No Bones About It...

The quest for the perfect Mae toy has come to an end...

If you saw on FB, I posted a question about a good toy for her since she tears EVERYTHING up.  This dog could destroy an anvil!  Everyone recommended Kong toys.  We have one of them but she doesn't show a great deal of interest in it.  So, I took to Amazon Prime.

Kong makes a toy called a Wubba.  It's a Kong ball with a squeaker in it and some very durable canvas over the outside that hangs down like an octopus.  I bought it and was so proud of myself.  It got here Tuesday night about 5:00 pm.  I didn't give it to her until Wednesday morning about 5:00 am.  By 5:20, the toy was destroyed.

It was a hippopotamus with the cutest little head and nose on it.  She started with the ears and ripped it's head wide open and pulled all the stuffing out.  I managed to wrestle it away from her and took out the rest of the stuffing so now it's just a deflated animal head with no brains.  I gave it back to her thinking she would still play with it, but the mystery and fun must have gone out with the brains.  She hasn't touched it since I gave it back.

A friend of mine at work saw my post and told me to get soup bones at Kroger.  She said they come in a pack of about 6 and they're cheap.  I stopped at the store yesterday and bought a pack of 5 for $4.00 bucks.  I brought it home and gave one to her and she is as happy as a Slinky on an escalator. (Love that commercial.)  She managed to get the marrow out and just has the bone left to chew on, but as I type this she is going to town on it. 

Lesson learned.  You don't need an expensive toy to occupy a puppy.  You just need beef by products!

 

 

Christms in October...

The guy is coming today to hang our Christmas lights.  Yes, we pay someone to do it.  Yes, our roof has a crazy pitch to it and is very, very high.  So yes, we PTM - pay the man - to do it. 

Last year was more expensive because we had to buy his lights too, but he came and took them down and boxed them up for us.  All we had to do was store the tote in the attic.  I got it down this morning and put it by the front door.  Magically, we'll have lights in a couple of hours.  It's like real live elves come to visit.

I know it's early to do this but we got 20% off if we booked it before November 1st.  I'm all over saving 20%. 

So, ho ho ho!

Say, Say Oh Playmate...

Since I work, I feel like Erin misses out on play dates.  Of course, she doesn't know about them and has no idea what she's missing but I feel bad about it sometimes.  Then I think about her playing every day with her friends at school and I feel a little better.

To remedy the no play date situation, I got together with Erin's best friend's mom and started The Working Mom's Play Dates. Avery is Erin's best friend at school.  We've had them over here and we've gone to their house too.  It's always on a Saturday and the girls love to see each other outside of school.  Her mom and I have a lot in common so it's a good fit.

Yesterday was our turn again to host.  We had them over late afternoon for fajitas and play.  The girls loved it.  They ran in and out of the house all afternoon like crazy girls.  It was a beautiful day, so we didn't mind leaving the door open and letting them run.  They slid on the slide, jumped on the trampoline and swang in the swing having a blast.

Avery had never been in one of those little Barbie Mustang cars like Erin has.  It just so happened we were out in ours when they got here.  Erin took Avery for a spin and they had a great time.  The problem with Erin driving is that she doesn't look where she's going or steer.  She just goes in circles around and around until she hits the curb.  She ran it up into the neighbors driveway three times and I made them get out.  She was doing it on purpose and I didn't want Avery to fly out the other side when they hit the curb!

From there they destroyed the playroom and had a great time doing it.  I have to applaud them both because they're both only children and they got along great.  The Killians got here about 4:00 and left about 7:30 and the girls only got in one little tiff right before they left.  They were both exhausted from playing so hard and neither of them ate much.  I have to attribute it to being tired and hungry.  But, I will say this...it's always a fair fight between them.  Her mom's favorite saying it that they're either best friends or mortal enemies depending on the hour.  They were best friends yesterday!

I got my camera out, but didn't get any good pictures.  I was busy in the kitchen for a lot of it.  So, sorry there is no art with this post.

It was the perfect play date!  Yay us!

This is Quackers...

For those of you who have been to our house, you know the upstairs game room is Tommy's room.  It's decorated in a sports memorabilia theme and it's all dedicated to the Aggies, Astros, Texans and Oilers.

I cleaned out the study and we officially made it the playroom for Erin.  There were these 2 antique wooden duck decoys that we were using as book ends.  Well, I put them upstairs in the sports room because technically, hunting is a sport.

Erin found them last night and decided she wanted to name them.

Wait for it....

Basement is the boy and Momma is the girl...

