Santa's Day Job

Turns out Santa has to work during his off season to afford all those toys he gives at Christmas. He's a mechanic. I'm serious; we (unfortunately) had the privelege of meeting him when we took the car in for some repairs this week.

He had a long gray beard and long gray hair pulled into a ponytail. He rides motorcycles, too. Come Christmas time he dyes his hair white and dons a red suit, attending Christmas parties and such. He actually was a really nice guy, one might say jolly even. He looks pretty rough and greasy in his off season though.

We did our part to contribute to his 2008 holiday gift giving. A $1341 contribution to be exact. He'd better be good to us come Christmastime.

Company Picnic

Today we spent the afternoon at Chris' company picnic. It was catered by a bbq place and there was a clown doing face painting and balloon animals. They also brought all kinds of games to play. I mainly sat and talked to some of the wives. I hadn't met a single co-worker of Chris', so it was nice to finally meet some of them. (Chris has spent most of his time at a different location than his main office and only recently got his own office because of remodeling, hence the reason I haven't been up there yet.)

I'm happy to report that Chris has many very nice co-workers. And his co-workers' wives are very nice as well. Clara was one of the first little ones there, so she got two paintings and two balloon animals without having to even wait in line. I was surprised she went up to Okie Dokie given her aversion for people and things that just aren't quite right. I was even more surprised that she complied to my request for a picture with Okie Dokie.

Clara never stopped walking around meeting new people, letting them smell her balloon flower, showing them her mermaid and dolphin and shaking their hands. I'd look up and she'd be mingling with a new group. She had a blast.

I Don't Like Change

We were met at storytime today by an unfamiliar face. Our librarian has transferred to a different library and left us with someone who sings different songs and has a different routine and sits facing the wrong direction and all kinds of other atrocities.

Apparently she doesn't like mom and dad sitting in chairs, so we sat on the floor too. Poor Clara, along with several others, was sitting facing the usual way, with just her head turned to see the story. (I'm not the only one that doesn't adjust well to change.)

The old librarian had told us that Ms. Bonnie likes to do crafts, so we would probably be doing lots of crafts, which is cool. Clara's finally at an age that she can enjoy making a craft. Well, when she was done with the stories, the librarian got up and stood by the door saying all of the kids were going to get a fireman on a stick. We all just sat there waiting for her to explain what we would be doing until she finally asked if we were waiting for something. The lady next to me said, "I guess that's our cue."

So we picked up our construction paper cutout of a fireman taped to a popsicle stick and made our way to the nearest exit. We didn't actually sing any songs abour firemen or read a book about firemen, so not quite sure what the fireman on the stick was all about. All I know is there were a few kids that were a bit disappointed they didn't get to pick out a sticker and then play with blocks for a few minutes. That was their favorite part.

I know we'll grow to love Ms. Bonnie as much as Ms. Teri, but man, why'd they have to go and change our perfectly good storytime?

Clara's First Recital

Clara did such a great job at her recital tonight. The dance studio has summer, winter and spring recitals, so I was a bit worried that it would mean costumes for each one. I was pleasantly surprised when we were told all the girls would be wearing black leotards and a t-shirt. They only wear costumes for the big show in the spring.

The recital had a summer theme, and Clara's class danced to Baby Beluga. They were sooo cute and I was proud of all of the little ones in her class for not being scared at all. There were probably 100 people in attendance. The girls sat with their teachers off to the side during the recital and I saw Clara standing up copying the dancers several times with a huge grin on her face. She was loving every minute of it.

At one point, Clara followed another little girl and ran in front of one of the classes while they were performing. I was not happy that I had to get up and grab her. And before the show, while she was supposed to be sitting with her class, she got up and followed a girl to the wall and proceeded to copy the girl by pulling on the decorations. She didn't know either of these girls either.

