just provided them with hours of entertainment with a cheap and safe toy - bubbles.

Bubbles.  They go nuts for bubbles.  And it required little energy on my part to keep them happy.  Oh, happy, glorious day when first I discovered bubbles.

In the meantime, Sissy and Arlo were no cheap dates.  After shots, $600+ apartment fees, and a $350 emergency vet visit the night Sissy had a terrible reaction to dog biscuits, we were really feeling the new additions to the family.  My car savings had dipped down dramatically, and the piddle pads were still needed every week.  Then suddenly at 5 months old, like a timer, they were housebroken.  My efforts paid off.  The leash training got easier.  They wanted to learn more tricks.  They gained about 25 pounds of lovable, cuddly mass and mellowed enough that I felt sane again.

Come Monday, the vet will see them one more time this year to help me guarantee that we don't have any little inbred poodles further demolishing the apartment.  For tonight, though, it's time for our nightly brushing and then bedtime, where I'll once again nod off to the sensation of two enormous, curly-haired heaters suctioned to my legs.  And I'll know that, as a parent, I'm not sucking all that much.