We have no idea where she came up with basement, but it stuck.  She wouldn't go to bed without giving basement 3 hugs and then insisted they come into her room and sit on the dresser while she slept.  She would start to climb in bed, then turn around to give Basement another hug.  It was super cute.

I guess it's sort of flattering having a duck named after you, but we're not sure who she thinks needs to live in a basement.  (For my NW friends and family...there are no basements in Houston.  The water table is too high and you can't dig down more then about 3 foot before you hit water.  So, no basements.)

Had I known it would only take an old wooden duck we might not have gotten Mae!!!

Confession...

I don't Instagram.  I have the app on my phone, and have tried to use it but I just can't figure it out.  I think I have to admit to myself that I'm officially getting old. These young whipper-snappers use it and I just can't. 

I love the cute collages people post on FB and I was trying to figure out how to do it on Instagram.  Turns out I had the wrong app on my phone.  I needed Instacollage!  So I downloaded it and got it working.  The only problem was that I downloaded the free version so it kept popping up with a banner at the top to buy more stupid game apps.  It was ticking me off because I accidentally hit that banner twice and lost what I was working on. 

So, back to the App store I went and bought the Instacollage Pro for .99 cents.  Now I don't have the ad banner and I can collage to my hearts content. 

P.S.  I still don't get instagram though...

Attack Mode...

You've heard of "When Bears Attack", but have you ever heard of "When Maes Attack"? 

It happened yesterday morning on our walk.  For those of you who don't know, I get up with Mae sometimes and we walk around our subdivision about 4:00am.  We were a little bit later then normal on our walk and it was closer to 5:00 yesterday.  (I never get scared in my neighborhood on our predawn walks because we have great street lights and there are dozens of people out.)

I keep a sharp eye out of people coming up behind or in front of us.  I step off the sidewalk into the grass when I see them coming because Mae goes nuts.  She jumps and lunges and growls and snaps at them when they go by.  I always apologize as folks speed passed us.  It's very embarrassing that I can't control an 18 pound dog.

Yesterday we were stopped while Mae sniffed around.  I had looked over my shoulder earlier and didn't see anything.  Nobody was in front of us.  I thought all was well.  I was wrong.

A guy came running up behind us in a dark jacket and Mae went crazy.  Before I could get the slack out of the leash she was on him.  She jumped at him and bit his hand.  He stopped short and raised his hands but it was too late.  I yanked her down and apologized all over myself.  You could tell the guy was ticked.  He said no problem and just kept on running.  I don't think she broke the skin, but still!  I guess I now know she's bite when defending one of us.  I think she only bit because he scared us both.

Of course as the guy runs off Mae continued to bark and pull on the leash like a wild woman.  She got the dog in the backyard behind us going and that got another dog to barking.  It was great.  I'm sure the whole neighborhood was happy with Angela and Mae.

Tommy has banished her from our walks.  I'll try it again, but will keep a tighter grasp on the leash.  I already have her in a harness because I was afraid something like this would happen and the collar attachment alone would come off her neck.  She's stuffed in the harness like a little sausage, because I don't want it coming off.

So, it was a Discovery Channel Monday around here!

And to appease my MIL, I will start carrying my container of pepper spray again.  I used to carry it when I was alone, but probably ought to carry it again now in case a bad guy comes up behind us and disables Cujo.

Mae Mize...

Here are some shots of Mae playing outside today.  She was chasing a lizard so on the pics of her nose in the grass that's what she's doing.  Then she tried to rub her back all over him.  Not sure if he survived.  Y'all know how I feel about lizards!  Yuck.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mini Me...

I know there is debate as to who Erin looks like.  Some people think she's a combination of both of us, but when I look at her I just see myself.  I'm not sure why, but I think she looks exactly like I did at her age - not that she looks like me now.  She just looks like I did when I was 3.  I haven't seen enough pictures of Tommy at 3 to compare.

I Am A Bad Pet Parent...

I've been asked to post pics of Mae on the blog.  I'm a terrible pet parent.  I don't have that many of her and I have none of her and Erin. 

Mae is so bad at jumping all over Erin that Erin is now scared of her.  So, when Erin is around, Mae is locked up.  I'll try to get some pics this weekend if Erin goes with my parents.  I know that the only way to get Mae trained is to let her out when Erin is around, but I don't want to make Erin permanently scared of dogs!  Vicious cycle.

She is a beautiful dog.  She stated out all black with just a little white spot on one paw and on her chest but she's turning Salt and Pepper on her undercoat.  So, she's black on top and salt and pepper underneath.  They call this kind of schnauzer a Phantom.  She isn't full on Phantom yet, but I think she might turn that way.  It's really pretty.  I like because it's different then Roxie looked now.

