Two Dogs + Baby = Hair Pulling Fun!

For the past week, my Mom and Andy have had it rough.....they've been on vacation in Mexico. Sucks to be them.....I'm not jealous at all. While they've been gone, we've been dog-sitting Abby, their 4 year-old black lab. We already own one rather large black lab, so having two really isn't that much harder on us. However, Abby has some funny quirks, to say the least. For example, she likes to walk around with one of our shoes in her mouth. She doesn't chew on or wreck the shoe, she just likes to carry it around. The other day, Edison was napping so I decided I would lay down on the bed for a few minutes. Abby followed me up (with my running shoe in her mouth) proceeded to invite herself up onto the bed with me, lay down and cuddle with my shoe. Later, when I went back downstairs, she also followed me down....with shoe in mouth.

When Jonathan and I are trying to leave the house, our conversation usually goes something like this:

Jonathan: "Have you seen my other shoe?"
Michelle: "I'm pretty sure I saw it upstairs on my side of the bed. Have you seen my pink runner?"
Jonathan: "I think its in the kitchen"
Fast forward to when we arrive back home.....
Michelle: "Oh man!! Where are my slippers?!?"

Abby is a very active dog, unlike Albert who's pretty lazy. Yesterday we decided to take Abby to the field beside the skatepark, that way Jonathan could skateboard and I could throw the ball for the dog and hopefully use up some of her insane amounts of energy. We decided to leave Albert at home (poor guy) because I didn't think I could juggle baby and two dogs in public. For about a half hour things went really well. Jonathan was off skateboarding, Edison was happy in the stroller, and Abby was running like the wind chasing after her ball. (They have one of those ball chucker thingies for her so that you can throw the ball really far).

I don't know if she would ever get tired of chasing that ball.....I think she could last all day. Unfortunately, Edison had other ideas. This is when the gong show began: Baby starts to cry. I take baby out of stroller to try to calm him down. Meanwhile, also trying to throw the ball to keep the dog entertained. Baby doesn't want to stop crying. Dog gets bored of me and decides it would be fun to chase random skateboarders around the skatepark. Me, shushing baby while calling dog....afraid dog will knock random skateboarders off their boards. Dog jumps into 8-foot deep skate-bowl after Jonathan. Me, "Oh crap, how are we going to get the dog out of the bowl?". 2 seconds later, dog leaps out of 8-foot deep bowl like its nothing. Baby still crying. Me, get the dog out of the skatepark and chasing the ball again. Edison, tears running down his face in the freezing cold weather must be getting cold. Me: "Jonathan, I'm going to take Edison to the car and warm him up". Jonathan: "Ok, I'll just skate for a few more minutes". Me: "Ok, could you keep throwing the ball for the dog?". Random skateboarding guy: "Ummmm....your dog is sitting in a puddle". I turn around to look and sure enough, she's in the middle of the field with her butt plopped right into a puddle...I wish I had the camera! Needless to say, it was a relief to get home.

Jonathan and I have been having a battle of the wills at night with Abby. She likes to sleep on our bed. For the first couple of nights we tried to accommodate her, however that didn't last long. She starts out innocently enough, curled into a little ball at the end of the bed. But as the night goes on, she slowly expands to take up most of the bed. So there's the dog, sprawled out as comfortable as can be, while Jonathan and I are clinging for dear life on the edges of the bed, trying not to fall off. Well, that doesn't work for me. I already get limited sleep, nursing a baby multiple times a night. I don't want to spend the time I do have to sleep battling for leg room with a dog. So as soon as she comes on, we just boot her off and she usually ends up downstairs, sleeping on the couch. However....every once and a while, she still sneaks up.

 

Edison loves having two dogs around. He is always watching Albert and smiling at him, so now he has double the entertainment. Both dogs are totally gentle and great with Edison. I find it amusing that Edison doesn't mind having dogs right in his face, sniffing him out. And the dogs are also very patient with Edison when he reaches out for one of them and pulls a hand-full of their fur out.

Something is wrong with this picture.....

