Gauss Pontificates

I Have Been Away For Awhile

2011-02-19T20:02:00.003-05:00

It has been a long time since I have blogged. In case you are wondering why, it is because the Alphas bought a new house in April 2010. You may remember that I mentioned it was a wreck and smelled of cats and lots of other delicious things. They spent all of their free time, until they moved into the house in August 2010, working on the house. They did demolition, painting, cabinetry, plumbing, flooring, lots of bug spraying, and more. And, thankfully, they paid some people to do a lot more work on the house. It was a major remodel. And after we all moved in last August, they kept working on it. I suppose they had no choice since it was still missing a master bathroom, a second bathroom vanity, flooring, window blinds, and lots of other stuff when we moved in. Just watching the Alphas work made me too exhausted to blog. And looking around at the squalid conditions I was living in made me depressed. And then just as they were finishing up their house projects, crazy Alpha Female decided that it would be a good time to start a new law practice. What!? Somehow she managed to convince Alpha Male to give her his full support, he really must love her, or maybe he is crazy too. Now that the new law firm is launched and the house is close to a normal family's house, I am finding inspiration to pick up this old blogging hobby I really enjoyed. I have also started blogging again because the Alphas told me that if I don't people are going to think that I died.

In the next couple of blogs, you can look forward to, or at least anticipate, before and after pictures of the house and status updates on Thing 1, Thing 2, and Horton. It may take me a while to get back in the groove of things, but I promise I'll try.

Showtime

2010-05-18T21:17:00.005-04:00

Thing 1 just had her fourth birthday and was in her first dance recital! She is getting to be very grown up! This morning, she put on a pair of Alpha Female's three inch high heels and said, with excitement, "They almost fit me!" Then she walked over to Alpha Female, stood beside her, and from Alpha Female's hip height said, "I'm almost as tall as you. I'm almost grown up!" Alpha Female didn't burst her bubble. And while Thing 1 does have about two more feet to grow before she's as tall as Alpha Female, it is fun watching her enjoy being a big girl. Heck, she's a lot bigger than I'll ever be.

Before Thing 1's recital, the Alphas were afraid that she might get out on stage and forget how to dance. But they had no need to worry! She loved the spotlight and wanted to go back out on stage when it was over. I think she may get that from me. I was born to win Westminster, but I digress....

It is a little ridiculous how proud the Alphas are of her debut dance performance. To hear them tell it she is ready to win So You Think You Can Dance, but really all she did was not freak out when the lights came up. I think maybe they should raise their expectations a little. Alpha Male did record the performance, but only the last minute or so because he was so proud he forgot to press the record button! So without further ado, you may watch the debut performance for yourself.

Dance Recital 2010 from gauss dogg on Vimeo.

A House Full of Cats

2010-05-10T19:21:00.004-04:00

The Things have been sharing a room for a while now and the Alphas are starting to get tired of them waking each other up early in the morning or keeping each other up late at night. So instead of teaching them good sleeping habits, the Alphas decided that it was time to buy a new house with another bedroom. No better time than now, right? I bet they could get a steal on a short sale, right? A new house will make our lives easier, right? Well it all sounded good in theory, then I saw the beauty they picked out for us.

It's hard to see it through all of the weeds, but it is our new home sweet home. Of course we won't be able to move in for a few more months because of all the remodeling that has to be done. The good news is that the pool is no longer green and the thumb-sized tadpoles are no longer living in it. The Alphas keep talking about how they are going to get the smell of cats out of the house, but I'm not sure why they want to do that. I love the smell of cats!

Alpha Male is spending a lot of his "free time" at the cat house doing demolition work. (Alpha Female doesn't like it when I say Alpha Male is at the cat house, but I'm not sure why.) All the Alphas talk about anymore is what they need to do to the new house. I'm not sure what the big deal is. After all, they have three months before they have to move out of this house. That's plenty of time to knock down a bunch of walls, build a bunch of new rooms, pick out some cabinets, and throw some paint on the walls, right? I just hope they get around to doing some landscaping. I might get lost in those weeds.

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

2010-03-08T16:29:00.004-05:00

Have you ever wondered how the world views you? I think of myself as short, dark, and adorable. But is that how everybody else sees me? I've discovered that the only way to really find out is to have kids and then wait until they are old enough to start imitating you. It may sound like a lot of trouble to go through just to find out if you're really as likable as you think you are, but it is foolproof. Thing 1 is now old enough to let everybody in the house know exactly what she thinks of them. It's not always pretty and she can sometime be pretty direct. The other day, Alpha Female was leaving the house and Thing 1 asked her where she was going. Alpha Female was going to get her haircut and replied, "I'm going to get beautiful." When she returned home, Thing 1 caught one glimpse of her and quickly exclaimed, "You're not beautiful!" I don't think Alpha Female has gotten over that one yet.

But I digress. Sometimes the Things can be much more subtle and show the Alphas what they think of them merely by reflecting the Alphas' images back at them. For instance, Alpha Female had no idea that she always called the Things "honey" until Thing 1 started asking Alpha Female to role play with her. There are a couple of variations to this game, Thing 1 can be the teacher and Alpha Female can a friend in her class, Thing 1 can be the baby unicorn and Alpha Female can be the mommy unicorn, or Thing 1 can be the mommy and Alpha Female can be the honey. And it almost made up for being told she wasn't beautiful when Thing 1 offered to cover Alpha Female's eyes for her during a scary part of a movie. Naturally, the reflections aren't always too positive. One night, Thing 1 gave Alpha Male two choices, to be either a good prince or a bad prince. When Alpha Male replied that he didn't want to be a prince, Thing 1 pulled out her spot on Alpha Female impression and told him, "That is not an option!" And, my favorite, while Thing 2 was riding her bike last weekend, she pulled out her cell phone and started texting.

I've also noticed that whenever they are eating and see me coming, the hold their food up high and scream, "no, Gauss, no!" I'm not sure what I've done to give them the impression that I would want to eat their food. Oh, wait, I remember now. I eat their food whenever it is unattended for more than 2 seconds. I love hot dogs!

My First Human Brother

2010-03-03T19:38:00.004-05:00

Today and everyday we hold Aiden in our hearts. The Alphas are so grateful for every moment they had with him and for every moment they spend with the Things and Horton.

With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility

2010-01-16T10:16:00.003-05:00

On December 25, 2009, Thing 2 moved from a crib into a toddler bed and received the great power of being able to freely get in and out of her bed. Along with that power came the great responsibility to not abuse the trust the Alphas placed in her by taking away the bars that confined her in the middle of the night. Silly Alphas! What were they thinking trusting a not-quite-two-year-old to not get out of bed and wander around the house in the wee hours?

The first couple of nights weren't too bad. Thing 2 did not initiate any late night excursions of her own, but she happily followed Thing 1 during her midnight journeys. I refer to this as Thing 2's training period. She was learning the ropes from her big sister. Unfortunately, Thing 2 is a fast learner, so after a couple of days Thing 2 was striking out on her own.

I was sleeping on the sofa one night and heard her tip-toe out of her room and into the living room. She really was pretty quiet, but the rustle of her pull-up gave her away. The rustle of diapers and pull-ups sure do make it hard to operate in stealth mode. Anyway, she came into the living room like a pro, but then she showed her novice status by just stopping and standing in the middle of the living room. The more experienced Thing 1 would have continued on into the Alphas' bedroom, walked up to Alpha Female and demanded something. Probably water or a spot in the Alphas' bed.

Despite Thing 2's restraint, Alpha Female woke up when she heard the rustle of the pull-up. She anxiously awaited the arrival of Thing 2 by her bedside, but she never appeared. So Alpha Female had to get out of her warm bed and take Thing 2 on a quick potty visit before returning her to bed. This happened a couple of nights in a row.

Then Thing 2 learned to walk all the way into the Alphas' room and climb into their larger and more comfortable bed. After a couple of sleepless nights filled with screaming, the Alphas had re-trained her to stay in her bed all night. Now they felt ready to move on to getting Thing 1 to sleep through the night without pull-ups. I must say, Thing 1 is highly motivated by the promise of jewelry so the Alphas promised her LOTS of jewelry if she could sleep all night without having an accident in her bed. This has mostly worked out well but on the nights when she has relapses nobody sleeps.

This is how it goes down. Thing 1 screams and comes into the Alphas' room declaring, "I had an accident." Thing 2 is trailing close behind her. Alpha Female pulls the wet sheets of the bed while Thing 1 changes herself into dry clothes and happily climbs back into bed. The problem is that Thing 2 is now wide awake and screams like a crazy woman when Alpha Female tries to leave the room. In desperation, Alpha Female has taken to bringing Thing 2 back to the big bed with her. There Thing 2 curls up with her head, arm, foot, or all three in an Alpha's face and falls fast asleep Well, fast asleep except for when she wakes up and puts her hands all over an Alphas' face just to make sure they are still there.

Recently, I had a little talk with Thing 2. Now she comes into the Alphas' room and curls up on the foot of their bed and falls fast asleep. I'm not sure the Alphas even notice she is there. Hopefully we will all start sleeping again sometime soon.

Happy Birthday Thing 2

2010-01-03T17:46:00.002-05:00

Thing 2 is two! One the one hand, I can't believe she is already two because it seems like just yesterday that Alpha Female was lumbering around wondering whether she would get an additional 2007 tax deduction or welcome the first baby of 2008. On the other hand, I can hardly believe that she is only two because I can't remember what it was like around here without her. I imagine it was quieter and cleaner.

Do I Live in a Zoo?

2010-01-01T18:43:00.002-05:00

Everybody was having a lovely day until around 4:30 this afternoon. That's when the Alphas decided that everybody under 4 feet tall could take a bath together. This is nothing new, the Things and Horton usually bathe together; Horton splashes all of the water out of the tub while the Things play with their toys. Today, Horton got out of the tub early and was hanging out with me and Alpha Female in his Hugh Hefner robe while the girls continued playing supervised by Alpha Male. Suddenly, we all heard a shrieking sound coming from the bathroom. Alpha Female and I rushed in to see what was the matter. We discovered Alpha Male prying Thing 2's teeth off of Thing 1's finger. We have a biter!

Alpha Female took Thing 2 to time out while Alpha Male checked Thing 1 to make sure she hadn't contracted rabies. Thing 2 then spent the next 20 minutes in time out. She could have gotten out about 19 minutes sooner, but she refused to say, "I'm sorry." After she finally gave her sister a hug and apologized for her animal behavior (even I've never bitten anybody on purpose), she spent the rest of the evening running around the house naked. And I mean completely naked. Just as naked as I am right now. She watched TV naked, she played naked, and she ate dinner naked. It's barbaric, really.

If I ever write a book about child rearing, I will target it to the parents of 18 - 36 month old kids and I'll title it "Domesticating Your Child." I hope the Alphas read it, I've got a couple of pointers for them.

Happy New Year

2010-01-01T15:16:00.004-05:00

A year ago, Thing 1 was just starting to be potty trained, Thing 2 couldn't walk, Horton wasn't born, and I blogged regularly. Now, Thing 1 can write her name, Thing 2 is potty trained, Horton can crawl, and I'm happy if I blog once a month. I'm not sure what this year has in store for us, but I hope it involves more food and more sleep.

Christmas was fun around here. My best friend is a cat I've never met and she sent me a Christmas present which I ate while the humans were opening their presents. So I'm not really sure what each of them got, as my attention was focused on eating. But I do know that we have a lot more stuff in the house now. Thing 1 is sleeping in a beautiful princess bed, Thing 2 is out of her crib and in another beautiful princess bed, and the pretty pink flower curtains in Horton's room have finally been replaced with manly blue animal curtains. The Alphas are all proud of themselves because Horton has a boy room now. I don't remind them that he is nearly 7 months old and most babies have gender appropriate rooms waiting for them upon their arrival.

Looking at this picture, it appears that his new manly room has inspired him to become a trucker.

I'm Still Here

2009-12-12T17:22:00.008-05:00

Alpha Male asked me today if I had stopped blogging. It was kind of a weird question to get from him. He usually asks me things like, "Are you hungry?" or "Do you need to go out?" You know, questions I can answer by jumping around and running to a particular place in the house. I'm not sure why he asked if I had stopped blogging, it's not like I can talk or even shake my head. Sometimes he's just weird I guess. But the answer is no, I haven't stopped, just slowed down a little. What do you expect from a seventy year old living with three kids under four?

Of course, there is lots to share from my family. Maybe too much, I don't know where to start. I'll try to catch you up by sharing my very own list of things I've heard in my house during the last month.

10. "Thing 1, don't eat your boogers."

9. "Thing 2, don't eat your boogers."

8. "Girls, don't sit on your brother."

7. "NNNNOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!" This is usually said by one of the Things, but I've also heard it come from Alphas coupled with a huge mess and a hint of despair in their voices.

6. I'm not sure how to spell this one, but in my house it is spoken very loudly and in an unthinkably high pitch, "AAEEEEEIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII." I am pretty sure it translates to "NNNNOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!" and I'm pretty sure Thing 2 is the only one capable of producing this sound.

5. "You don't need to feed Gauss, he already ate." I hate it when I hear this.

4. "It looks like a tornado came through this place!" If I had a dollar for every time I heard this...

3. "Thing 2 is waking me up." Thing 1 says this after she has been screaming and protesting bed for several minutes and then Thing 2 rustles her sheets as she turns over in her crib. Oh, if the Things only understood irony.