We've been talking a lot lately about not following our friends when they disobey the teacher. I can tell this is going to be a major issue for Clara. She is so well behaved until another child acts up. Then she wants to be right in the action with them. I have no idea how to teach her not to, but I'm guessing there's not much I can do at this age except keep trying to explain. Right now we have "the talk" on the drive to storytime, dance class and bible class every week. Hopefully as she matures, she'll be less distracted.

Here she is working on some of her moves before leaving for the recital.

And this is Clara and one of the girls in her class. Look how huge Clara is next to her and she's only 6 months older.

I hope she always has something in her life that brings her as much joy, excitement and pride as this dance recital did tonight. I love my little tap dancing ballerina.

Blah

I'm not sure what's wrong with me, but I've just not been in the mood to blog. I will attempt to recap the last couple of weeks in no particular order.

-- We went to see Wall-E on Saturday. It was cute and Clara enjoyed it up until she was full of popcorn. The last twenty minutes of the movie was spent trying to keep her still and quiet. Thankfully we were at the older theater by our house and there were only five other people in the theater with us so she wasn't too much of a distraction.

-- I painted the master bathroom this weekend. It's a little more blue than I would've liked, but hopefully it'll grow on me. I'll post a pic when I find some curtains.

-- The grass in our backyard is completely dead. In the course of a few weeks it went from lush to brown. There are a few sprigs here and there starting to come up, so hopefully it will recover. We're not holding our breath though.

-- Clara's new favorite princess is Ariel.

-- Clara and I went on a shopping spree at the outlet mall on Friday for her fall clothes. Most everything in Osh K'osh was 40 or 50% off, I had a 20% coupon and it was tax free weekend, so we really made out good.

-- Dingle's bum is all better.

-- I've started singing and playing guitar on Rock Band. At the same time. Yeah, I've got skills.

-- I asked Clara if she liked a shelf I painted and hung in her bathroom. She said, "It's cool."

-- We've reached an all time low on the potty training front. She's not getting anything sweet or "treat-like" until she poops in the potty. When we eat a cookie, she gets raisins. She's not a fan of this new tactic. Surely this will be the straw that breaks the camel's back. The girl loves her sweets.

-- Speaking of cookies, I actually made some last week. Three dozen cookies were completely devoured in less than three days.

-- We went to lunch after church last week with Randy and Danielle. Mere seconds after we warned them that if they ate with us enough times they would be sure to witness Clara puking, she pukes up her lunch. We really weren't expecting it, but there was the tell-tell cough and Chris and I were scrambling for a containment device.

-- A few days later at home, Clara was acting like she might throw up, so I taught her to go over to the toilet if she felt she needed to throw up. Later that night Chris and I were in our bedroom talking when we heard Clara doing her fake puking noise several times and then she flushed the toilet and came out of our bathroom. We were cracking up. We'll see if her practicing pays off one of these days.

-- Maybe one of these days I'll take some pictures. And then again maybe not.

Switching Gears

I know I've spent a lot of time talking about poo lately, and for that I apologize. I know I've offended some of you with delicate sensiblilities. Oh who am I kidding? No one who reads this blog has delicate sensibilities. Or if there was anyone, they're long gone by now. As I was saying, you've been regaled with plenty of poo and puke stories, so I'm going to veer in another direction today. I want my readers to know that I do think of other things on ocassion. I can be deep and thoughtful when I so choose.

So today's topic will be infected, impacted, abcessed anal glands.

No, I'm serious. That's today's topic. Dingle's infected, impacted, abcessed anal glands, to be exact.

So last week I noticed a little blood on the floor. I go on the hunt to figure out who (and what) is bleeding. After donning some rubber gloves, I figure our Dingle has what I thought was a sore on her butt. I cleaned it up with some infection protection foam and decide to wait. It looked better that night, but the next day another sore had developed and she had chewed quite a bit of fur off, so I make an appointment with the vet for Friday morning.

When we got to the vet, I set my full Sonic drink on the table by the benches and Clara follows suit, spilling both in the process. The bottom of mine busted out, so ice and DP went everywhere. I was so embarrassed and offered to clean it up. Of course, no one ever lets me clean up our own messes, so I got to watch as one of the girls at the front counter got a towel and mop bucket out. She was very nice even as she had to move the bench and little table to get all of it. Did I mention how embarrassed I was?

