Thing 1, You May Not Ride Gauss

You might think that with Alpha Female busy with work and studying for the bar exam and with the Things both in school everyday, I would have lots of free time and would be devoting all of that time to elaborate blog posts. Let me explain why that is not happening. It turns out that I have built up a huge sleep deficit over the last couple of years. Now that the Things are out of the house and it is quiet here, instead of blogging, I just fall asleep. And when I'm awake and ready to blog, Alpha Female is constantly using her computer to study. I sure hope the studying pays off and she passes the bar exam; otherwise, she is just interrupting my artistic outlet for no reason. That said, I do have some family news to pass along. The only problem is, I'm not sure if some of it is real or just something I've dreamt about during one of my frequent naps, so I'll start with the things I'm most sure that I really heard.

"Thing 1, you may not ride on Gauss!" I heard this repeated over and over again as Thing 1 chased me all over the house and tried to climb on my back. She was actually successful in getting on my back a couple of times, but I managed to buck her by sitting down. She slid right off of my back, it's kind of funny but I really don't appreciate being ridden.

"I love my job!" I have also heard this repeated over and over again. It's getting a little nauseating. We get it, Alpha Female is really enjoying working. Does she have to keep talking about it?

"Nuudaaaguubuu." I heard this random muttering from Thing 2. I have no idea what it means, but the Alphas seem to think it's of note that she is now making consonant sounds.

"I think I'm going to take up golf." Alpha Male has been saying this for a couple of weeks now. It turns out that he thinks he's the next Tiger Woods. Or maybe he just thinks that he can train one of the Things to be his retirement plan. Either way, I think the Alphas may be buying golf clubs after Alpha Female takes the bar exam. I thought they were too young to play golf. I guess they're not as young as they used to be.

"Mine, horse, mine." I heard this early one morning. Thing 1 had just woken up and her first word that morning was, "mine." That doesn't bode well for a good day. Alpha Female asked Thing 1 what was hers and she said, "horse." That doesn't bode well for the Alphas. And why would Thing 1 want a horse when she can just ride me? If they would just give me more to eat I really would be big enough to carry them around on my back.

Happy Father's Day

I hope all the Daddy's out there had a fun father's day. Alpha Male celebrated by getting Thing 1 poop all over his shirt. There's nothing like being a dad! I wish I was a dad, but the Alphas decided that I shouldn't have children and now I am physically incapable of reproducing. Sometimes I regret that they made that decision for me, but then I see Alpha Male with baby poop smeared all over his shirt and I think that the Alphas made the right decision for me.

GROSS!!!

I am faced with a moral dilemma. On the one hand, I feel that maintaining this blog gives me a duty to accurately and impartially report what occurs within the house. On the other hand, as the family dog I feel that I should remain loyal to the family, you know, the whole "man's best friend" thing. So I don't know whether I should make public a particularly disturbing event that I witnessed today. What compounds this problem is that I think I may be the only living being capable of effective communication that witnessed this event. Does that increase my responsibility to tell? If I told nobody, maybe it would be like it never happened.... What the heck, I'm going to live dangerously and share this disgusting secret in the hopes that one day I'll be able to laugh about it with Thing 1. (Even though I'm biologically incapable of laughing.) Of course, if I've made the wrong decision, Thing 1 may never feed me again.

Here's what happened. Thing 1 took a booger out of her nose, Alpha Female left the room to get a kleenex for the booger, Thing 1 (brace yourself) PUT THE BOOGER IN HER MOUTH AND SWALLOWED, then Alpha Female came back into the room and pretended to wipe the booger from Thing 1's finger onto the kleenex. Alpha Female may have gone through this mere pantomime of wiping the booger finger because she couldn't bring herself to face the fact that her daughter is a booger eater, but I know she was just pretending to wipe it off because I actually witnessed Thing 1 eating the booger. This is just disgusting. It might be enough to cause even me to lose my appetite.

Laugh Factory

Thing 2 just keeps growing up everyday. Today she started laughing. I don't know what Thing 1 was saying to her, (I think Thing 1 was speaking in Finnish) but whatever it was, apparently it was pretty hysterical. Thing 1 was so funny that Thing 2 had to stop eating so that she could laugh at Thing 1. I'm just glad that milk didn't come out of her nose because she was laughing so hard.

School's in for Summer

While everybody else in the county enjoyed their last day of school this week, the Things were experiencing their first day at school. Thing 1 loves it! When Alpha Female came to pick her up after her first day, Thing 1 cried and said, "No!" Let's face it, playing with play-doh is a lot more fun than going home to hang out with Alpha Female. When Alpha Male got home that night, Thing 1 showed off a new trick she learned at school that day. She leaned over in the middle of the living room and did a somersault. That impressed even me. I was about four years old before I even learned to roll over and she's only two and can already do somersaults! She'll probably grow up to join Cirque du Soleil. I wonder if she could get me a job as a circus dog. That would be awesome!

Thing 2 seems to enjoy "school" too. It's hard to tell what she's thinking though. (She could just be smiling because she's thinking about what a cute dog I am.) I'm not sure what Thing 2 is learning at school. Maybe she's studying to develop a cure for ptyalism. I do know this though, it is very quiet here at home without the things. I am finally able to catch up on my sleep and Alpha Female is able to get a lot more studying done without them here to help her. All she does for at least six hours a day is sit in front of her computer. I don't know why she doesn't just ask me, I could tell her everything she needs to know to pass the bar. I am one smart dog.

Guess Who Has a Job!

Alpha Female is finally going to be pulling her own weight around here. She's going to be working part time as a patent agent until she passes the bar, then she'll have a job as a real, live attorney. It's pretty exciting. I call for celebratory cookies!

The Baby Has Left the Blanket

Not only is Thing 2 an anti-aptyalism machine, she is also a rolling machine. Alpha Female lays Thing 2 down on her back on a blanket and when Alpha Female comes back, Thing 2 has squirmed off the blanket, rolled onto her belly, and has a long string of drool hanging from her mouth and starting to puddle on the carpet. The only problem with Thing 2's newly found talent, besides the increased anti-aptyalism, is that she is not equally as skilled at rolling back onto her back and, unfortunately, she seems to prefer the face up position. The result is that she is hard to leave unattended for any significant period of time because she will just roll onto her belly and then demand help to get back on her back so that she can then roll to her belly again. This is particularly unfortunate when she rolls over in the middle of the night and then wakes up the whole house just because she needs help to get back on her back. You think she'd be able to figure out that rolling to her belly is going to make her uncomfortable, I mean, she is 5 months old now. Five months old, wow! How much longer until she starts feeding me cheerios? If I eat too many cheerios, I suffer from aptyalism, but it is totally worth it.