2. Alpha Male: "Who spilled all this water all over the bathroom floor?"
Alpha Female: "Uh, water's not yellow."

1. Alpha Female: "Wow! Horton really is going to be crawling before Christmas."
Alpha Male: "He's a beefcake."

The Day After

2009-11-01T12:13:00.003-05:00

I hope everybody had a great Halloween. I know I did. I love it when the doorbell rings, it gives me a great excuse to bark for an awkwardly long time.

Last week, Alpha Female went to New York City for work. She participated in mediating and settling a patent infringement case for a client. She was in a great mood after she was done working. She called Alpha Male and I could hear her blathering on about how much she loved her job and how happy she was that she went to law school. She got home very late last Friday night, actually it was very early Saturday morning. We were already asleep here. I was the only one that got up to greet her, so I was the only one that saw her hide something under her coat before she went to bed. A couple of hours later, I was awoken to the sounds of Alpha Male walking around the house in the middle of the night. This is something he never does, so I stuck close by to make sure he wasn't going to try to drive in his sleep or something. Again, I was the only witness to him finding the box that was hidden under Alpha Female's coat and I watched him dance around the kitchen like an eight-year-old on Christmas morning. What I found out later was that Alpha Female bought him a camera while she was in NYC. And not just any camera, but a camera he had been pining for for a long time and is out of stock almost everywhere (including the first two stores that Alpha Female visited to buy it). That's very nice, but where is the appreciation for all of the hard work, support, and sacrifices that I made while she was in school?

What does this all have to do with Halloween you may ask. Well, because Alpha Male had the camera, he was able to take these photos and videos of Snow White, Ariel, and Sleepy on Halloween:

Snow White, Ariel, and Sleepy Enjoy Halloween 2009 from gauss dogg on Vimeo.

Self Taught

2009-10-27T18:46:00.003-04:00

It's been so long since I've posted an update that I'm not sure where to start. I haven't been able to post in a while because I'm exhausted by all the kids in this house and spending my spare time sleeping. Of course, as always the Alphas will tell you that they are handling things just fine, but I'll tell you the truth. The house is constantly a wreck, the dirty clothes hampers runeth over, the grass is about two feet high, and instead of doing the dishes the Alphas just bought more sippy cups. If the Alphas would just turn the football games off for a couple of hours maybe they could make this house presentable. But I digress from the big news of the day.

Thing 2 has potty trained herself! After her bath last night she did the potty dance. Alpha Female thought this was kind of weird since the Alphas have made no effort to encourage her use of the potty. Luckily I was able to whip my stenograph out in time to record the following conversation:

Alpha Female: Thing 2, do you need to use the potty?

Thing 2: Yeah.

Alpha Female: Go tell Daddy you need to use the potty. (Way to pass the buck!)

Alpha Male: Thing 2, do you need to use the potty?

Thing 2: Yeah. (There's a lot of repetition in this house.)

Thing 2: (Sitting on potty.) (Lots of grunting and funny faces.)

Alpha Male: (quietly) I think she's going to poop!

Alpha Female: No way! That would be very weird, we haven't even started potty training her.

Thing 1: (closing the bathroom door) She needs her privacy!

Thing 2: (more grunting)

Alpha Male: Hurray! She did it! Thing 2, you went poopy in the potty!

Alpha Female: Hurry, give her some chocolate! (I have know idea why she said that, I figure it was just a random comment.)

Thing 1: Yay!

Thing 2: Yeah.

At this point I packed up the stenograph, but she followed up with refusing to wear a diaper until she went pee pee on the potty and she used the potty again tonight. It wasn't all that long ago that Thing 1 did this and the Alphas are weirdly excited again. I saw Alpha Female bring in big boxes of diapers, diaper wipes, and pull-ups from the store today. Why would they want to give all that up?

Where did I put that again?

2009-09-29T19:15:00.004-04:00

Thing 1 had a doctor's appointment today to check on her broken arm. Do you see anything weird in this x-ray? (Besides Alpha Female and Thing 1 holding hands.)

In the bottom left of the picture, you can see a foreign object in the cast. How did it get there? Thing 1 must have shoved it in. Fortunately, as it turns out, Thing 1 had to have the little cast replaced with a big cast that goes to her shoulder. When the little cast was removed, the Alphas were pleased to discover that the foreign object was the cover for the mouse pointer on Alpha Female's laptop. They had been looking for that for days. Alpha Female had even asked Thing 1 where it was and Thing 1 said that Thing 2 had taken it. She was lying! I hope the Alphas remember this and don't believe her the next time she says that I ate her missing food.

Owww! My Arm!

2009-09-23T13:22:00.005-04:00

I thought the big news this month would be that Horton is finally sleeping through the night. It has been a week now without the Alphas getting up to feed him in the middle of the night. And he actually has a reasonable schedule. Asleep by 9:00 p.m., awake after 7:00 a.m. And with how much Alpha Female has been fixated on and looking forward to this momentous accomplishment, I thought I would have to listen to her celebrate and talk about nothing else for weeks. But Thing 1 managed to top Horton's accomplishment.

You are probably wondering, "How is that possible?" Well, she acquired super powers. Hard to believe, but it's true. The problem is she only acquired partial super powers. She has the ability to jump over sofas in a single bound, but her bones aren't hard enough to withstand the landing. That is why Alpha Female had to rush to the emergency room after receiving a somewhat misleading phone call letting her know that there "might" be something wrong with Thing 1's arm. Might be? I've never seen an arm all twisted around like that when there wasn't something wrong. Actually, I've just never seen an arm all twisted around like that. And unless she is Elastigirl, the bones weren't going to pop back in place by themselves. For your enjoyment, I have included a picture of her singing and dancing around the x-ray room after her multiple x-rays, but you might not want to look too closely at her right hand.

So after spending the afternoon at the emergency room, they received the worse news of the day, Thing 1 wouldn't be able to eat until after the cast was put on the next day at 2:30 P.M.!!!!!! What were they going to do when she got hungry? Of course she would ask for apple juice in the morning and that Thing does not like to hear, "No." If it had been me, I would have opted for the mangled arm rather than the missed breakfast. But Alpha Female is not so reasonable and decided to distract Thing 1 from her hunger pains by buying her things. And to make it worse (I just don't understand Alpha Female) she decided to make a show of solidarity by not eating or drinking until Thing 1 was able to.

They left the house around 8:00 a.m. with a mission to not notice the hunger pains. The library and the ducks outside the library occupied them for a while, but then the spending began. They went to the mall and bought jewelry, got a haircut, made a doll and named her Lucy, and bought ponytail holders. Then they traveled over to Toys R Us and bought halloween costumes for the Things and walked every aisle while Thing 1 pointed to each toy and said, "You can get me this for my birthday!" I think Alpha Female agreed to buy pretty much the whole store for Thing 1's fourth birthday.

They arrived at the hospital at the appointed time and drew pictures, read books, and watched cartoons for about three hours before Thing 1 and Lucy were happily carried back to the operating room. About a half hour later Alpha Female joined them in recovery and noticed that both Dana and Lucy had beautiful pink casts on their right arms! I think that Alpha Female is in love with the entire surgical staff at the hospital because of that thoughtful gesture.

Thing 1 is recovering beautifully. In fact, she thought that yesterday was her birthday because she got so much stuff. And she has been eating candy nonstop since coming home from the hospital. I've counted at least four lollipops today. Is that what it takes around here, do I have to break my leg to get an extra dog biscuit?

Thumbkin

2009-09-01T19:07:00.002-04:00

This morning Alpha Female was giving Thing 1 a manicure. Thing 1 was happily admiring Alpha Female's work when she appeared to be overcome by emotion and said, "I love you." Of course, Alpha Female beamed from all the love in the room and said, "I love you, too, honey" and moved in for a kiss. To which Thing 1 replied, "No! I was talking to my thumb." Which was followed by Thing 1 looking lovingly at her thumb and repeating, "I love you, I love you, I love you." I find the whole thing a little weird, but what do I know, I've never had thumbs.

Horton Gets a Room

2009-08-28T18:02:00.003-04:00

Most parents have a room decorated for their baby long before the baby is born. Poor Horton, his parents are not like most. About two weeks ago he finally got to move out of the Alphas' bedroom and into a room of his own. This was made possible because the Things were consolidated into one bedroom. The Things have taken to it surprisingly well. Thing 1 likes to come out of their room and tell on Thing 2. I guess Thing 1 has decided that it is against the rules for Thing 2 to stand up in her crib. So whenever Thing 2 stands up, Thing 1 stands in her doorway and yells, "Thing 2 is standing up!" That makes Thing 2 cry, which makes Thing 1 say, "Stop crying! Mommy, Thing 2 is crying and waking me up!" And this is actually better than the Alphas thought it would go. I'm not sure what they were expecting. Maybe more hair pulling?

But I digress. My point is that Horton now has his own room. But it is kind of a weird room for a boy. After living in it for two weeks, it now has a blue changing pad cover (instead of a pink one), a jungle animal bumper pad, and a yellow crib sheet (instead of a pink one). But there are still flowery curtains and a flowery pink fan and Thing 2's name is still on the shelf on the wall. Just yesterday, Horton's name went up on the shelf, but it is kind of haphazardly placed on top of Thing 2's. You would think that the Alphas could have found a few minutes during the twelve weeks of Horton's life or the nine months of Alpha Female's pregnancy to spruce up a room a little bit. Poor Horton. I think the only reason he's not sleeping through the night yet is so that he can guarantee himself a little one on one time with a parent. It doesn't bother him that it's the middle of the night.

Happy Anniversary Alphas

2009-08-21T16:50:00.005-04:00

Ten years ago today, the Alphas woke up to an innkeeper pounding on their door and inviting them down to breakfast. Ten minutes later, they woke up to the innkeeper pounding on their door and inviting them down to breakfast again. Five minutes after that they had the pleasure of waking up to the innkeeper pounding on the door and warning them to come down to breakfast or else. They still haven't figured out why that innkeeper didn't figure out that they wanted to sleep past 8:00 a.m. the morning after they got married. They assured me that her breakfast wasn't that good. And that was the last time they stayed at a B&B.
This morning, the Alphas woke up to Thing 1 saying, "Mommy, the sun is up. Time to get up. Daddy, I want to watch a movie!" And it wasn't even 7 a.m. Within minutes, Horton was demanding food and Thing 2 needed to be picked up and carried everywhere. Even though they woke up an hour earlier and didn't get to sleep through the night, the Alphas think that August 22, 2009 is better than August 22, 1999.

Hypothesises, Hypotheses, Hypothesi, More than One Hypothesis

2009-07-29T09:31:00.006-04:00

If you haven't talked to Alpha Female in a while, I recommend that you don't. If you have, I am sorry. I'm sure the conversation involved a lot of sleep induced blank stares on the part of Alpha Female, and when she did talk, she probably regaled you with Horton's nighttime adventures. I think he is being graded on the duration and timing of his sleep. Sleeping for four continuous hours is good, but it only counts if it occurs when it's dark out.
I hate to be as boring as Alpha Female by blogging about this, but I feel it's my duty to share, as she has become obsessed with getting Horton to sleep more at night. She has developed a continuing string of hypothesises. He isn't sleeping all night because (1) he's too cold, (2) he's not wrapped up tightly enough, (3) he isn't eating enough, (4) he's too hot, (5) he wrapped up too tightly, (6) he slept too much during the day, (7) he didn't sleep enough during the day.... As soon as one hypothesis is proven wrong, she replaces it with another increasingly complicated reason to explain why our seven week old doesn't sleep through the night. She just can't seem to accept that the reason he isn't sleeping through the night is because he is just seven weeks old!

Now on to a much more interesting topic: me! Yesterday was my tenth birthday. Alpha Male forgot all about it, but when Alpha Female mentioned it to Thing 1, that precious little child suggested that they make a cake for me. Unfortunately, they didn't let me eat any, but it's the thought that counts. And they sure made a mess baking that cake. Shouldn't one of the Alphas supervise this sort of thing?

Adjustments

2009-07-12T14:44:00.003-04:00

The new baby has been around for over a month now and we have all had to make adjustments. I am adjusting to sleeping in a different room, where he doesn't wake me up all night. Alpha Female is adjusting by resigning herself to the fact that she can no longer afford the luxury of showering everyday. She is also complaining a lot about not sleeping. What did she expect? Hasn't she done this before? I just tell her to quit her whining.

Thing 2 wants to be held constantly now. The Alphas think this is because she is at that age where kids have a little bit more separation anxiety and the baby probably hasn't helped. But I think it's much simpler than that. She sees that the kids now out number the parents so if all three kids want something at the same time, one of them will have to wait. She figures that if she attaches herself to at least one parent at all times, she'll never be the one not being taken care of. I think it's a brilliant strategy.

Thing 1 is definitely noticing the changes around here. She doesn't really talk about it with the Alphas, but she does share when she goes to school. Last week she informed her teacher of the anatomical differences between her and her brother. "I have a vagina. My brother has a penis." So it turns out she does listen to everything the Alphas tell her. She also thought it was noteworthy that, while their mouths looks the same, she has teeth and her brother doesn't, although he some how manages to retain a tongue.

Finally, I have spent what little free time I have nowadays trying to decide on a name for the new baby. I have decided to call him Horton, because "a person's a person no matter how small."

