Doggie Daycare

Tuesdays are my one day a week home alone with all the kids, all day long. So, of course, I've been taking it upon myself to take the dog to daycare on Tuesdays as a special treat to myself. I suppose that it is totally pathetic that I can't take care of three kids and one dog for just one day a week, but that seems to be the reality of it. You might think, "how could a dog really add to the chaos?" Well, here are a couple things to consider:

• He tries to eat the kids' food and the kids try to eat his food;
• He "asks" to be let out and in constantly just to annoy me;
• Alternatively, if I leave the dog door open, the kids crawl out;
• He insists on pushing past all of us to run down the stairs to the garage; and
  
• He purposely, I think, loses his tennis ball under the couch and woofs at it non-stop.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love my dog very much, but I enjoy him MUCH more when the kids are either asleep or out of the house. So, today, it was his turn to go to daycare!

As we are getting ready to leave this morning, the noise levels were very high, as usual. Especially once the dog realized that, for once, he was coming along too. As we were all trying to make it down the basement stairs, Peter turned to me and said, "Mommy, I don't want to wear my ears today." Strange, right? He said something similar a couple of days ago, like "please take my ears off Mommy." I was thinking it over in the car, and it occurred to me that maybe he is trying to say that it is too loud and that he wants a way to block out the noise. Could it be that he's actually kind of smart and intuitive instead of a total weirdo? I wonder if I could get him to wear earplugs ... if not, Lord knows I'd gladly wear them!

Now For A Flashback ...

I think I'll try to add in a flashback here and there of some of my favorite, or at least memorable, moments that date before the beginning of this blog. Although I'd love to write them in chronological order or at least try to link them to the daily topic under which they appear, I know that's not going to happen. But, haphazard or not, I still think I should write them here before they are gone from my memory altogether. So, prepare to be taken back in time to ...

May 16, 2007. The day that my daughter, Emily, was born. And the day that I made the best friend of my life. The very same woman, in fact, who has been encouraging me to write for the past two years and told me how to set up my own blog. Jordi, I dedicate this post to you!

As I was nearing my due date with my daughter, I began to worry about how I would get to the hospital and who would take care of my 15-month-old twins when the day to deliver arrived. I did have a babysitter at the time, who arrived at 8:30am each morning, but my husband left for work at 5:30am for an hour-long commute by train to the city. I thought, as long as I don't go into labor at 5:30am on a weekday, I'll be fine. Well, you can guess what happened ... yes, that's right, my first contraction came right after my husband left for work. I thought I had time ... that I'd be able to wait till 8:30 to head to the hospital. But, by about 7am, my contractions were very, very close and could no longer be ignored ... I was really beginning to worry.

I had met a nice woman, Jordi, a few months earlier through mutual friends. She lived very close to me and offered to give me her number in case I needed help getting to the hospital on delivery day. But, I barely knew her, and she was also pregnant and had a toddler as well, so I really couldn't imagine any circumstances under which I would actually call her. But, by about 7:30am on May 16, 2007, I was so scared that I was going to end up delivering my baby at home, that I forced myself to make the call.

And she was amazing, truly amazing. Came right over and stayed with me until reinforcements arrived and then drove me to the hospital. I'll never forget Jordi's daughter saying "go, go, go" in the backseat at every green light that appeared on the way there. My daughter was born about a 1/2 hour after I got to the hospital ... it was very close, to say the least!

To this day, I still get the chills when I think about what would have happened if I hadn't made that call to Jordi. Not only did she save the day on May 16th, she subsequently became the best friend in the world to me. She has seen me through so many parenting nightmares, I can't even begin to list them all. But, more importantly, she's made me laugh and taught me to have a sense of humor when it comes to parenting ... which, I now know, is the only way to survive it!

So, thank you Jordi, for such an incredible friendship ... I would be truly lost without it!