Speaking of which, allergies have been kicking my ass and taking names for a week now. Every morning I wake up with goopy eyes and a runny nose. I go around all day with a headache and an odd state of fogginess — plus a dry, scratchy throat and sneezing. And at night, the dry, scratchy throat gets worse, as does the headache. Irksome, to say the least. It’s killing my productivity — I pulled a ten hour day yesterday just to catch up from last week.

Right now Leah is laying at my feet, letting out disgruntled little snorts whenever one of Alyssa’s or Ryan’s friends (there’s six of them altogether outside) comes in for a drink or a snack or a toy. After years (the last two and a half) of her incessant barking whenever someone comes into the house, and various failed attempts from us to get her to shut the fuck up (reprimands, ignoring her, crating her, spraying her with water, etc.), I finally broke down and bought a shock collar. It only shocks her if she barks, and since she’s a smart girl she only has gotten shocked by it maybe three times total — and she’s worn it whenever we have company over or the kids are running in and out probably a good ten or eleven times now. I started her off on one of those collars that sprays a lemon-scented/flavored mist, but she ignored it, so I stepped it up to the shock collar. I’m not fond of pain as a correction, but I’m also not fond of her barking non-stop a good five, ten, fifteen or twenty minutes after I’ve invited someone into the house. The shock collar does the job where everything else failed, and since Leah is not dumb, she won’t get shocked. Heh.

Today I accompanied Ryan on a preschool field trip to Alyssa’s elementary school for a tour. While not every kid in his class will go to that elementary school next year, he will since Alyssa already goes there, and the school district keeps siblings together. She’ll be in first grade, and he’ll be in full-day kindergarten (extended kindergarten is not only for kids who need extra academic help, but also for special-needs kids who will benefit from the socialization aspect). Translation? I’ll be all by myself (or with Dan, if he’s off or not working early) from 8:30am until 4:00pm. That sounds positively orgasmic. The idea of having 7-8 straight hours to work during, and then being able to close up shop and just do mommy and wifey things all afternoon and evening is just so surreal sounding at this moment. I can’t freaking wait!

I shed a few tears on Alyssa’s first day of kindergarten, and I know for a fact that I’ll shed even more when Ryan, my baby, my lastborn, boards the bus for kindergarten. I’ll be happy, of course, but I’ll also be a bit emotional at yet another significant milestone representing him growing up. I was thinking of that today when we were touring the school. While a lot of the kids were running ahead of their moms, Ryan had a death-grip on my hand, and had no interest in leaving my side to go to the kindergarten classroom for playtime and snacks while us moms were shepherded off to another room to receive paperwork and ask questions. But he went, which is more than I can say for another little boy who threw a royal fit. I felt bad for her, but more so for her mom.

On a completely unrelated note, PennDOT unsuspended our vehicle registrations today, free of charge, so our vehicles are legal to drive again. Sweetness. I guess spamming their fax machine with twelve documents a day, every day since last Thursday, and calling them every day to check on the status of the document “processing” and to bitch to whoever I got on the other end, did some good. (Sorry trees!)

Well look at that, it’s already after 5:30pm. Where has this day gone? These nails need to hurry up and dry, because I have dinner to make and grubby kids to bathe!

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Leah update: I took Leah to the veterinarian today, since she hasn’t shown any signs of improvement. She has been putting a bit of weight on her back legs, but she seems a bit wobbly on them, as if she can’t or doesn’t know how to put her full weight on them. More worrisome was the fact that she hasn’t urinated or defecated since late Wednesday night, when the whatever (injury? freak-out?) initially happened. I disregarded the lack of bowel movement yesterday, since she didn’t eat, but her not eating or drinking (except for a few tiny slurps here and there) and not peeing AT ALL was definitely concerning. After checking Leah out and running some blood work ¹ he ruled out Lyme disease, and determined that she probably has a pinched nerve or a pulled muscle, and prescribed a nine day regimen of Prednisone. (Sidenote: While we were there, the vet and nurses kept complimenting Leah and I on her good behavior. Seriously, she is the most easygoing, do-whatever-you-want-to-me dog that I’ve ever known. As bad as it sounds, I don’t know if there is anything she wouldn’t let me do to her!)

We came home, I medicated her, gave her a small amount of wet dog food to eat, and about 45 minutes later she went over and drank a decent amount of water, and about a half hour after that she went to the bathroom. Hallelujah! Not long after that I felt kind of crappy, so I cuddled up in bed with my heated blanket, brought her up with me, and we both took a nice and cozy afternoon nap. I medicated her again tonight, and while she isn’t yet showing any signs of improvement with moving around, she is drinking water, which is a big sigh of relief for me. No output is worse than no input!

Tonight, after my impromptu nap, Dan and I took the kids out for dinner. Our first choice, Texas Roadhouse, had a 1+ hour rate, so we went to our second choice, Outback Steakhouse. We waited there for about a half an hour, during which time Alyssa played with her Nintendo DSi and Ryan and I took turns playing Angry Birds on my iPod Touch. Dinner was super-delicious. I chose the tilapia and lump crab meat. Fish isn’t my first choice, but I really wanted the crab meat, because it’s mushy, very easy to digest, my stomach pouch doesn’t have issues with it, and it is high in protein. The fish was okay. It’s fish. Heh. But it’s also high in protein and relatively easy to digest, so I ate a few bites of it and brought the rest home to have tomorrow or Sunday. On impulse, Dan recommended Friendly’s for dessert, which the kids enjoyed — Ryan especially, who got to pick out an ice cream cake for us to take home with us.

Dude, I am so glad to be home, in my cozy bedroom under my cozy heated blanket. It is COLD as a well digger’s ass out there. Seriously though, it’s frigid. It’s only to be a high of 16° tomorrow and 20° on Sunday, so guess whose kids will not be going out and will subsequently be up my ass all weekend long? Fun times… I’m definitely going to plan out some fun things for us to do!

Thank you for subscribing to Jenn.nu's RSS feed! ♥ Jenn | Flickr: kiss-my-kitty | Twitter: @kissmykitty

I know I’m total dorksauce, but I ♥ Leah! And she definitely ♥ me. Her expression and state of mine is always, “Mistress, my favorite!”

I hereby recommend that everyone should get a Pug for themselves!

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Then:

Now:

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Tell me that Leah doesn’t look like she’s laughing!

Thank you for subscribing to Jenn.nu's RSS feed! ♥ Jenn | Flickr: kiss-my-kitty | Twitter: @kissmykitty