Happy Father's Day

2009-06-21T16:36:00.004-04:00

I have the honor of living with one of the best daddy's around (even though he doesn't always feed me on time). Happy Father's Day!

We Have Separation

2009-06-20T20:12:00.002-04:00

Big news in my house today: the baby's umbilical cord stub fell off! Just moments after the big event, he enjoyed a warm bath with Thing 1 instead of a cold sponge bath on the counter. From the lack of crying, I am guessing that he enjoyed the change. I think he looks much cuter without the umbilical stub.

There is more big news in my family today, even bigger than the umbilical cord news if you can believe it; my newest human cousin was born yesterday. She and my baby are destined to live competitive lives with one another. She is bigger than him, but I hope my baby is the first to sleep through the night.

Road Trip

2009-06-18T20:38:00.003-04:00

Last week the Alphas took the whole family for our first outing. All the kids and the Alphas piled in the car to come pick me up from the animal doctor (I was there for the previously mentioned worm problem). The reason they all came is because the animal doctor is right next door to an ice cream stand and the Things love ice cream. So after they all ate ice cream, it was time to get back in the car. Of course, I tried to get into my regular spot between the two car seats in the back. The problem was that my spot had been taken over by yet a third car seat. So can you believe where they put me? You are probably thinking that I got to ride in the front seat passenger's lap, but no! I had to ride all the way in the back, in the same place that Alpha Female puts the groceries! At first it was pretty humiliating but then I started to enjoy having all that space to myself. And it gave me a good opportunity to listen to the conversation on the drive home. Alpha Female sounds like such a mom! I'm not sure when she transformed from being a kid herself to being a mom, but I am sure that the transformation is now complete. This is what I heard that led me to this conclusion, "Thing 1, stop kicking your sister. Thing 1, there is an invisible line between your seat and your sister's seat, you must stay on your side of the line. Thing 1, put your hand back on your side of the line. Thing 1, stop kicking! Thing 2, give your sister her shoe back..." I hope that a car with an extra row of seating is in our future.

Too Good to be True

2009-06-17T14:37:00.004-04:00

Let me just say that my favorite part about having a new baby is not the sleepless nights. I am a dog that needs my sleep. An uninterrupted 9 hours at night followed by at least one solid 4 hour nap and a couple of shorter naps is what I really prefer. When the Alphas bring a new baby home, it really interferes with my 9 hours of quality sleep. I start to feel the same way that Alpha Female starts to look. It's not pretty. At least I don't start to smell the way that Alpha Female smells. I'm not sure if the smell comes from the baby spit up plastered on her or from her giving up daily showers.

But I digress, I was talking about sleep, or the lack thereof. Surprisingly, with this new baby my sleep has not been impacted as severely as with the others. I am happy to report that last night and the night before, he only woke up once during the night! I hope I'm not jinxing it by mentioning it, I'm sure Alpha Female will make me start living outside if I mess this up for her. I think I know why he sleeps so well, though. I took this picture of him so that I can share his secret with other families out there. Alpha Female lets him read himself to sleep using her Kindle. He was reading Hemingway this night before he fell asleep.

Catching Up

2009-06-14T14:55:00.004-04:00

I don't like it when I have to start a post with an apology. I don't like it because it means I have been letting down my fans by not diligently reporting on the happenings in my family and I don't like it because it means admitting that I'm a bad dog. But I'm afraid that this apology is long over due as I have been very reticent in regards to sharing the recent goings on of my family. There is so much to catch up on that I'm not sure where to start.

I suppose I should start with more details about our new addition and his arrival. For about a month before he showed up, Alpha Female was pretty much useless around the house. She just sat around like an extra piece of furniture. If one of the Things asked her for something, she would send them to Alpha Male. And I don't think she had fed me or picked up anything off the floor since the end of April. She was really a pretty pathetic sight, huge, but pathetic. She laid in bed a lot and rolled around like a beached whale. It wasn't pretty. Her belly hung out from the bottom of her shirts. But I should stop airing all of her dirty laundry, just in case she ever reads my blog. And ever since the baby has arrived, she has been much better. She is finally starting to pull her weight around here again. I am happy to report that once again I am being fed regularly and we have clean laundry. Alpha Male is equally happy about her return to normalcy.

Along with the return of Alpha Female has come the addition of the baby. I'm not generally a fan of babies because they tend to make a lot of noise and don't give food offerings. This baby isn't that much different, he doesn't give food offerings and he does wake me up in the middle of the night. However, there is a silver lining. With the Alphas out numbered it is easier for me to get what I want from one of the Things. I have managed to teach Thing 2 that when she is done eating at the table, she can just "drop" the rest of her food on the ground for me. She is highly trainable. Also, I discovered that there has been a medical reason for my insatiable appetite. Well, actually Alpha Male discovered the tape worms crawling out of my body. The humans seem to think this is disgusting and have taken me to the doctor to "fix" the problem, but I liked the excuse to be able to eat more.

Now that I have three human children to report on simultaneously, I'm going to have to figure out something to call the new one. I don't think I can use "Thing 3" because there never was really a Thing 3 and I am a slave to authenticity. Luckily, lots of things come in threes so I should have plenty of choices. Maybe they could be the 3 little pigs.

Welcome Ian

2009-06-09T10:51:00.003-04:00

Ian Charles was born Sunday morning at 8:19, weighing in at 8 lbs. 3 oz. While Thing 2 is not at all impressed with her baby brother, Thing 1 has taken a surprising liking to him. She wants to hold him all the time and just looking at him makes her laugh.

Look at that, there is clearly room for two more!

Save the Drama for your Mama

2009-05-19T20:41:00.003-04:00

My goodness, Bubbles isn't even born yet and he is causing all kinds of drama around the house. Apparently most human babies turn head down in their mamas' bellies when they are about 32 weeks old. Bubbles decided to wait until he was about 37 weeks old to turn himself around. That means that for the last week and a half, the Alphas have been preparing themselves for a trip to the hospital to let the doctor make him turn, and if that didn't work, he would have had to have been surgically removed from Alpha Female's belly (also known as a C-section). Luckily, when they went for an ultrasound today to confirm that he was still breech in anticipation of going to the hospital later this week, they found that he had flipped over. After the Alphas gave each other big high fives, they took a peek at the little guy and it looks like he is doing fine and big enough to come out any day now according to Alpha Female. I can't wait to meet him and teach him how to feed me.

Chatty Cathy

2009-05-11T20:51:00.003-04:00

Thing 1 really talks a lot, especially at bedtime. I thinks she would stay up all night chatting if they would let her. The Alphas seem to be amused by most of the things she says, but I don't think they are funny. Like tonight when she told on me...again. Telling on me seems to be one of her new favorite things to do. Every night when Thing 1 goes to bed she brings a snack with her. It started as two raisins and progressed to jelly beans and chocolate chips at one point but it has recently receded to four grapes. And where there is food, I will be found. So after Thing 1 falls asleep, I like to go in her room and eat whatever food is left. (I wouldn't want the food to spoil over night and let her good food poisoning when she ate it in the morning.) The problem is that some nights it takes her a long time to fall asleep, so I've stopped waiting for her to fall asleep and have started going in to her room for a snack as soon as the Alphas leave her unattended. At first I think she enjoyed the company. However, tonight she ratted me out and screamed, "Noooo!" when I ate just one grape. And after she got more grapes, I went back in her room and she yelled, "Mommy, Gauss is sleeping in my room!" Most kids would love to have their loyal dog sleep with them. I have got to figure out a way to win back her trust. Maybe I should figure out a way to break into the Alphas' chocolate chip stash and share them with her.

Thing 2 is starting to talk a lot, too. The words she says best are "uh-oh" and "no." I'm not sure what that says about her, but I think it means that she might be a mischievous little troublemaker. I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Happy Birthday Thing 1

2009-05-04T20:05:00.002-04:00

Thing 1 turned 3 today. She helped make her birthday cake and birthday cupcakes and I heard Alpha Female offer her a job as a sous chef. I was happy to hear that, because as long as Thing 1 is helping in the kitchen I know I won't have to wait long for something edible to drop to on the floor.

Keep Your Head Down

2009-04-11T20:57:00.004-04:00

I haven't been hearing a lot about baby Bubbles at all during this pregnancy. I think the novelty of being pregnant has kind of worn off for Alpha Female. I guess when it comes to a pregnancy, no news is good news. If it wasn't for Alpha Female's ridiculously enormous girth I may have forgotten that she was going to have another baby, but recently she has actually been buying baby stuff. We now have newborn diapers and some formula in the house. I think we're ready to bring a new baby home. And the Alphas found out that Bubbles is head down so he must be starting to think about meeting us, too. I'm looking forward to meeting him. There's nothing like newborn spit up, yummy!

Wardrobe Changes

2009-04-07T20:09:00.003-04:00

Correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't Cher been known to wear about 50 different outfits during a single concert? I think that Thing 1 might be a little Cher in the making. In the world of two year old humans, I don't think it is that unusual that Thing 1 wears at least one normal outfit and one princess outfit during the day, then after her bath she puts on pajamas, but must change into a princess dress before she actually goes to bed. However, she brought it to a whole new level this morning when she woke Alpha Female up and demanded helping changing from her princess dress back into pajamas at 5:30 a.m. From the growls coming out of Alpha Female, I don't think she is a big fan of Thing 1's fashion decisions.

In the Dog House

2009-04-05T19:09:00.003-04:00

I am not a bad dog. I am an opportunist. When Thing 1 went out in the backyard alone while eating a piece of bread I saw an opportunity. I followed her around the side of the house where nobody could see us and I used my powers of persuasion to convince her to give me the bread. That's what really happened. Unfortunately, she decided to give the Alphas a different version of events. While we were still on the other side of the house, she started to cry. When Alpha Female came running, Thing 1 held up her hand and said, "Gauss, bit me." Of course, the Alphas believed her. Despite the complete absence of blood or, indeed a mark of any kind, I got dirty looks and had to listen to them tell me what a bad dog I am just because Thing 1 put her bread where I could reach it. And then to top off the humiliation, Thing 1 pointed her finger at me and sternly said, "We do not bite our friends." That made the Alphas laugh, but it made me wonder if it was OK to bite people who are not our friends...

Did Somebody Say Disney?

2009-03-27T14:53:00.003-04:00

The Alphas took Thing 1 to Disney World last weekend. That's right. The didn't take me and they didn't take Thing 2. The only one they brought to the happiest place on earth was Thing 1. The problem was that she didn't think it was the happiest place on earth. She thought it was the scariest place on earth. When Alpha Female went to Disney as a kid she thought there were only two scary rides, Space Mountain and Thunder Mountain; and Thunder Mountain wasn't really that scary. But it turns out she was wrong. Most of the rides are very scary, just ask Thing 1.

They started out on Snow White, Thing 1 had been looking forward to seeing Snow White, but as soon as she saw the evil witch stirring her cauldron she decided she would like to get off the ride NOW! And just in case you're wondering, the whole ride is scary. The brightly lit scene with Snow White traipsing through the woods while the dwarfs whistle and the birds sing never happens. After traumatizing her with Snow White, the Alphas thought that Small World would surely go over better. But they learned that when you're two and you've been one one scary ride, all rides seem scary. Even happy Small World. She was really glad to get off of that one. After the Tiki gods scared her in the Tiki room and Pooh's LSD dream freaked her out on the Pooh ride, the Alphas finally wised up and took her to the Country Bear Jamboree. At least she thought the Bears were funny. And she didn't think that getting chased by wild hippos was scary either. I think it's weird that she thought children dancing and singing were scarier than giant bears and wild hippos.

Doggy Abuse

2009-03-19T18:58:00.006-04:00

We all hear a lot about child abuse and we are starting to hear more about elder abuse. I feel like it is unnecessary for me to add more to the conversation about how terrible these things are. What I would like to do instead is spend some time focusing on areas of abuse that are less discussed, for instance parental abuse. That's right, when children abuse their own parents. This is not a topic that is discussed very often, in fact some people without children may deny that it even exists. But let me assure you that it does. And I suspect that it happens in every home with young children. Time will only tell if it continues as the children age. I feel no shame in admitting that I have witnessed parental abuse in my own home. And I'm not talking about mild parental abuse either. This is more than occasionally kicking Alpha Female in the stomach during a tantrum or biting Alpha Male when overcome with emotion. The parental abuse I've witnessed should be felony parental abuse. More times than I care to mention I've seen one of the Things covered in their own poop and smearing their poop on toys, walls, and sheets then forcing the Alphas to clean it up. I've also seen my own precious Things poop in the bathtub and force the Alphas to clean that up. Come on, how are you supposed to get a dozen pieces of poop that are just barely too big to go down the drain out of the bathtub? And how can you possible disinfect the Things that were in the bathtub when the contamination started? They were supposed to be in there to get clean, not to get covered in E. Coli! And the parental abuse isn't limited to poop torture, there is also the emotional abuse of Things screaming at impossibly high octave ranges for no apparent reason at all. Finally, there is the trusty standby of sleep deprivation. My Things have perfected this abusive technique by employing it only sporadically and at unexpected times, often giving no warning that they will attack on any particular night. Unfortunately, the Alphas seem to be suffering from Stockholm syndrome and will defend and declare their unconditional love for their abusers despite the terribly abusive relationship.

