house guest

About a month ago, my brother moved down to the bay area. It's been about 15 years since I've lived close to family (mine anyway, G's family is all here in the bay), so I of course immediately thought about getting together on weekends, holiday visits, driving up to my parents together . .. Before he was even down here, my brother jumped on the other time honored benefit of having family close by: taking advantage of my presence to babysit his puppy for ten days. Being the masochist that I am (and thinking of how nice it would be to have my brother owe me big time), I said yes.

So meet our adorable but pesky house guest, Porter.

He's a total doll, but (and I say this with love), he's a puppy. And it's been a while since I've had a puppy. Actually, I've never quite had a puppy like this one. Mia, for all her faults, was never hyper. Tucker was in some ways but he was mostly G's problem for a long time, although I'd like to believe that I was the first to begin to calm him down (with lots of exercise, which I had all sorts of time for back in those days).

Porter on the other hand has lots of energy, and I definitely don't have the time that I used to. He plays like there's no tomorrow, particularly in the mornings. Our guys like to lay around for as long as possible, he's ready to go the moment G gets up for work. G lets him out but it's usually a while before I'm done nursing and getting the baby back to sleep. So he wanders around listlessly during that hour or so after G takes off for work and before I'm ready to give the dogs any attention. The first morning, G left him outside with the dog door open. When he was bored outside, I suddenly started hearing scratching and pawing at the glass door, with the evidence of paw prints found later that were much higher than any of our guys can jump. I was in the middle of nursing so had to just sit there and listen to him for another 20 minutes or so. When the pawing didn't work, he moved on to whimpering and barking. While he seems to be just fine using the dog door when he wants (like when all 4 dogs get crazy for something outside and rush out there like mad men, with the dog door clanging loudly behind each one -- that happens most often when the baby is asleep and I've forgotten to lock the door. That's been a fun one cuz it almost always wakes the DZ up, and I think it's happened at least once a day this week. To be fair, that happens when it's just our guys too, so that's not Porter's fault), when I can't get to the door is when he forgets how the dog door works, it seems.

Yesterday, G just left the back door open and he raced in and out every so often to see if any of us had changed our minds about going out. Plus, I think he managed to get Mia to finally play with him a bit, but of course they did it inside instead of out. So imagine two decent sized dogs running around, banging into the stereo system and coffee table with their tails. And of course me being in the bedroom feeding the kid, so I couldn't do any more than yell at them from a distance. Today, I thought went reasonably well as Porter mostly hung out either in one of the dog beds or on our bed all morning watching me nurse. I'm still not entirely sure when he found the time to get into our bathroom trash and leave pieces of tissue lying around all over the house. Since I've had a runny nose the last few days, there were lots of tissues in there and I'm not convinced I've found all the pieces he's left around yet.

And I guess that's the other thing I'm not used to anymore -- having to keep an eye on a dog. Our guys all take off now to their various corners and I see it as a blessing (because they can't fight). With Porter, it makes me nervous. Most of the time, when I go looking for him, he's perfectly fine: sleeping in the guest bed, his crate, the dog bed outside, our bed, or in one of the other dog beds strewn about the house. Another favorite spot seems to be just behind the living room couch in front of the entry way table. And several times, when I've called his name, he's jumped up and looked at me, standing on his back legs, his front paws on the back of the couch (TOTALLY cute, by the way). The problem is that the rest of the time, I find him quietly digging in our trash, stealing the baby's laundry (he seems to love her onesies and burp cloth), or chewing on G's wool sheepskin slippers. And since I never know when those times will be, I'm always trying to keep an eye out and trying to remember to make sure these items are out of reach, the bathroom doors closed, the laundry covered with an extra basket.

He's a barker. And he's a bit crazy when he plays. He's gotten me several times with his teeth when we've been tugging. He tries to jump all over me when I'm done. When I am finally ready in the morning, the other 3 are thinking of just one thing: food. But he's trying to run circles around the yard and jump on me because he's finally happy to be let out and surrounded by company.

But despite the fact that he's a little bit of a punk, he's also a doll. Mia loves playing with him (for about 5 minutes a stretch maybe 2-3 times a day) and seems pretty good at telling him when she's done. He's also pretty good at listening to her eventually, though he's not above some extra attempted persuasion. In this particular video, Mia was waiting for her food, so she was into it but keeping her eye on me to make sure I wasn't serving breakfast just yet. I had a better one I shot yesterday, but it must have been too big for Blogger because it wouldn't upload.

Plus, he's great around the baby. I try to keep him from getting too close and I know it kills him because he sits there staring and trying to inch closer. When he has been closer, all he's done is sniff. Which is awesome because several times when I've gone looking for him, I've also found him standing on our bed, peering over into the bassinet while the DZ is asleep. Now that I've realized he doesn't do much more than smell, I'm not freaked out about it. The first day, I wondered if he was scared by her crying because I'd keep finding him in his crate when she got too loud. But he must have gotten over that quickly because he comes running now whenever she fusses.

