Because we work nights, we usually get home after the kids go to sleep. They leave us notes: tests that need to be signed, permission slips, requests for money, and random thoughts are all written out and laid on the dining room table.
Also, anything that arrives in our absence and is addressed “to the parents of…” is immediately opened, read, and taped shut again. Or hidden in their bedroom in a futile attempt to avoid the inevitable, since our schools always send an email alert saying what we should have received.
This is what we came home to last night:
Sometimes it’s better not to know, isn’t it? At least he didn’t hide the letter.
I usually don’t snoop because it always ends in regret. One year my sister found our Christmas presents and showed them to me. I felt so guilty about it. Christmas morning came and I felt like I had betrayed my parents as I kept saying “Just what I always wanted!” after I opened each non-surprise. Since I can’t remember if we ever actually told this story to our parents or not, this seems like a good place to end this post.
Did you ever find anything that made you regret snooping?
Recently we changed vets. Our former vet was at the super chain pet emporium. Great staff; terrible corporate-structured business plan designed to make sure that every time you take your dog in it will cost at least $500. And it will have to stay overnight.
So we have a new vet that we love even though we’ve only been there once so far. Then Casey developed an issue. There’s no polite way to say it: she wouldn’t pee. When I called to bring her in they asked if I could get a sample.
Me: Umm. That’s kind of the problem. Nothing’s really coming out.
They said not to worry about it. They’d take care of it at the office.
Casey and Jack are terribly attached to each other. Jack more so; he screams whenever they are separated. Yes, screams. Ever heard a pug scream? Click here. It’s neat. And loud. He started screaming when Casey and I walked out the door and he got left behind. I could hear him as I was pulling out of the driveway, even with the house closed up and the car windows rolled up.
In the car Casey jumped into my lap and forced her full body weight against my chest. She trembled silently as I attempted to steer around her. It was pathetic.
At the vet she kept looking back over her shoulder at me. Without her twin there, she was completely ungrounded.
We waited in the exam room.
Casey under my chair in the exam room
And then the doctor came in.
This was a different doctor than the one we saw before. Much different. This doctor was a hot Columbian chick in leather pants, knee-high boots, and a lab coat.
She was awesome.
We discussed Casey, and then the doctor scooped her up under one arm before Casey even knew what was going on and took her in the back to “get a sample”.
I’m not entirely sure how they managed to get a sample out of her. Did they just squeeze it out? Is it in any way like milking a cow? I kept picturing different scenarios until she came back in with Casey. And a sample.
I didn’t ask.
We put Casey on the exam table- which was an elevator, which totally freaked her out- and I held her head in a futile attempt to relax her. The vet meanwhile slapped on a rubber glove, lubed up and started manually checking Casey’s urethra for stones. Then she spoke to Casey in the most incongruous baby-dog voice and Casey calmed right down. Didn’t seem to mind at all. And I couldn’t think of a single appropriate thing to say.
Jack was Still. Screaming. When we got home. I’m glad no one called the cops on us this time. That happened.
Thinking about it afterwards, leather pants seem really appropriate for vets. They clean easily and offer way more protection against scratches and bites than scrubs do. There are probably a lot of other occupations that could benefit from leather pants. This has become my current obsession and I would love your input on which occupations you think could really do a better job utilizing all the benefits of leather pants.
Really, we’d all benefit. I’m thinking here perhaps a National Leather Pants Day (there isn’t one; I checked. There is, however, a National No Pants Day, though there is some great debate on what day that is).
Meanwhile, your questions of the day: How do you think they got “the sample”? Who do you think should be wearing leather pants? When is National No Pants Day, and are you going to celebrate it?
Casey is going to be fine. Even with four medicines (because she also has an infection in her ear and between her toes) it was less than $500 and she didn’t have to stay overnight. One of the medicines is a shampoo for just her paws.
That I am supposed to leave on for fifteen minutes.
#4: You remember that day about a year and a half ago when I was riding on Julietta’s scooter and I wrecked and hurt my finger real bad and I haven’t wanted to go on a scooter or a skateboard ever since?
Me: You mean right before we bought you the skateboard for your birthday that you’d been asking for for three years and now have never ridden? No, I don’t remember that.
#4: Well, that day I had a Slurpee and I dropped it.
Me: While you were riding on the scooter you were drinking a Slurpee? Maybe this is connected to you wrecking.
#4: No, I was drinking it next to the scooter. I just dropped it you know?
Me: Mmm-hmmm.
#4: And when it landed it just landed exactly like this, I didn’t do anything to it, so I took a picture and put it on my phone for the background:
A Slurpee after my own heart
#4: It almost made up for not getting to drink my Slurpee.
Here are your links:
It’s Shamrock Shake time again, at a certain fast food establishment I don’t patronize and haven’t in years. Here’s a badasss homemade Shamrock Shake recipe (bonus: contains actual dairy ingredients, so you can legally refer to it as a milkshake, rather than just a shake. . .gads, I totally sound like a former McEmployee. Which I am.) Shamrock Shake on Homesteading Housewife
If you’ve ever been pregnant, or if you’ve ever made somebody pregnant, or if you’ve never wanted to be pregnant, you should check out this post by Lyz Lenz, who is freaking hilarious and whom I got to hear speak at BlogHer ’12 : I Am Not a Magical Birthing Unicorn
I have a confession to make: I’m real damn glad I missed out on toddler tantrums. If any of you are taking my name in vain right now, please know that I am exactly 30 days away from having four teenage girls living under my roof at one time. For a bit of insight to the science behind why your animal child (um, speaking only of toddlers here) just threw spaghetti in your face, check out this post: Why Does My Kid Freak Out? on Slate. If you have a teen who just threw spaghetti at you, I can’t help you.
One last bonus link for a bonus mom. Lisa Teal-Webb is a stepmom in Ohio who is one of my biggest sources of step-parenting help and inspiration through her group Buckeye Bonus Mom. This link is to an interview NBC4 in Ohio did with her.
JM Randolph, accidentalstepmom 