Another overlooked form of abuse that must be stopped is doggy abuse. I have experienced this somewhat in my own home, but lucky I've only been exposed to the misdemeanor levels of doggy abuse. The Things have ridden me, pulled my beard and eyebrows, and occasionally squeezed me a little too hard. But Alpha Female recently forwarded me an email that contained this most disturbing picture of doggy abuse. I feel that posting it here is a public service to protect others of my kind from this same cruel fate.

How Considerate!

2009-03-10T20:38:00.003-04:00

Alpha Female celebrated a birthday a few days ago. Thing 1 was so excited about it that she woke up just after midnight to come into Alpha Female's bedroom and wake her up to wish her happy birthday. I thought it was very thoughtful of Thing 1 but Alpha Female didn't seem to appreciate the nocturnal well wishing. In fact, she didn't even acknowledge Thing 1's presence; she just let Alpha Male take Thing 1 back to her bedroom. How ungrateful and rude!

And the excitement didn't stop on Alpha Female's birthday. The morning after Alpha Female's birthday, Alpha Female woke up around 5:00 a.m. and noticed there were a lot of lights on in the kitchen. She peeked her head out to see Thing 1 carrying a birthday cupcake over to the kitchen table with me close at her heels. Alpha Female decided that there was nothing wrong with a cupcake or two for breakfast as long as it meant she could go back to bed. About a half hour later, Alpha Male woke up and saw that all the lights on Thing 1's side of the house were on. Unfortunately, he actually left his room to investigate. He found us (me, Thing 1 and Thing 2) all awake and happy in Thing 2's room. Thing 1 was bringing cupcakes to Thing 2 in her crib and I was enjoying the messy eating habits of the Things. There was pink and blue icing on the floor, on Thing 2's sheets, on my back, EVERYWHERE. It was wonderful. I thought it was my birthday. I still think there is some blue icing on my back, I just wish I was flexible enough to clean it off. So much for the Alphas' bright idea that getting Thing 1 a big girl bed would help her stay in her room all night.

My First Human Brother

2009-03-03T21:03:00.003-05:00

Five years ago today the Alphas became parents for the first time. Today and everyday they remember my human brother, celebrate his life, and are thankful for all of time they have with their kids.

Walking Meatball

2009-03-01T19:04:00.005-05:00

The humans had a busy month. I was so overwhelmed with all of the blog topics that I could write about that I didn't write anything all month. Now I feel like a bad dog. So before the Alphas notice that I've been slacking in my blog duties, I'm going to try to catch up with all the exciting things that happened in February.

The Alphas started the month out with a bang by going to Gasparilla and taking the Things with them. Thing 1 got to play in her first street band with her cousin while she enlisted the help of a nice stranger next to her to collect beads and give them to her. (I've got to learn how she does stuff like that. It would be great if I could find somebody to collect cookies and then feed them to me!) Once he gave her the big pink beads, she gave all of the rest of her beads to her cousins and called it a day.

The family capped of that weekend by going to the state fair. Thing 1 got to ride her first carney ride and Thing 2 even got in on the action. Who'd have thought that going around in a circle on fire trucks would be so much fun? Thing 1 made sure to keep turning the steering wheel left so that the fire truck wouldn't jump off the track. I think she might become a Nascar driver one day with all that practice on left turns. The Things loved the carnival ride, but the Alphas did find it a little concerning that the carney worker just handed Thing 2 to the first person who asked for her when the ride was over. This was concerning because the person taking possession of Thing 2 wasn't Alpha Male or Alpha Female. The morale of the story is, never trust a carney.

Thing 1 also went in a fun house at the fair. I hear she enjoyed all of it except the part where she walked into a piece of plexiglass in the mirror maze. The morale of this story is always keep your hands in front of your nose when in a funhouse maze.

And what state fair experience would be complete without a visit to the animals? Thing 2 really liked petting the goats. Maybe she'll be a farmer when she grows up.

The humans also enjoyed Valentine's Day this year. The Alphas aren't big celebrators of the holiday (they say they show their love every day, isn't that disgusting?). So instead of getting a baby sitter or eating chocolate with each other, Alpha Female took Thing 1 to a wedding to celebrate Valentine's Day. And it was very special wedding, too. Cinderella got married! I would have thought that she would do it in her castle in Orlando, but instead she decided to get married in a little community center's multipurpose room. Thing 1 dressed up in her Cinderella dress and Cinderella slippers for the occasion and especially enjoyed the makeover and dance lessons she received after the wedding. Alpha Male, Thing 2, and I enjoyed staying home and napping.

Thing 1 and Thing 2 also enjoyed the long awaited opening of the new kids' area at the zoo. They hung out in the water for a long time. I think they will spend a lot of time there this summer. At the zoo, the Alphas learned that Thing 1 can count to four. (She was counting plastic turtles in the water.) She sounds really smart if you ask her to count to four. But don't ask her to count to five, because she'll blow her cover.

Finally, there is big news from Thing 2 this month. She is a walking machine! Along with her new found walking ability has come a new found eating ability. The Alphas have started calling her "Meatball." Not because she looks like a meatball, but because she loves to eat meatballs. She also loves to eat eggs, pizza, bananas, and just about anything else you put in front of her. I have taught her well, you can tell we're related!

Hyperbole

2009-01-28T20:44:00.004-05:00

When Alpha Female was little, around Thing 2's age, she used to keep a journal. Perhaps this was the inspiration for my blog. Now that I think about it her journal was very similar to my blog. Of course, Alpha Female is kind of old so this was long before blogs, or even desktop computers, were common. I guess she was ahead of her time. She also had remarkably good penmanship for a one year old. But I digress. In her journal she wrote about the things that were happening in her life, like her trip to Disney World when she was about a week old and what she got for her first birthday. In one of her journal entries she said that she had pork chops for dinner and that she ate a lot; more than her daddy.

I have always thought this was just Alpha Female exaggerating in her Alpha Female way. However, recently I have started to think that it was probably the completely accurate truth. You see, I've been watching Thing 2 eat. And she really does eat more than Alpha Male on most nights. She can put some food away! This is awfully disappointing to me because I depend on her sharing at least some of her food with me. Last night I think Thing 2 might have had more for dinner than Alpha Male, Alpha Female, and Thing 1 combined. I just hope she doesn't start stealing my food!

Notes from Jail

2009-01-19T20:08:00.003-05:00

I just stole bread from Thing 1's hand and now I am doing time for my misdeed. I am in lock up in the bathroom so that I can "think about what I've done." (It's kind of weird that there is a computer in here now that I think about it.) Anyway, I've decided to spend the time blogging, so it's really not a punishment at all.

Here is a question I have for everybody. When you are at a restaurant and a two year old is staring at you while you eat, do you think it's a little creepy? I've got mixed feeling about this. I tend to think it is a little creepy when a stranger stares at me silently. However, when I really think about it, some people may think that I do the same thing. Whenever a human in my family is eating, I watch the situation intently because you never know when food may drop to the ground. I suppose that could be interpreted by some as staring. The reason I ask is because the family was eating at a restaurant yesterday and Thing 1 was standing up in the booth staring at the couple eating in the next booth. She didn't say anything and she didn't smile or wave at them. She just silently watched them interact and eat. Of course, the Alphas took the path of least resistance and just let her do it rather than trying to teach her a life lesson about the impoliteness of staring. I know that if one of the Alphas were to behave that way, it would be very strange and creepy to everybody involved. I'm just wondering at what age this type of behavior is no longer acceptable. Maybe around that same time that it is no longer acceptable to run around naked. Does that mean that nudists get to stare at people no matter how old they are?

Accidents, or the Lack Thereof

2009-01-18T13:35:00.005-05:00

My family is just full of big news this weekend! On Friday, Thing 1 didn't bring a big bag full off pee pee clothes home from school with her. She didn't have one accident all day Friday! And no accidents yesterday or today either! In fact, today she hasn't even had a wet pull-up and she went pee pee in a public potty. The biggest surprise was when she walked out into the living room and said, "I did it!" When asked what she did, she told the Alphas that she had gone pee pee in the potty. The Alphas wanted to believe her, but you can't blame them for being skeptical. However, upon closer inspection, Alpha Female discover that the toilet seat did still have some wet pee pee on it, so Thing 1 must have been telling the truth. She went pee pee all by herself. She did it again when she woke up from her nap.

So I'm going to call it and say that she is potty trained, at least as far as the pee pee goes. It took her about 2 years and four months longer than it took me, but I'm still proud of her. Now if only she could stop the disgusting habit of going poo in the bathtub...

It's a....

2009-01-16T20:42:00.004-05:00

Since my initial announcement that there is going to be a new Thing around the house, I really haven't heard much more about it. The Alphas refer to it as Bubbles and Alpha Female is starting to get pretty thick around the waist. As the old doggie saying goes, she looks like she has been getting an extra scoop of food every day. However, today there was big baby news. We found out that we are going to be welcoming a little boy to the family. Everybody is very happy and excited about it. Alpha Male was quick to point out that, as long as they give me a vote, there will be as many boy votes as girl votes in the house. I wonder if that means we can get rid of some of the pink princess stuff that seems to be taking over around here.

Moldy Bread

2009-01-14T20:05:00.003-05:00

What happened to Thing 1?

Because I consider myself an educator as well as an intellect, I think that question can only be answered by journeying back through time to 1928. It was in that year that Alexander Fleming discovered the mold from which penicillin is derived. Over time, antibiotics received widespread acceptance for treating infections and have save many lives. Our journey through time ends in a pediatrician's office last week, more than eighty years after that landmark discovery. It was in this very pediatrician's office that Thing 1 was prescribed an antibiotic to treat an ear infection. The Alphas have been told that it was this antibiotic that led to Thing 1's horrific rash. Believe it or not, the rash is actually a lot worse than it looks in this picture. I think it's gross but it doesn't seem to bother Thing 1. In fact, she was enjoying an ice bath very much when this picture was taken.

Why the Double Standard?

2009-01-03T12:54:00.004-05:00

Thing 2 is making great advances with the potty training. She is now wearing mostly panties, or nothing at all, and I am seeing less carpet cleaner around. Today I decided to get in on the potty training and help her, and the Alphas, out some. She was wearing just her princess shirt (it was a full moon downstairs) and walking around outside eating a cupcake. She had just gone pee pee in the potty so the Alphas weren't being super vigilant. I decided this was the time to make my move.

I could tell just by looking at her that she had to poo. So I stepped off the patio onto the grass and showed her how it was done. She's no dummy, so she followed suit. When she was done, she walked up to the screen door and said, "Mommy, I poo poo outside." At first, I don't think Alpha Female quite believed what she was hearing, but then she walked over to investigate. I thought she would be so proud of me for teaching Thing 1 to go poo poo outside just like I do. Instead, she said, "Wow, you sure did poo poo outside. Thing 1, you should put your poo poo in the potty next time." Thing 1 was then whisked away for a clean up. The Alphas weren't appreciative at all. I never did get a thank you. Next time I won't let her do it on the patio, I'll make her move to the grass. Maybe the Alphas would appreciate that more.

Happy First Birthday Thing 2

2009-01-03T12:38:00.003-05:00

Life Lessons

2008-12-28T10:29:00.004-05:00

As I have journeyed through life, I have learned many things. Don't pee uphill. Don't chase a cat when you're on a leash. Eat whenever you get the opportunity. Generally, I think knowledge is a good thing. The more lessons I can learn, the better off I am. However, sometimes I learn lessons that I would rather not have learned because the price of learning is just too high (like when I learned I shouldn't jump off the bed to run outside and chase a possum the night after I had surgery on my reproductive organs). These lessons I would have been happy to live a lifetime without learning, but unfortunately that was not to be. Just yesterday the Alphas had a day full of those kinds of lessons.

Around 5:50 a.m., Alpha Female learned that if you pull apart a band-aid wrapper in the dark, the adhesive lights up as it separates. This lesson was confirmed at 5:51, 5:52, 5:54, and twice at 5:57. She also learned that if you pull the wrapper apart really quickly, the adhesive will glow for a little while. Nobody was hurt, there was no blood, but Thing 1 insisted she needed band-aids up and down her arms and one more across her nose. Alpha Female doesn't like getting up before the sun and would rather have been sleeping and never learned this interesting band-aid packaging fact.

Later that afternoon the Alphas learned that Thing 1 will actually eat chocolate and oranges until somebody forces her to stop. It seems it is physically impossible for her to get full if all she eats is chocolate and oranges. This didn't seem like such a hard lesson to learn when they initially learned it, but it occurred to them on the car ride home, pulled over on the side of the expressway, in the dark while cleaning chocolaty orange throw up off of Thing 1, Thing 1's carseat, and all the new Christmas presents that had been riding at Thing 1's feet that the chocolate-orange phenomena was a lesson they would have preferred to skip.

The Best Present Ever

2008-12-26T12:07:00.003-05:00

After getting an extra hour of sleep, a casserole dish, and a golf shirt from Thing 1 yesterday the Alphas thought that they could never get a better present from her. Boy were they wrong. Today she topped it all by going pee pee in the potty! It is a very exciting day around here.

And guess what! I was just about to post this and she did it again! I am so proud.

Merry Christmas

2008-12-25T21:02:00.002-05:00

What a magical Christmas. The Things started out right by giving the Alphas the best Christmas present of all, an extra hour of sleep! I got lots of food (even a present from a cat, thanks, Splinky!) and Thing 1 got everything she asked Santa for, candy. He came by on a firetruck on Christmas Eve to deliver it. It would have been a perfect Christmas if I had been able to keep down all the food I ate. Oh well, it tasted just as good the second time. I hope your Christmas was just as special.