Here, he and Mia were guarding her while she napped in the bassinet in our room. Granted, Mia seems a bit more alert in her guarding than he does, but I'm sure he would have stepped up if necessary. :)

I think he's doing his job much better in this one.

Plus, he's a bit of a snuggle bunny which I can never resist. Though he's been banned from our bed when G's around due to his propensity to get right on G's pillow and fart (and his farts are particularly frequent and foul, coming from some one with 3 dogs who definitely don't smell like roses). He seems to know it too (about the banning, not sure he realizes how stinky he is) because this morning, he waited until G had hopped into the shower before jumping into bed with me.

So overall, although he's been a bit more work, he's mostly been a pretty good house guest. Our guys spent at least 90% of each day lazing around the house, and he's taken quite well to that though I imagine he'd prefer a bit more exercise if he could get it.

The only real complaint I've got, I must say, is that you guys, he EATS POOP!!!! I caught him taking a bite out of Mia's fresh turd this morning about 5 minutes after she laid it. Not cool. And totally disgusting. I'll keep my eyes peeled if I can, but that's going to be a hard one to monitor, especially with 4 dogs pooping in our yard 2x a day. EW.

Leaving the house with an infant (Part "I'm so done with this now")

So I had another post almost done about yet ANOTHER trip I had to take alone with the baby, and I just couldn't bring myself to finish it. Because honestly, that was weeks ago, and it seems like every day there are more and more trips. And each one offers its own challenges but it's really just more of the same. And each one seems to get slightly better than the last. Or not. It just depends. But I'm realizing that every single one so far has been an EVENT, and I just can't have this blog turn into a description of every random outing I take with the little sucker. Seeing as how most of my "trips" from here on out will be with the kid, and I'm guessing reading about how awesome it was to go to the store trying to get her baby tylenol while she was screaming her head off will get old awfully fast. And if I'm getting bored writing about it, you must be bored reading about it.

So to summarize, yes, I did have to take her to the store and they were all out of baby tylenol and I got to stand in line at the pharmacy counter while she wouldn't stop crying. That whole afternoon she wouldn't stop crying because she got her vaccines that day. And although she handled it like a champ during, she got up 3 hours later in what appeared to be utter agony, most probably a life or death situation even, the way she was carrying on. Yesterday, I got to take her to my doctor's appointment and although we had a great lunch beforehand (in which I got to eat a couple of bites even), she started screaming in the exam room just as my doctor walked in. So my doctor said she'd come back later and left me in the exam room to nurse her. That was exciting. And nursing seemed to help for a while, but somehow the thought of her mom getting a pap smear must have been so painful for her, poor thing. So she proceeded to cry again when the doc came back in and continued to for the duration of the exam.

My previous trip to the doctor's office resulted in me struggling to get her fed, cleaned, and out the door with all her gear only to have the office call me to ask if they could reschedule. That was the day I had a meltdown. Well, actually, I had a meltdown for about 2 weeks straight and I'm not entirely sure it's over yet. But that day it all came to a head. I got off the phone with the doctor's office, called G, and started crying. I was even practically crying on the phone with the receptionist. I had WOKEN the baby up dammit, and I'm already on my way. What do you mean she's running late???? The receptionist was remarkably calm and unhelpful. Well, you can still come in if you want, but you'll be waiting for an hour and a half. I had made plans for lunch after the appt and seeing as how it was my first interaction with adults in weeks, I was determined to keep it. AND I had even called the doctor's office earlier in the morning to see if I could postpone the appointment since the DZ had been sleeping and I didn't want to wake her. Not later in the day, they said, since the doc would be in surgery. And yet, when they called, they wanted to schedule me, guess when, a little later in the day, right when she was supposed to be in surgery.

I've had to nurse her now in the car again (because coming back from SF a couple of weeks ago, she started going crazy around Mountain View and I just couldn't deal with a wailing infant for another hour on the road). That lengthened our trip by another hour and resulted in more nursing discomfort for both of us but ended with me maybe finally starting to get the hang of it. Although she initially liked car rides, and still kind of does, the periods where we stop for lights or slow down have become harder to bear. Most rides lately have seemed like a crying fit just waiting to happen.

I wish I could say that I'm becoming a pro. The truth is that it stresses me out every time. There is nothing worse than sitting in the front seat driving when your baby is the back crying her heart out. Even sitting back there with her isn't much better, and actually might even be worse because still there's nothing to do. I found that out one day when I sat back there with her while G drove. She's a little too young still to be entertained by a song or story or even really stuffed animals or something like that. G is much calmer than I am about these kinds of things. I freak out when she starts crying while he seems better about accepting that no trip is bound to be without any incidents at all - it just comes with the territory now. And he points, correctly (or so I'll admit when I'm calm and rational) that we can't stop going anywhere because of her (although when I was being irrational and in meltdown mode, I said that yes, of course we can, I'm not taking her anywhere for at least another year or two).

So I guess all I can hope for is not that things will get better but that I'll get better about dealing with them. I must say that I was much calmer nursing my kid in the exam room yesterday (and having to still hear her crying after) than I would have been a few weeks ago. So I guess we'll see how that goes.