So they take us back, and the vet tech takes a look then she calls the vet in who says we'll need to leave her for the rest of the day because they have to put her under to lance it. Poor girl. That is so NOT what she wanted to hear, I'm sure. So it wasn't just a sore. What I was seeing was the opening of the anal gland. I always secretly wondered where the anal glands were. Seriously, I did. And now I know!

They had her ready to go at 7:00 pm and the girl was probably wondering where in the world that breeze was coming from. They shaved her whole backside. It's a very distinguished look. I would have put a picture here, but I do want the rest of my readers to come back, so I refrained.

Oh, before I went to pick her up, Clara and I made a thank you card for the nice lady that cleaned up our mess. We added dog stickers and Clara drew some dogs on it. We picked up a Sonic gift card and included it inside (we of course mentioned to be careful not to spill her Sonic drinks). I didn't know her name, so we made it out to "the nice lady that cleaned up our big mess this morning".

She happened to be the one that took me back to the room when I went to pick Dingle up, so I handed her the card that was blank on the outside and said, "this is for you". She looked really confused and I told her she would understand when she opened it. She went out the back way and I could hear her telling some of the others what it said and what had happened. I heard "awws" and "how sweet"s and even a "you should hang that on the wall".

It made me feel much better about that morning and I know her co-workers and superiors were back there and now know what a good job she did even if they didn't witness the unfortunate spillage earlier. I only tell this story to encourage you to go out of your way to thank someone for a job well done. (Or to apologize for your stupidity, whatever the case may be.) I don't do it nearly enough. Write a note if you get exceptional service. Workers don't get many comments that speak highly of exceptional service they may have given. Customers are much more likely to send letters of complaint. It means a lot to get that good mail. When I worked at Hastings, every comment card that was turned it went past the president's desk and he personally noted a job well done on the good ones. They also were mentioned by name at the staff meetings, so it's a big deal to send in those good comments. Hmmm, where was I? Oh yeah, impacted, infected, abcessed anal glands.

We were sent home with a weeks worth of pain pills and a weeks worth of antibiotic. And a bill for $225. Moral of the story: If you think your dog's anal glands might be impacted, by golly get those suckers expressed so you don't end up losing 200 bucks and your dog's dignity. As always, I'm here to inform; sometimes the truth isn't very pretty.

Goings On

Here's just a smidgen of things going on in our household as of late.

-- Last week Clara was bugging me while I was at the computer. She was right next to me on her stepstool messing with my hair and necklace. I lean right into her face and whisper "you smell like pee pee." She leans right back and whispers, "and poo poo." By golly she was right.

-- I decided to surprise Chris two Fridays ago and take him to see X-Files on opening night (not that great of a movie by the way). I had arranged for our neighbors, who are an older couple, to watch Clara. We were running a bit late because we had to pick up the Jeep from the shop and grab dinner and so I totally forgot to put a pull-up on Clara. You know where this is going.

We go to pick her up after the movie and my eye is immediately drawn to the brightly colored towel on their beautifully upholstered leather sofa. I say "please tell me she didn't pee on your couch." I didn't get the answer I was hoping for. There was a huge wet spot where she had already cleaned it up and had put the towel there hoping I wouldn't notice. Mortification at it's finest. We offered to have it professionally cleaned, but they kept saying it was alright. I did go by a week later and there was no trace of the accident, so I was relieved.

-- Chris and I watched from our bed yesterday morning as Clara looked at us and smiled as she squatted on the floor outside our bedroom and pooped on the floor.

-- Today I came downstairs and there was poop littering the living room. She had gone in her panties and then, I don't know, left herself a trail of poopcrumbs so she could find her way back to the kitchen or something.

Is my child ever going to be potty trained? I'd really like to think and talk about something other than poop.