Sign of a Rough Week

2008-12-17T19:33:00.004-05:00

When the end of the week rolls around and you have enough clothes soiled with throw up and poop to comprise an entire load of laundry, that's a sure sign that it has been a rough week. Not only because that stuff got on the clothes in the first place, but also because those clothes were allowed to accumulated instead of being washed right away. Gross! That was the kind of house I was living in last week.

One day, Alpha Female picked Thing 2 up from school and was sent home with a bag full of poo contaminated clothes due to a phenomena known as "diaper blowout." Alpha Female didn't feel up to dealing with it when she got home, so she threw the bag in the laundry room. When Alpha Female came to pick Thing 2 up the next day, she was greeted with a story about how the teacher thought that Thing 2 had knocked over a bucket of toys, but upon closer inspection no spilled toys were found and the noise was found to have come from another source. Again, Thing 2 came home with her clothes in a plastic bag and Alpha Female now had two bags of contaminated clothes waiting for her in the laundry room. The next day, Alpha Female got a call from Thing 1's school. Thing 1 had thrown up all over the place. Not a lot of detail was given, but sometimes that is the most effective way to make a point. Apparently this incident was precisely the sort of incident for which the term "projectile vomiting" was coined. At the end of the day, Alpha Female added a third plastic bag of clothes to her collection (this bag even included the socks and hair things that Thing 1 had been wearing). Then, on Friday, Thing 1 was in a Christmas play. At the after party, Thing 2 must have had a little too much to drink or something because now it was her turn to throw up all over Thing 1's school. Luckily Alpha Male was holding Thing 2, along with a plate of food, when this happened. The plate of food caught most of the mess and Alpha Male's clothes caught the rest. Fortunately, he was not stripped down and sent home with a plastic bag full of contaminated clothes, he was allowed to wear his contamination home like a badge of parenting honor. These clothes went in the washing machine to await cleaning. So when Thing 1 woke up Saturday morning covered in throw up, it was easy to just throw her clothes and sheets in the washing machine with Alpha Male's pukey clothes, empty the three other bags of clothes that had been waiting all week into the washing machine, and start a toxic waste load of laundry.
Fortunately, I never got the bug. I did try to help clean up Thing 1's mess the only way I know how but the Alphas made me stop licking it off the floor. I was just trying to help. I am happy to report that everybody is feeling better now and there is very little dirty laundry in the house, and no toxic laundry waiting in the laundry room.

Stop Me if You've Heard This One Before

2008-12-07T17:05:00.003-05:00

Because I've been absent from blogging for so long, I feel like I have to make a great comeback. So I've been waiting for a great post topic which I can use to make my comeback. Thankfully, the Alphas cooperated and I have big news to share. It took me a while to figure out what was going on around here, though.

I generally think of myself as a very intelligent schnauzer, I may have mentioned that before. However, there is one area of human development which I just don't seem to get. I think it may be because of a certain operation that the Alphas decided would be in my best interest. Anyway, for whatever reason, I seem to be a little dense about certain human activities. I will tell you this story as I saw it develop, but feel free to stop reading as soon as you figure out what is going on.

Back in October, Alpha Female wasn't feeling very well. She didn't want to eat much. Naturally, I figured that she had some worms. There's nothing like worms in your digestive track to make you want to stop eating. However, even though she wasn't eating, she wasn't losing weight and getting washboard abs like mine. In fact, just the opposite. The longer she went without eating, the rounder her belly seemed to get. And then Alpha Male started asking her is she felt OK. He would ask a lot. Then, I started to think that the lack of food was making her hallucinate because she would tell Thing 1 not to kick the baby when Thing 2 wasn't anywhere around and Thing 1 was just kicking Alpha Female's belly. By this time, I was starting to wonder if something very weird was happening again. Then Alpha Female told Alpha Male that Thing 1 needed to get potty trained because Alpha Female "wasn't going to have three of them in diapers at the same time." That really alarmed me. Had Alpha Male started wearing diapers? Or had I experienced urinary incontinence without realizing it? Finally, Alpha Female showed me this picture and I figured it all out.

We're getting a new Thing!!! I am expecting to be able to lick up more spit up milk around June 9. And it's about time, too. Thing 2 is getting very stingy with the Cheerios recently.

Flea Dip

2008-11-24T20:12:00.003-05:00

Guess who needs a new flea and tick collar? That's right, it's Alpha Female. You didn't think it was me, did you? Alpha Female had to ask Alpha Male to pull a tick off of her belly with tweezers. Now she knows what it feels like. You'd think it would generate some sympathy for how hard my life is, but that's not really the way it worked out. Alpha Female suffered a tick infestation and I was the one who got stinky, sticky medicine rubbed into my fur. How is that fair?
And Alpha Female isn't the only human in the house who is experiencing dog like symptoms. This weekend, Alpha Female and Thing 1 were hanging out on the sofa watching Sesame Street. Thing 1 climbed of the sofa and said, "Daddy coming home." Alpha Female always thinks she knows what's going on and she said, "No, Daddy's not home." But Thing 1 stuck to her guns and just repeated, with enthusiasm, "Daddy coming home!" As Alpha Female attempted to correct Thing 1 again, she looked out the window and saw Alpha Male's truck pull up to the driveway. How did Thing 1 know he was coming? Alpha Female asked her, but Thing 1 won't give away her secrets. Of course, I know how she knew. She must have super-sensitive doggie hearing and have been able to hear his truck from about a half mile away, or she could have super-sensitive doggie smelling and have been able to smell his truck from about a half mile away. My advanced doggie senses told me he was coming when he was still a whole mile away.

Endless Loop

2008-11-19T10:44:00.005-05:00

If you haven't had a rodent themed song running through your head for the past couple of days you either didn't spend enough time on the links in my last post or you have some kind of a super power. And because the links where hard to stay away from, I'm guessing it's a super power and I am jealous. I would love to not get song fragments stuck in my head, repeating day and night.
I think Thing 1 is starting to suffer from song fragment repetition, too. Last weekend Alpha Female and Thing 1 were coming out of the grocery store and Thing 1 starting singing "E-I-E-I-O, quack, quack, here, quack, quack, here, E-I-E-I-O, DOG!, woof, woof,..." She may not have had the words exactly right, but I bet that just makes it more annoying, because then you are trying to get the song out of your head while at the same time trying to remember the words to the song. That could create a downward spiral to drive a person crazy! It's probably even worse for her when she gets the alphabet song stuck in her head. When she sings that song, she gets the whole tune right, but mumbles her way through all but about 10 letters. It goes like this, "A, B, C, blah, la, la, la, G, la, I, blah, la, la, M, na, na, P, la, blah, na, T, U, la, blahblahbla, la, na, Z!, now I know my A,B,C, next time, blah blah na with la"

Hamster on a Piano

2008-11-16T08:28:00.003-05:00

I just found out something very interesting about Alpha Female. Well, at least it is interesting to me. Her favorite song is "The Hamster Dance" performed by Hampton the Hamster. I'm sure you've heard it at some point, it is an internet classic, but I didn't know that anybody really liked the song. I thought people just went to the website to watch the rodents dance and fantasize about chasing them around. That's definitely the only reason I spent so much time on the web in 2001. In fact, I thought I had broken my internet addiction to rodent watching, but then I stumbled upon this video. If you care to watch it, make sure you listen to the song, and don't worry, no hamsters were harmed in the production of this video.

Election Day

2008-11-03T21:14:00.002-05:00

I am a supporter of equal rights for dogs. I think dogs should be able to swim at the same beaches and play in the same parks as humans. However, I know that I have many opponents in my quest for equality for dogs and America isn't yet ready to take this step. Fortunately, there is another movement for equality that I strongly support and I think America is ready to support as well. Equal rights for homosexual couples is an idea that's time has come. Two people who love each other should be able to inherit from one another, provide health insurance to one another, and live together until death parts them, regardless of their gender. There is an Amendment to the Florida Constitution which is on the ballot and would prevent same sex couples from enjoying the same legal rights as heterosexual couples. This kind of discrimination should not be tolerated. People may pass whatever morality judgments they choose, but the government should provide equal protection to all. I urge you to vote no on amendment 2. If I had the right to vote, I would.

Products Liability Lawsuit

2008-11-02T14:48:00.002-05:00

Oh, no! She's not even looking, she doesn't know she's about to be hit by a bubble lawnmower!

Yikes! The driverless mower is totally mowing down her leg. I wonder why she's still smiling?

I'm so glad she is able to crawl away safely. That was a close call.

Bug in the Kitchen!

2008-11-01T08:00:00.006-04:00

This is how it went down last night, Alpha Male picked both of the girls up from school and everybody was waiting at home for Alpha Female to come home. When Alpha Female came through the door, instead of the customary, "Mommy!," she was greeted with, "I want more candy!" Over the next few minutes, the words "candy" and "cupcake" were mentioned about 2,459,827,343 times. I don't think it is too hard to figure out what went on at the Halloween party at Thing 1's school.
Then, during dinner, there was a lot of coaching. It went something like this:
Alpha Female: What do you do first?
Thing 1: Knock door
Alpha Female: Then what do you say?
Thing 1: Trick or treat!
Alpha Female: What do you get?
Thing 1: CANDY!
Alpha Female: What do you say?
Thing 1: Thank you!
It sounded like a good plan. She was thoroughly trained and I even saw practice runs to get the whole thing down. The failure was in the actual execution. Before somebody would answer the door Thing 1 would declare "Trick or Treat," but once there was an actual person standing in the doorway, she completely lost the ability to speak. A few trick or treats were coaxed out of her and a few more thank you's followed, but the good news is that everybody gave her candy even if she didn't talk.
What a difference a year makes. Last year Thing 1 had about three miniature chocolate bars and the Things thought she had just eaten SOOOO much candy! Last night, they didn't even keep track of how much candy she ate, they just kept giving her more every time she asked for it and she did work up the courage say to a neighbor, "I want more chocolate." That made the Alphas proud.

Just a Little Bit Redneck

2008-10-14T21:08:00.004-04:00

Thing 1 put herself to bed around 7:00, so I got off of food patrol early and finally got around to editing this video. The bad news is that I'm not in it very much, but I do make a cameo in the beginning. The good news is that I think Thing 1 may have a real future as a stunt person.

Thing 1's Laundry Basket Jump from gauss dogg on Vimeo.

Alien Planet

2008-10-07T20:03:00.008-04:00

Have you ever been somewhere and known that you were different than everybody else there? I don't mean like being the only Schnauzer in a room full of Great Danes. I mean more like being the only Schnauzer that likes to poo on nicely manicured lawns in a room full of Schnauzers with less discriminating toileting habits. The kind of different that you can't tell by looking, but goes so deep that you may as well not both be Schnauzers. Alpha Female had this experience last Friday. The way she tells it, she was the only normal mom in a room full of deluded moms, but I think if you ask any of the other moms that were there, they would say she was the only slacker mom in a room full of perfect moms.

It all started out very well intentioned, Alpha Female decided to take both Things to a Gymboree class. She thought that because it was a "family" class there would be other siblings there. That was the first thing she was wrong about. Every other mom there had only one child. Each of those children were perfectly dressed, their hair was brushed, and their faces were clean. In contrast, Thing 1 was sweaty and sandy from playing in the sandbox at school. Her hair was, well, let's just say "crazy." Thing 2 had boogers encrusted all over her face and Alpha Female was using Thing 2's shirt to wipe her nose. On the upside, they were both very well behaved. Thing 1 listened well to directions. She jumped like a frog, sang the songs, and played the instruments. She had clearly done all of this before at school and was enjoying herself and making Alpha Female proud.

After the class, Thing 1 wanted to play on the Gymboree playground. The problem was that sometime during the class Thing 1 had poo'ed her pants. Because Alpha Female is gross and that stuff doesn't bother her, she let Thing 1 play on the playground for a little while before deciding it was time to go change Thing 1's diaper. Thing 1 clearly didn't want to leave so, of course, Alpha Female started bribing her. She started with, "Let's go play with Daddy!" To which Thing 1 replied, "NO DADDY!!!!" It was at this point that Alpha Female decided she was going to have to act quickly to avoid humiliation in the form of a full scale temper tantrum in front of all the other moms. So Alpha Female did what any normal mom would do, she picked up Thing 2 in one arm and a very squirmy Thing 1 in the other arm and tried to get the heck out of there.

Alpha Female wasn't scared, she knew she could handle this. All she had to do was get the Things' shoes back on them and get out to the car. However, Thing 1 had other plans. When Alpha Female set her down on the floor to put her shoes on, Thing 1 shouted, "NOOO!," laid on her back, and pushed herself all the way across the room with her feet, like an inch worm, until she was huddled in the far corner, on her back, screaming random words. Alpha Female still thought she could deal with this. She just turned her attention to Thing 2, put her shoes on and figured she'd get back to Thing 1 after she calmed down a little bit. However, Thing 1's plans did not include calming down.