She's also very tall.  She weighs a ton but isn't at all fat.  Her legs are long and skinny and she's so full of energy and puppyhood that she can be very unruly.

All for now, will have pics of her shortly.  Thanks for the interest.

What's In A Name...

Random thought the other day...

I've never been one to like the trendy names for kids, but I have always liked boy's names for girls.  Like Sidney or Randie or Jimmie, something like that.  I was driving along and had a stream of conscious moment and came to the realization that I named my kid a "boy" name with a girl's spelling.  Way cool!  Don't ask me why this had never dawned on me before. 

This was also in my stream of conscious thoughts...

The other day at HEB we were in line and Erin was trying to hit the buttons on the credit card thing.  She had already been acting like an octopus so I very sternly said "Erin stop it now!"  The checker asked me what was wrong and immediately stopped what he was doing. I thought it was odd until the bagger said "His name is Aaron too".  Duh.  Poor kid thought I was getting on to him.  But, he was confused as I was about the whole thing.  LOL

And the Verdict Is...

We had our appointment yesterday with the GI Specialist and Texas Children's Hospital.  Sorry I'm just posting this.

Dr. V. (no, I can't spell his name -its long!) did a physical exam on her tummy and bottom.  He took  an X-ray and was very positive about what he found.  She wasn't as backed up as she was the last time they took the X-ray and there is nothing physically wrong with her.  Her problems are all because she had a hard time going a while back and is now scared to go.  She crosses her legs and holds everything in and causes her own problems instead of just going.

He told us his own daughter did the same thing for a while and that she too was a strong willed child and he did the same thing to correct it as he advised us.  (Okay, embarrassing thing about that is we didn't tell him she was strong willed.  10 minutes in the room with Erin and he knew she was! LOL)We now give her a super dose of Miralax in the mornings and leave her in pull-ups until she's ready to get back to being potty trained.  He said the main thing is getting her to go without trying to hold it in.  So, yesterday I went out and bought a huge thing of Miralax and a pack of Pull-ups!  We are now armed for the war!

It's sad for us that she has to go back into Pull-ups because she was doing so good on the potty training.  She had it down until she started resisting going poop on the pot.  We are just so thankful that there is nothing physically wrong.  We talked about it last night and if Pull-ups are what we need to do, it's a small price to pay for getting her back on track.

I have to take my hat off for Texas Children's again.  They run that place like a fine Swiss watch.  We went to the clinic in the Woodlands because there is where Dr. V was that day.  (I think he goes to the Med. Center and the Woodlands.)  Our appointment was for 9:00.  We were back in the room at 9:08 and the doctor was in the room less then 10 minutes later.  They did X-rays and he drew us a diagram on the white board and visited with us in the room for about 20 minutes. We pulled out of the parking lot at 10:15!  It's so efficient - it's an OCD dreamland!

Thanks for the prayers and concerns.  We appreciated them all.

Tummy Update...

On a whim Monday I called Texas Children's to see if they had an early appointment come up.  Well, they did.  The woman I was talking to said that they had just had a cancellation so she could get us in today at 9:00.

We'll be seeing our new doctor today. 

Pray that they are able to get her some relief.

I'll keep you posted.

High Tech

I've gone high tech!

I set up a webpage for our family.  It's www.threemizes.com.  I have no idea if we'll ever do anything more with it, but for right now I'm using it as a portal to the blog.  I'll be sending out my regular email but will have this webpage come to you.  From there you click the button in the middle of the first page and it takes you to the blog.  Easy peasy!

Billy the Kid...

Here's a cute little video Aunt Mimi sent us.  Billy the Kid in the making!

A Little Backed Up...

Without going into too much detail, Erin has a little problem going potty.  We've seen our doctor for it about 4 times in the last 2 months.  She has no referred us to Texas Children's to see a Pediatric GI Specialist. 

The problem is now we can't get in with them until November!  My poor baby needs relief sooner rather then later.  I called Dr. Elahee and she personally called me back.  She even tried to get Erin in sooner and couldn't do it.  She told me that this is a rare specialty field for Pediatricians so it's hard to get in with them.  One of the names she gave me was booked until January!!! 

So, now we wait.  Will keep you posted.

Smile Purty...

Here are some of Erin's 3rd birthday pictures.  I am having a really tough time deciding on which ones to order.  I love them all!!!  Yay to Hard to Hold Photography for the great job they do with Erin.  These were all taken in Old Town Spring.