Today we walked the dogs down to Kanaka Creek (a 5 minute walk from our house) for a swim. Abby loves to swim and will swim around just for the heck of it. Albert will swim as long as he has a stick to go for. It was a nice little outing as the weather has perked up, but it's quite cold out.

Abby, ready to go

Edison, bundled and ready to go

Swimming under the bridge

Wet dogs!

Abby will be going home tomorrow as my Mom and Andy will be returning to the real world. I'm sure Albert and Edison will miss their friend.

Humpty Dumpty Sat on a .... Chair

For Christmas, Renata made (as in sewed it herself!!) a Humpty Dumpty doll for Edison. It's pretty much as big as he is and he really likes it. It has vinyl hands and feet, which are great to chew on. Edison is especially obsessed with his bow tie, always trying to put it in his mouth. Humpty fits perfectly in the little rocking chair that was mine when I was little!

He sees the bow tie.....

He's going in for it....

Yummy!

Thanks Ren!

Play Time

Edison has been so into playing with his toys lately that we decided to get him a few new ones to keep him interested. He hasn't wanted to spend as much time in his Jolly Jumper or Exersaucer lately; he wants to sit on the floor, and play with toys. It doesn't matter if he doesn't quite understand the toy yet, as long as he can get his hands (and mouth) on it, he's happy.

He doesn't know how to make them pop back up, but he's a pro at pushing them down.

For quite a while now, Edison has been able to hold himself up standing. He's a pretty strong boy, so we also decided to get him an activity table so that he can stand and play. We were over at a friend's house a while ago and he loved theirs, so it was time for one of his own.

Ooooo, lights!

Wordless Wednesday - My handsome boy!

Buzzzzzzzz

My sister Sara, who lives in the far-away land of Fort McMurray Alberta, sent us a gift in the mail! She ordered it through Amazon and it arrived on Friday. I didn't know this until recently, but you can buy pretty much anything on Amazon. Because she ordered it as a gift, they wrapped it and everything! Well, we all know how much little Edison loves wrapping paper! So we took our time opening it and I let Edison have his fun with the paper.

As excited as Edison was with the wrapping paper, I was even more excited with what was inside. A food processor!! I have been making all of Edison's baby food at home. I only had a mini food processor which made making the purees a little time consuming because I couldn't fit very much in it. But now, I can puree to my heart's content and it's so much easier. I pureed the whole night away last night.....I know, I need a life.

Here are a few of the pictures I took while we opened the gift.

Haha, I love how Edison and the food processor are the same size!

Friends

My friend Eleana and her 8 month old son Rhys came by for a visit yesterday. Edison LOVES watching other babies. I'm trying to give him more opportunities to be around other kids more because he seems to enjoy it a lot.

Up until now, Edison and Rhys couldn't really play together. But now that Edison is sitting up, it makes it a little easier for him to interact with other babies. It's cute watching them together. They mainly just chew on toys and stare at each other, but its fun watching their "play" progress. Before we know it, they'll be running around together causing all sorts of trouble.

Wordless Wednesday - This One's For Auntie Sara

6 Months!

Wow! I can't believe Edison is 6 months old today. I don't know where the time has gone; it's already been a half of a year! Time is flying by too quickly.

Now that he's sitting up, he spends a lot of time sitting and playing with toys. He is also starting to grow a little more hair on that bald little head of his.

He is very vocal, making lots of fun sounds with his voice.....including some ear-piercing squeals. One day Edison was in his Jolly Jumper in the kitchen and Jonathan said that he could hear him shrieking from the back yard!

We've also recently embarked on our journey into solid foods. Up until today it was going really well. Today I gave him some chicken and unfortunately that did not go over well....he gagged and then tossed his cookies, so to speak. Poor little guy, I felt bad. Oh well, we'll try again another day.

For the most part, he's a very happy little boy. He's starting to like the game of peek-a-boo and we've gotten some pretty good laughs out of him. I will put a video of him laughing on the blog soon. Here are some pictures from today:

Happy Half-Birthday to my little boy!!