Alpha Female was trying to minimize the scene as much as possible because she could hear all the mother's of the perfectly coiffed children staring at her, judging her, and whispering, "My child would NEVER do THAT." After attempting to reason with Thing 1 for a few minutes, Alpha Female finally realized that was a dead end. She switched to Plan C and figured she could just carry Thing 1 out to the car without shoes on. Surely some empathetic mother would help open the door for her, I mean, every mom has been out in public at some point when her child has decided to have a completely irrational meltdown, right? So Alpha Female gathered her resolve. She gathered Thing 1's shoes and Thing 2 in one arm and reached down for Thing 1 with the other. She was wiggly and sweaty and loud, but no match for Alpha Female. Alpha Female got a good grip on her and was ready to wisk the commotion out the door, if just somebody would give a sympathetic look and offer to open the door for her.

At about this point, Alpha Female finally started to get it, she was not like the other moms at Gymboree. They all played classical music to their embryos, served only organic food, and thought that their children's language skills benefitted from counting to three in Portugese once a week at Gymboree class. Alpha Female doesn't own a CD player, bribes her child with chocolate, and has never bothered to learn Portugese. Now she was paying the price for these transgressions. Nobody was going to get the door for her. She'd have to manage on her own.

Somehow she did it. She held a smiling, oblivious nine month old and a shrieking, convulsing two-year old while turning a doorknob at the same time. Unfortunately, in doing so, her grip on Thing 1 started to slip, but at least they were outside, they were getting closer to the car.

Once outside, Thing 1's wails quickly alerted the whole neighborhood to the fact that there was a wild toddler in the vicinity. Just a few more feet to go and everybody could be safely strapped in the car. Alpha Female was clutching Thing 1 at about mid thigh height now. She had to set her down and readjust her grip to make it to the car. But how would she open the car door? Wouldn't Thing 1 dart away like a crazy person if Alpha Female took her hand off of her to open the car? Should she set Thing 2 down on the asphalt and keep a hand on Thing 1?

It was while Alpha Female was wondering these things that an angel appearred. An angel in the form of an employee of a running store next door. This wonderful, sympathetic, normal mom lent a hand by opening the car door and Alpha Female was able to throw Thing 1 in the back seat and close the door before she escaped. She was then able to strap Thing 2 in the car and come back to get Thing 1 strapped in to her carseat, normally a 10 second process, this time it took 10 minutes and several advanced wrestling moves. After a twenty minute car ride, with blood curdling screams coming from the backseat for half of it, they arrived at home.

I'm normally sad that dogs aren't welcome at all the places people can go, but I'm glad I wasn't invited to Gymboree with them. How embarrasing to be associated with a crazy family like that!

Quality, not Quantity

2008-10-03T21:03:00.002-04:00

Here is some video that is so boring, I'm guessing only grandparents can watch the whole thing. As a bonus, if you listen very closely in the beginning of the video, you can hear me shake my ears; now that alone may make this worth watching, but Alpha Male suggested that I post it so you can enjoy the high quality of the video. He's into that kind of thing.

Thing1 and Thing 2 from gauss dogg on Vimeo.

Guest Blogger

2008-09-26T14:24:00.002-04:00

I'm going to do something that I've never done before. I am going to allow a guest writer to post to my blog. This is unprecedented! By reading this blog, you are a witness to history. And here she is, Alpha Female, Esq.

Thank you, Gauss. I appreciate your magnanimity in allowing me to post to your blog. I promise to reward you by giving you a dog cookie tonight. I would like to take advantage of this forum Gauss has provided by thanking everybody for their support and encouragement over the last four years. Gauss was right, I did pass the bar exam and I was sworn in as a member of the bar on Wednesday. It's been a long road to get here and I couldn't have done it without the help and love of Alpha Male and so many family and friends. The time I spent in law school hasn't always been easy for us and I thank you all for the babysitting, encouragement, or kind thoughts you have provided to me. Heck, just reading this blog is a big favor to me because it keeps Gauss in a good mood. And with that, I'm going to hand it back over to Gauss.

Geez, Alpha Female...I'm sorry about Alpha Female's post. That is exactly why I don't allow guest bloggers, she promised me she wouldn't get all sappy. I've got to go spend a few hours barking for no apparent reason now so that she understands how upset I am with her over the inappropriate blog. I wonder if that means I won't get the dog cookie she just promised me?

The Results Are In

2008-09-21T20:14:00.004-04:00

I'm home all by myself right now so I can't be sure, but I think that Alpha Female just found out that she passed the bar exam! Alpha Female works about 10 minutes away from here, so I usually can't hear her while she is at work. However, as you may be aware, dogs have an exceptionally well developed ability to hear high pitched sounds and while I was taking my second nap of the morning, I was awoken by the sound of distant squealing. I'm pretty sure that I recognize the squealing as Alpha Female's excited squeal. And I do know that the bar results were scheduled to be released on the bar website today. So there you have it, I'm going to report that Alpha Female has passed the bar and then made a fool of herself at work by squealing like a little girl. I'm pretty sure that she's going to make us all call her "Esquire" now.

QUIET!

2008-09-21T20:01:00.003-04:00

Don't get me wrong, I like peace and quiet as much as the next guy. When the Alphas watch football, I have to go in the other room because it's just too loud. But there are some sounds that even a curmudgeon like me can't complain about. These are things like birds chirping in the morning, waves crashing on the beach, and babies babbling to their mommies. Well, actually, birds chirping in the morning drive me nuts. I hate it when those stupid birds wake me up. And waves crashing on the beach can be annoying too. I don't really like playing in ocean water. I'm afraid I'm going to get carried away to the Bahamas, and I hear that schnauzer is a Bahamian delicacy. I guess that just leaves baby babbling as the only sound that nobody can complain about hearing. At least I thought that nobody could complain about the sound of precious little Thing 2 sitting in the back of the car quietly saying things like, "ba ba ba ba" and "gu da geeee." It turns out that I'm wrong. There is at least one person who can complain about these sounds. It's Thing 1. When she hears this adorable baby babbling, she responds by placing her finger over her lips and saying, "Quiet!" I guess there was a really good song on the radio that she wanted to hear.

Why?

2008-09-18T22:10:00.004-04:00

Tonight, Thing 1 disappeared into the Alphas' bathroom for a little bit. Then she walked into the kitchen, looked at Alpha Female, made a little bit of a gagging sound and started spitting out ponytail holders. I counted them. She had six adult sized ponytail holders in her mouth. For some reason, she felt compelled to take them out of a drawer in the bathroom, cram them into her mouth, carry them across the house in her mouth, and then regurgitate them in front of Alpha Female. Why does she decide to do that, but not decide to tell an Alpha when she has poop in her diaper? Humans are weird.

Errors and Omissions

2008-09-13T21:35:00.003-04:00

Thing 2 would like for me to make it clear that she did not actually pee on the carpet. She leaves stuff like that to her sister. Thing 1 would like for me to make it clear that she did pee on the tile last night. She takes her job seriously.

Also, I think I might have been wrong about the infestation. It is possible that the skittering sound was the sound of Thing 2 army crawling across the living room. I didn't know this when I first reported on the incident, but it turns out that Thing 2 can crawl now. Who knew?

Third World Country

2008-09-13T12:43:00.002-04:00

Last night, the power went off around 6:00 p.m. Luckily, I had already eaten, but the humans all had dinner by candlelight. Thing 1 read a bedtime story with a flashlight. Then the Alphas got bored, so Alpha Female sent Alpha Male out to gather some ice cream while she stayed home and tried to decide whether burning strawberry, rose, cucumber, and cantaloupe scented candles all at the same time was a good idea. Alpha Male discovered that the ice cream store didn't have power, so they had sent everybody home and were closed. I think this is when the reality of life without electricity set in for the Alphas and they started to panic. After playing a game for a while and deciding that the candles made the house smell like a fruit stand, they decided to go to bed. There was some complaining about how hot it was in the house without A/C. I'm not sure why they were complaining, I'm the one wearing the permanent fur coat. Much to our relief, the power came back on at 3:00 a.m. However, when Thing 2 got up this morning, I think she was inspired by the evening without electricity and decided to return to a simpler life, a life in which babies don't wear diapers. So she took her diaper off. Now the house smells like fruit stand that a homeless person has converted into a bathroom.

I Think it Might be an Infestation

2008-09-11T21:22:00.004-04:00

Yesterday, Alpha Female was in the kitchen taking care of Thing 1. Thing 1 was saying things like, "mine," "I don't want it," "cheese," and "oh no!" So, naturally, Alpha Female was running around and catering to Thing 1's every whim and desire while I stood by and patiently asked for only one thing, to be fed on time. As dinner time came and went, we heard a skittering sound coming from the living room where Thing 2 was hanging out. It almost sound like something, or someone, crawled (maybe an army crawl) across the floor. Alpha Female went to check on the situation while I stayed in the kitchen on crumb patrol, so I don't know exactly what Alpha Female saw. However, I did hear Alpha Female say, "How did you get all the way over here?" Of course Thing 2 didn't answer her. (I don't know when Alpha Female will finally figure out that Thing 2 can't answer her questions.) Meanwhile, Thing 1 was busy using her fingers to scoop spreadable cheese out of a tub and I was busy watching the ground for globs of cheese. When Alpha Female came back in the kitchen, she asked Thing 1 what happened to the apple. Thing 1 only said, "eat." And when Alpha Male got home, the apple was still sitting on the counter and he asked the same question. To which Alpha Female responded, "I don't know, but you might want to ask Thing 1." What I can't figure out is why she didn't say, "You might want to ask Gauss." I know the answer! The only thing that can explain all of the weird events in my house yesterday is a giant bug invasion! First, the bugs snuck in and carried Thing 2 across the living room as a distraction. Then some other bugs snuck into the kitchen and mutilated the apple while we were all distracted. I just want the bugs to know that I'm on to them.

Dog Days of Summer

2008-09-08T21:05:00.004-04:00

Aren't dogs entitled to summer vacations? Don't let this get out, but I have a cat friend, and yesterday she mentioned that I hadn't been blogging very much. Then today my human grandmom said the same thing. Alpha Female then laid in to me about being lazy and to top it all off Alpha Male just asked me out of the blue if I had stopped blogging. I guess I'm glad that people have noticed that I've been on vacation, but, jeez, can't a dog get a little break? Every now and then I have to recharge my creative juices. And, just maybe, nothing worth mentioning has been happening in my house. Well, that's not likely, but it could happen.

To make up for my absence, let me catch you up on what's been going on here. Thing 1 has taken the keys off of Alpha Female's laptop...again. Alpha Female has replaced the keys on her laptop and she still doesn't always remember to close her laptop when she's done with it. One day last week, Alpha Female walked into her bedroom to find Thing 1 sitting on the chair in front of the laptop with a pen in her right hand and various pieces of paper scattered about the desk. Alpha Female watched her scribble on one piece of paper and then move to the next and scribble on that piece of paper, then Thing 1 typed a few words and went back to her random scribbling. That night, Alpha Female said to Alpha Male, "Don't you think it's funny that she thinks that is what I do all day, just make random scribbles?" Well, I for one, don't think it's funny, I think it is actually what Alpha Female does all day. Have you ever read a patent application or any other legal document? Anyways, I saved the note that Thing 1 typed and have included it in its entirety:

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ/ ?

cx

xc vbvgbbb,,.,,,, b

I couldn't agree with her more. By the way, Alpha Female thinks that Thing 1 managed to open up and write that message in an application that Alpha Female didn't even know was installed on her computer, seriously. What she doesn't know is that I'm secretly helping Thing 1 learn how to blog.

Locomotion

2008-08-31T12:27:00.001-04:00

Thing 2 may have been slow hitting some of her milestones, but now that she's started it seems there is no stopping her. I still don't understand why humans think they are so much smarter than dogs when puppies can walk shortly after birth and it takes human babies several months just to learn how to crawl, but that is the way of the world and I am learning to accept it. Thing 2 is now pushing up onto her hands and knees, I can't imagine it will be too much longer before she is crawling all over the house and trying to eat out of my dog bowl. I mean, wouldn't that be the first place you would crawl to? I can't imagine any place in the house that she would want to get to more than my dog bowl, besides maybe the Alphas' potty bowl.

Go Gators!

2008-08-30T14:36:00.002-04:00

Did I Mention the Teeth?

2008-08-20T19:00:00.003-04:00

After waiting for what feels like an eternity, Thing 2 has finally sprouted teeth! She's got two bottom teeth now and I expect more will soon follow. I say bring on the Cheerios!

Undisclosed Location

2008-08-20T10:01:00.003-04:00

You may have noticed that I don't like to share very much identifying information about myself, like where I live or what my family's real names are. This is because I'm afraid of covert operatives. You see, when you are as famous and intelligent as me, and your family won't hire a body guard to protect you, you must always be on the lookout for people who may kidnap you and force you to solve complex mathematical equations. I don't want to make this any easier for the hoodlums by telling them exactly where they can find me. However, I don't think I'll be giving away too much by saying that it has been raining here a lot lately.

People seem to have strong opinions about rain. Generally, I hear people say, "But it's good; we need the rain." However, I don't like rain, not one little bit. When it rains, my bathroom gets all wet and who likes to go potty when the toilet is soggy? It's just gross. The problem, as I found out yesterday, is that my bladder will only hold so much.

Here's the situation. When I woke up yesterday morning, I discovered that it had been raining most of the night. So I decided not to use the facilities, I could wait, or so I thought. A few hours later, Alpha Male came into Thing 1's bedroom and discovered a trail of warm fluid on the ground. Immediately he suspected Thing 1. "Great," I thought, he'll never figure out that it was me. However, when Alpha Male couldn't figure out why Thing 1 would take her diaper off, pee on the floor, and then put her diaper back on, he decided to ask her about the situation. And to my surprise, Thing 1 ratted me out faster than I could blink my furry little eyes. She pointed to the wet spot and said, "Gauss pee pee eeewwwwww." If you ask me, it's still not as gross as going pee pee on a wet toilet.

A-B-C Easy as 1-2-3

2008-08-10T20:55:00.004-04:00

You know what drives me crazy? It's parents who think that their kids are so great. These parents can just go on and on about how brilliant their completely average kids are, or how well behaved their monster children are, or how beautiful their perfectly ordinary babies are.

Dogs have a different relationship with the kids that they live with. We are much more objective than their parents. And do you know why nonobjective parents drive me crazy? It's because I know that their children could never be as smart, well behaved, or beautiful as my two Things. And because the dog is always a neutral observer, when I say that the Things are perfect, genius models, you know that it's not just my opinion, but actual fact.

We'll start with talking about how smart Thing 1 is. She knows all of her letters and she's only two years old! I'm talking Einstein material here. She's practically reading already. In fact, she can read if the word is "I" or "A." Have you ever heard of such a prodigy?

And don't even get me started on good manners, Thing 1 has great manners! Thing 1 says please without being asked and she even says thank you sometimes without being asked. She always turns on the best manners to get a free cookie and a free balloon at the grocery store. And just look at those table manners. Need I say more?

Finally, Thing 2 has got the good looks department covered. Just look at that face! And she's already learning Latin. She might give me a run for my money in our mental pursuits.

I am so lucky to get to live with two perfect little girls!

Memorable Days

2008-08-10T20:27:00.002-04:00

There are a few days in a dog's life that the dog will remember forever. For most of us, these are the day we come to live with our forever family, the day our forever family tells us we're going someplace to get "fixed" and we come home broken, and the day we discover that if we just do what our forever family asks us to do they will give us food. Of course, I remember all of these days (the day I got fixed I tried to run outside to chase an armadillo, it hurt), but I also can add another day to my list. That day would be yesterday. Yesterday was the first day that Thing 1 got out of bed all by herself and walked into the Alphas' room early in the morning and woke them up.

It seems that the Alphas thought it would be a good idea to move Thing 1 out of her crib. Of course, the down side to that is that Thing 1 now has free range of the house at any hour, just like me. She decided that 6:45 was a good time to wake up. I don't think the Alphas agreed with her, but they really didn't have a choice, so we were all up bright and early on Saturday. You sure can get a lot done if you start before the sun comes up. The Alphas came a long way in getting the house back in order after neglecting it (and me) all summer. I really appreciate that they took the time to give me a rawhide bone. Yum.

It's Over!

2008-07-30T21:25:00.000-04:00

the doggie hotel is awesome, they have wi-fi and alpha male is fantastic, he let me bring my laptop! alpha female finished the bar exam and she's wondering what she's going to do with herself now. I had better go now, they're ringing the dinner bell.

Good Omens

2008-07-29T16:27:00.002-04:00

Alpha Female had a good omen on her way to take the bar exam yesterday. She was at a gas station just minding her own business and paying over $4 a gallon for gas when a local guy started chatting her up. When he asked her if she was married, she knew that he really was hitting on her. This hasn't happened to her in a long time and she seemed pretty excited about it. I think she's afraid that she's getting too old and she has had too many kids to be hit on. This guy, we'll call him Bubba, asked her why she was going to Tampa and when she told him it was to take the bar exam, Bubba looked very impressed and said, "So, you're going to be a bartender, eh?" He wasn't as interested when he found out she just wanted to be a lawyer, but he still asked her out to lunch. I'm just wondering, why did he ask her if she was married if he was still going to ask her to go to lunch?

After that auspicious beginning to her bar exam adventure, things got less exciting. She's now halfway through the exam and hoping that she won't be back to take the exam again in February. She's also hoping that tonight she'll have fewer dreams about not showing up for the exam on time.

I'm going to the doggy spa tomorrow and I'm going to spend the weekend there hanging out with the other dogs. I'm not sure if they have Wi-Fi there and I'm not sure if Alpha Male will let me bring a laptop with me, so I might be out of touch for a few days.

Happy Birthday to Me!!!

2008-07-28T08:01:00.003-04:00

It's my birthday, it's my birthday, it's my birthday! I got the best birthday present ever! A whole bag of rawhide bones. That should keep me busy for awhile.

Alpha Female and the Things were packing up yesterday and it looks like they are leaving the house for awhile. Alpha Female's bar exam starts tomorrow. I can't wait for her to be done with it so that things can get back to normal around here. She has completely stopped cleaning the house and hasn't been spending nearly enough time with us. It'll be nice to have her back, I just hope she passes so we don't have to go through this all over again in February. I heard Alpha Male tell her that if she doesn't pass, she'll have to go live in the garage. If that happens though, he did promise to get her a window A/C unit. I thought that was considerate.

Life After the Bar Exam

2008-07-23T11:57:00.005-04:00

If you listen to Alpha Female talk, you might believe that the only important thing going on in the whole world now is her studying for the bar exam. However, if she wasn't so self involved, she might notice that life has been going on all around just the same as usual while she's been studying. Sometimes, I hear her say things like, "What am I going to do with myself when this is all over?" I have a couple of suggestions for her. She could resume some of the activities she did before she started studying. She should start with clearing out some of the science experiments that have been growing in the refrigerator. How long do you think it takes for a piece of corn to be covered in blue, furry mold? Even I wouldn't eat that! I guess I shouldn't be so quick to criticize. Maybe she has a plan...maybe she's going into the pharmaceutical business and is growing her first batch of penicillin.

And in totally unrelated news, here is a picture that I like a lot because, if you look very carefully, you can see me! I'm not sure if the picture was taken during potty time or story time.

Things My Family Learned Today

2008-07-20T17:37:00.006-04:00

First, let me give you some background. Alpha Female had the option of taking the essay portion of the bar exam on a laptop. Of course, she went with that option and was required to qualify her laptop for use during the exam. The time to qualify a laptop is over. That means that now she must either use her current laptop for the exam or else write out the essay answers in blue books. Alpha Female is a terrible hand writer. She is convinced that hand writing will probably cost her several points on the exam. It would be impossible to overstate how glad she is that she is able to use a laptop for the bar exam. Also, Thing 1 likes to sit in Alpha Female's chair and play with the laptop.

Now I can get to the point and tell you what I saw today. Thing 1 had been playing in the Alpha's bedroom quietly for several minutes. That alone should have let the Alphas know that trouble was brewing. Alpha Female checked on Thing 1 and saw her sitting at the laptop, so Alpha Female closed all of her applications and opened a text editor so Thing 1 could type her innermost thoughts. Alpha Female then came back into the living room and sat down with Alpha Male to watch the Tour de France. Next, Thing 1 came into the living room and handed Alpha Male the 'enter' key. Alpha Male set it on the side of the sofa and kept watching TV. (That's when I knew this wasn't going to end well.) Thing 1 went back into the bedroom. A couple of minutes later Alpha Male got up to check on Thing 1. Alpha Female could tell something was very wrong and came running. The laptop's keyboard was lying in pieces all over the desk! For the next several minutes all I heard was Alpha Male saying, "It's toast" and "You shouldn't let her play with your laptop" and "It's ruined." Meanwhile, Alpha Female visibly struggled to not have a nervous breakdown.

The good news is that we took this as a learning experience and learned:
1. You should not let a two year old play with a laptop.
2. If you are very patient, it is possible to stick most of the keys back on a keyboard.
3. There are a lot of keys on a keyboard that you never use and don't even really need.
Who knew?

Happy Anniversary to Me

2008-07-15T16:01:00.003-04:00

Today is the first anniversary of my blog! Over the last year I have enjoyed sharing with you all of the happy, exciting, strange, and gross things that have been happening in my house. Over the next year, I am looking forward to sharing with you Alpha Male's first hole-in-one, Alpha Female's passage of the bar exam, Thing 1's success in going pee pee in the potty, Thing 2's first steps, and my acquisition of a lifetime supply of doggie cookies. I'm sure lots more will happen, too. I'll be sure to share. Thanks for reading!

Weigh In

2008-07-14T15:43:00.002-04:00

Thing 2 had her six month well baby check up today. She is really packing on the pounds! At 15 lbs. 14 oz., she has just about four more pounds to gain until she catches up with me. Maybe when she weighs as much as me Alpha Female won't think it's funny to put her on my back and watch me give baby rides. And she wonders why Thing 1 still tries to ride on me....

Parade = Candy

2008-07-04T14:46:00.004-04:00

I know that the Fourth of July was more than a week ago, and some people may think that was so long ago that it is untimely for me to be blogging about it now. However, around here, a week isn't such a long time anymore. It is unbelievable how busy Alpha Female has kept me while she is studying for the bar. She has banished me from helping with the substantive studying because I just couldn't understand why she wasn't getting more questions right. Law is just intuitive to me, but sometimes I forget that I am an exceptionally smart schnauzer. So, since I can't help her study anymore, I am trying to help around the house more. I specialize in cleaning the floors. Tonight I helped by licking spaghetti sauce off of the tile and earlier this weekend I tried to help clean up a box of spaetzle. I'm German, so I love spaetzle. When I noticed that somebody had dropped a box on the floor, I thought that I would be helpful and clean it up. I had just finished shredding one corner of the box into little pieces and was about to eliminate the need for the Alphas to pick up any actual spaetzle when Alpha Female came by and picked up the box herself. I mean, does she want my help or not? If she had just waited a few minutes longer, I would have devoured the spaetzle and all that would have remained of the box would have been tiny little pieces of cardboard, so little that they just would have blended in to the rest of the junk that's laying around this house. I'm just trying to be helpful.

Anyway, back to the Fourth of July. The Things went to their first Fourth of July parade this year. I wasn't invited to come along, the Alphas told me it would be too hot in my fur coat, but it sounds like it was fun. Once Thing 1 realized that people were giving her candy and jewelry, she started waving her flag and batting her eyelashes at everybody. At one point, she was eating three lollipops at once! I'm not sure what her political leanings were before the parade, but I'm pretty sure that after the parade, she'd vote for anybody who gave her a lollipop or a beaded necklace.

Happy Un-Birthday, Thing 2

2008-07-02T19:42:00.003-04:00

Thing 2 is six months old today. It's hard to believe that she's been around that long and she's still not feeding me cheerios. She's also not sitting up by herself and she doesn't have any teeth. I don't know what she's been doing the last six months. I think I'm going to put her on a training schedule and make sure that she's more productive in the next six months that she has been for the last six months. Starting tomorrow, she's no longer going to just get by on her good looks.

While Thing 2 has been totally slacking and goofing off, at least Thing 1 has been making some big strides. Today Alpha Female showed up to bring Thing 1 home from school. Thing 1 put her toy away, and as if that wasn't exciting enough news, she walked over to Alpha Female and said, "I'm ready!" This may not be a big deal for most two year olds, but I don't think Thing 1 has ever put two words together before. I can't wait until she says, "Eat this, Gauss."

Later this evening, the Alphas were giving the Things baths and started talking about Thing 2's un-birthday. Thing 1 then started to sing "Happy Birthday." I'm not kidding, I heard her with my own ears (even though I was staying far away from the tub so that I wouldn't be accidentally splashed). She kind of muttered something unintelligibly, but I could tell she was singing. Then I heard her say, "to you" after more unintelligible babbling, I heard her say, "to you" again. It was easy to hear her singing because the Alphas were both shocked into silence. Even Thing 2 stopped her random jabbering in order to listen to her sister sing to her. I can't wait to hear her sing to me on my birthday in just a few weeks.

Thing 1, You May Not Ride Gauss

2008-06-27T16:38:00.007-04:00

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

2008-06-15T13:12:00.002-04:00

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!!!

2008-06-10T20:19:00.003-04:00

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

2008-06-07T20:25:00.003-04:00

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

2008-06-06T19:09:00.003-04:00

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!

2008-06-03T11:41:00.001-04:00

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

2008-06-01T15:54:00.004-04:00

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.

A-P-T-Y-A-L-I-S-M

2008-05-29T09:01:00.003-04:00

The Scribb's National Spelling Bee was broadcast over the weekend. In many families, this event may have passed with little or no notice. However, in this family, it was cause for great excitement. It seems that the Alphas have an unusual fascination with spelling bees. Perhaps it stems from an incident when Alpha Female accidentally said "w" instead of "y" when spelling "boy" in a second grade spelling bee. Or maybe the roots of this fascination took hold when Alpha Male rented a documentary about spelling bees and the Alphas watched that movie during the emotional time when they were in the hospital waiting for my human brother to be born. It seems, regardless or how it was acquired, the Alphas' interest in spelling bees is here to stay. When they saw that the finals were being televised live Friday night, there was no more question about what to watch on TV that night. What could be better than watching middle school kids have their dreams crushed because they spelled a word with an extra "e" on the end?

I usually find that spelling bee words are pretty obscure and have a hard time imagining how any of the words could possibly be used outside of a textbook. But then I heard the definition for the word "aptyalism." Finally, a word I could relate to. Well, I can't really relate to "aptyalism," but I did know immediately that Thing 2 did not have it. Absolutely the contrary in fact, if you look up "aptyalism" in a thesaurus, I bet Thing 2 is listed as an antonym. Aptyalism means a lack of saliva. Thing 2 can soak through several outfits a day with her copious output of saliva. Maybe next year the spelling bee will teach me the word for excessive saliva. Until then, I'll just use the term anti-aptyalism and I will try to use it as often as possible when I am describing Thing 2's incredible saliva talent.

Thing on Thing Interactions

2008-05-25T17:57:00.003-04:00

When Thing 2 first made her appearance in our house, the big question was, "How is Thing 1 handling it?" The Alphas were pleasantly surprised to be able to say that Thing 1 was doing just fine with the introduction of a new Thing to the family. What the Alphas failed to take into account was that Thing 1 was doing so well because Thing 2 couldn't do anything yet. Why would Thing 1 feel any animosity toward a baby that just lays around and sleeps? Now that Thing 2 is starting to seem like more of a person to Thing 1, Thing 1 is starting to have some adverse reactions to her.

Until recently, the Things would usually bathe simultaneously, but separately. Thing 1 would get the big tub (and all of Alpha Male's attention), while Thing 2 was relegated to the tiny baby bathtub sitting on the counter (and the less desirable attention of Alpha Female). However, because Thing 2 is such a piggie and eats all of her food without sharing any with me, she is getting way too big for such a tiny bathtub and the Alphas have started bathing the Things together. Bathing Thing 2 in the big tub can be tricky enough in and of itself, because it requires leaning over the side of the tub and supporting Thing 2's head while the rest of her body floats around. This is harder than it sounds, because her huge thighs tend to make her very buoyant and the real trick is trying to keep her from floating out of your hand (or paw, as the case may be). Adding to the challenge of this task is Thing 1's reaction to her sister. When Thing 2's leg floats over to Thing 1 and touches her, Thing 1 appears to be disgusted and protests, "no, no!" The same scene (minus the naked, floating baby) plays itself out over and over again in our house whenever Thing 2 gets her hands on a toy that Thing 1 decides she then wants to play with.

This good news to come of this is that I think I am Thing 1's favorite. When I took a bath with her, she didn't push me away. However, she did need to take another bath after I got out of the tub because I dirtied the bath water too much. It's good to be the dog!

Graduation Day

2008-05-25T10:56:00.003-04:00

Even though Alpha Female finished law school last December, she didn't have a graduation ceremony until last weekend. She told me that the only reason she wanted to go to the ceremony was so that she could have this family picture taken.

Now that she has officially graduated, she has also officially started preparing for the Florida bar. I think that is going to keep the whole family busy for most of the summer. I'm going to have to help her study a lot and give her lots of pointers and motivation, it might even cut into the time I currently devote to blogging. Alpha Male is going to have to learn how to do laundry, a skill he seems to have lost during the last nine years. Maybe Thing 1 can contribute by learning how to go pee pee in the potty. And Thing 2 can help out by learning how to hold her own bottle. We are already looking forward to July 31, the day after the bar exam.

Roll Over

2008-05-06T19:30:00.002-04:00

Thing 2 learned a new trick. She can roll over. Thing 1 isn't very impressed with Thing 2's newly found talent. When the Alphas make a big deal about Thing 2 rolling over, Thing 1 gets down on the ground and shows us that she can roll over too, and she expects the same kind of applause that Thing 2 gets. Unfortunately, rolling over isn't that impressive once you're two, or if you're a dog. I don't even get cookies anymore when I roll over.

Personal Penguin

2008-05-06T07:51:00.008-04:00

Yesterday, as I was alternating between dozing and observing my family, it occurred to me that Thing 1 really, truly believes that Alpha Female serves no other function than to cater to Thing 1's every whim. Alpha Female had been doing something other than doting on Thing 1 (she was probably giving some attention to Thing 2 for a change). When Thing 1 was finally able to get Alpha Female's attention, the Thing grabbed her by the finger and dragged her into the kitchen. This happens all the time and I love it. Usually Thing 1 then demands that Alpha Female open the cupboard door so that Thing 1 can browse for food options. Often times, Thing 1 will toss me a box of raisins while she is selecting something for herself. I love raisins. However, this time was different. Thing 1 stopped in front of the refrigerator and requested that Alpha Female fill up her teacup with water from the refrigerator door. Alpha Female complied, like a good little servant, and she thought she would be free to go once the cup was filled. However, Thing 1 had other ideas. She actually tightened her grip on Alpha Female's finger to ensure that Alpha Female would not slip away. Thing 1 then leisurely drank her water and received several refills before taking Alpha Female to the cupboard to stand by while Thing 1 picked out a snack. Thing 1 then took Alpha Female to her toy kitchen. I fell back asleep then so I don't know what happened, but I bet Thing 1 made Alpha Female pretend to do the dishes and clean up Thing 1's kitchen while Thing 1 relaxed and ate her plastic ice cream cone. I wish I could have my own personal servant.

Happy Birthday, Thing 1!

2008-05-05T07:38:00.004-04:00

Yesterday was Thing 1's second birthday! I was so busy looking for chocolate cake crumbs that I didn't get a chance to post this picture yesterday. Thing 1 had a great day. I'm not very happy with her birthday presents though. She got a kitchen and she seems to enjoy pretending to cook and licking the plastic ice cream cone. However, I am not enjoying all the pretend food. Why can't the Alphas let her play with real food? I'm very good at helping her clean up. She got another troubling toy, too. An animated stuffed dog. Am I getting replaced?

It's Official

2008-05-01T08:50:00.004-04:00

I didn't want to say anything about this before because I was afraid that if I mentioned it, it might not be true. But it is true. Thing 2 sleeps all night without waking up! That's 12 hours in a row! I had forgotten what it was like to not have to get up in the middle of the night and protect Alpha Female while she fed Thing 2. I don't know how my birth mother did it with seven puppies at the same time, and my father wasn't even around to help her!

Tonguey McGee

2008-04-26T20:47:00.005-04:00

I'd like to devote this entire post to Thing 2 because I feel she's been getting short shrift. As one of seven puppies born in a litter, I know what it's like to not get all the attention you deserve. And Thing 2 does deserve a lot of attention. I'll fill you in on some of her latest developments.

We call her Tonguey McGee sometimes because she likes to just stick her tongue out a lot. Unfortunately, I think that this contributes to her drooling problem. And while I don't want to hurt her feelings, somebody should tell her that it's a problem when your drool soaks your clothes all the way down to your belly button.

Besides her fascination with her tongue, she has also a fascination with her hands. Who can blame her? If I had hands, I'd stare at them for hours, too.

And just today, Tonguey McGee seemed awfully interested in watching Alpha Female eat, so Alpha Female gave Tonguey some cereal for the very first time. She caught on to that pretty quickly and wolfed down quite a bit. If I wasn't devoting this entire post to Tonguey, I'd tell you that Thing 1 enjoyed giving Tonguey spoonfuls of cereal, but Thing 1 gets plenty of my press coverage already, so I'll leave that part out. I'm just glad to see Tonguey eating solid food, that brings her one step closer to being able to feed me. I offered to help clean her face off after her cereal encounter, but I was turned down.

That's all the Tonguey news I have for now, when she starts doing some new tricks I'll fill you in.

Do You Want to Eat More Oranges out of the Potty?

2008-04-23T19:59:00.002-04:00

Thing 1's new favorite bowl is also a doll potty. In fact, I think it was a doll potty before she turned it into a bowl. That is why I heard Alpha Female say, "Do you want to eat more oranges out of the potty?" I still think that's a gross thing to say. What if Thing 1 decides to get literal one day and drops an orange into the real potty? It won't be so funny while Alpha Male is fishing the fruit out of the commode. And I'm sure that would be the male's job.

And how often do you get to hear Alpha Male say, "I hope that's the baby pee'ing on me?" I think it had something to do with Thing 1 playing with her baby doll in the bathtub. Alpha Male was hoping for baby pee, instead of Thing 1 pee, while he was carrying a naked Thing 1 and her baby out of the bathtub.
As it turns out, it was Thing 1's lucky day and it was just baby pee.

And check out Thing 1's shoes in this picture. Those are some pretty awesome sparkly silver shoes!

The Country's Oldest City

2008-04-18T10:11:00.003-04:00

Monday was the humans' last day of vacation and Thing 1's fourth day in a row without a nap. She wasn't interested in learning anything about the history of St. Augustine. All she wanted to do was to eat M&M's and walk up and down these stairs. So, in the interest of family harmony, that is pretty much all the humans did in St. Augustine. Thing 1 was happy to get in the car to come home. And she was very happy to go to sleep in her on bed on Monday night. She's still recovering from her weekend without sleep. We all really enjoyed our vacations, but I wouldn't recommend letting a 23 month old go four days in a row without a nap. It's not pretty.

A Day at the Farm

2008-04-16T15:29:00.004-04:00

The humans spent Sunday at a friend's farm. Farms aren't really my thing. On the city dog/country dog spectrum, I'm much more of a city dog. Some might even say that I'm metrosexual. The farm experience was pure country and the hidden redneck in Alpha Female loved it. She thinks there might even be a little bit of redneck hidden behind Thing 1's princess facade.

There were lots of animals at the farm and Thing 1 enjoyed feeding them all. The animals must have thought that she was the devil and had come to torture them because she liked to pick up just one piece of corn at a time and stick it through the fence for them to eat. I'm pretty sure that goats, sheep, horses, llamas, and donkeys, like dogs, prefer to get their food in larger quantities.

There was one goat in particular that must have really disliked both Alpha Female and Thing 1. This goat was the legendary "fainting goat." When goats like her are startled, all of their muscles tense up and the goat will fall over, giving the appearance of fainting. Of course, Alpha Female thought that this was hysterical and she and Thing 1 chased that poor goat all around while they yelled, "Baaaaa! Baaaaaa!" in order to make her faint. Why do humans think that animals are some how impressed when humans make animal sounds? All of you humans should now, it just makes you look ridiculous. In fact, I hear that there is some video of Alpha Female and Thing 1 looking ridiculous as they chased that goat. I will show it to you soon.

Besides tormenting the poor animals, the humans also went on a truck tour of the farm and got stuck in the mud. Luckily there was a tractor back in the barn that was able to pull them out. It just doesn't get any more authentic than that.

Gators Say Touchdown

2008-04-15T17:51:00.004-04:00

When I'm staying at the spa, sometimes a yippy little terrier or a nervous chihuahua comes in. Whenever I see a dog like that I think, I hope he is not rooming next to me. I don't want to have to be right next to all the noise. I hear that humans experience a similar thing when getting on an airplane, humans don't want the noisy little kids or the stinky people sitting next to them. Well, on Saturday, my family was the family that you don't want sitting next to you.

They went to Gainesville to see the spring Orange and Blue game. It is quite a production and takes some preparation to get both of the Things ready to go to a football game. Thing 2 was strapped to Alpha Female's chest and they had a bulging diaper bag. As they walked towards their seats, Thing 1 started to whine a little bit and Thing 2 started to cry because she wanted to go to sleep. They could feel people looking at them and pleading with their eyes that my family not sit next to them. Unfortunately, somebody has to be the loser in that situation and on Saturday it turned out to be a college kid that they sat behind and Thing 1 kept leaning on. She was kept happy for most of the first half by drinking red Gatorade straight from the bottle. She thought it was delicious, but a little messy.

They left the game just before halftime and went to get something to eat. Once again they were scorned. The college kids had no sympathy for poor Alpha Female trying to push her double stroller through a crowd, while simultaneously trying to feed Thing 2 and get Thing 1 to rest instead of whine. However, Alpha Female got the last laugh when she changed both of the Things' diapers on a bench in a public space. They said they had fun at the game, but it sure sounds like they felt old; there's no denying that they're no longer young college kids.

Gamblers Anonymous

2008-04-15T12:49:00.006-04:00

Wow, what a weekend! I spent Friday through Monday at the spa and it was great! All the food I could eat, six walks a day, and free singing lessons. I showed off my newly honed singing talents by howling the whole car ride home from the spa. I've always been a good singer, but when I come back from the spa I feel free to express myself more frequently.

While I was at the spa getting some doggie pampering, the humans were doing some stuff that they said was fun but can't possibly compare to my awesome weekend because their weekend didn't include nearly enough napping. In fact, they were so busy doing things other than napping that they still haven't told me about their entire weekend, just the first day. As soon as I hear about the rest of their weekend, I'll share it with you, but for now I'll just tell you what they did on Friday.

Friday was a momentous day in the life of Thing 1. It was the day she met Chuck. The Big Cheese. Chuck E. Cheese. What a fantastic place that was. Thing 1 couldn't stick the tokens in the games fast enough. She wasn't really into playing the games, she left that to the Alphas, but she sure did enjoy walking around with her bucket of coins and feeding them to the games. I suspect that Chuck E. Cheese might have a gambling problem and his chain of restaurants is just a way to get young people interested in gambling. From what I heard about her trip to Chuck E. Cheese's establishment, I have strong suspicions that 70 years from now you may be able to find Thing 1 sitting in front of a slot machine in Atlantic City. At Chuck's place though, nobody leaves empty handed. Thing 1 got to trade in the tickets she earned for some lovely jewelry and a lollipop. It might have been the best day of her life.

Cruising with the Big Cheese himself. Next stop Vegas!