Optimistic is what I prefer

I am having my carpet shampooed tomorrow.  The guy is coming, he’s doing the whole house, and I am hoping that it will have a big effect on our dog’s housetraining.  Maybe if she can’t smell the multitude of places she has already done the deed, it will keep her from thinking that going inside is the order of the day.  I wasn’t going to do it, because the housetraining process isn’t done, but if that’s the thing that is holding Shelby back, the fact that my carpet (to a dog’s nose) smells like a ballpark men’s room, I want to go ahead and try it.

So I moved all the little bits and pieces from the house into the garage.  I looked around after I did it and realized that some of those bits and pieces might not make it inside again, since the community garage sale is scheduled for 2 weeks from now.  If I don’t use it often, and it’s already in the garage, I might as well go ahead and sell it.

Shelby followed us with each small piece of her world as it went into rows in the garage.  Then she would troop back inside as we went back for another bit.  She was troubled as we went to bed, and then she got up and peed on the floor in the middle of the living room.  I am going to be troubled if this keeps up after the carpet is cleaned.  They say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.  I prefer to think of that as optimistic, but it’s also my current housebreaking strategy with the dog.  Hopefully this carpet cleaning will help.

The whole thing doesn’t bode well for Nathan’s upcoming potty training.

If I’m about to do something completely ridiculous, it’s okay to tell me

Nathan and I had an adventure today – we went with another mommy and her son to Busch Gardens to visit the animals.  Karen has a pass and talked me into getting one last month – we visited Adventure Island, the water park, quite successfully; but I wasn’t sure I would be as taken with Busch Gardens.  It was actually pretty cool, other than Nathan getting sunscreen in his eyes and it being literally 98 degrees outside.

Just as an aside, you would think 98 degrees would not be as flipping hot as it is, since it’s the same temperature as your body.  But since I live here in Florida, I can tell you that often 98 degrees feels like the inside of a toaster oven.  It makes me feel even more terrible for those poor troops in Iraq.  Bad enough you are getting shot at and stuff – but to have to exist in a climate that is 50% hotter than it is in Florida is unbelievable.  We should definitely schedule our future wars somewhere more hospitable, climatewise.

Karen’s son Ken is obsessed with animals and he had a wonderful time.  Nathan got sunscreen in his eyes and spent the second half of the day miserable.  We went to leave and I almost didn’t want to get on the tram, since I didn’t want to take him out and collapse the stroller, etc.  Karen didn’t argue, but I changed my mind.  As we were hoofing it from the tram to the car, she said, I almost told you that it was crazy not to take the tram at the end of the day in this heat.  The tram to the parking lot was about the best part of the afternoon, post-sunscreen in the eyes, and I told her if I am about to do something ridiculous, it’s okay to tell me.

I worry that I am a little bossy or opinionated and people don’t want to disagree with me.  So I’m putting the world on notice that it’s okay to tell me when I am being stupid.

Tell your friends.

All my mommy friends would read it. . .

“I’m thinking of starting a blog,”  I mentioned to my husband last week.

“Huh – do you think anyone would read it?”  he said with a smile.

But I knew it would help me sort things out and I knew all my mommy friends would read it.  It’s strange having mommy friends.  It’s a common experience that bonds us together and gives us things to talk about, to complain over, and to plan.  It seems easy to make friends when you are younger – but then you grow up and maybe move a couple of times and – boom!  You are alone.  So I had to use my child and the power of the internet to get out there and socialize.  Both myself and my kid.  He’s doing well – even if he did hit one of his little friends at the pool today.  Poor Zach; he looked so shocked.  Nathan is only 18 months old – he didn’t know what he was doing.  Besides, Zach hit him in the face 20 minutes later.  So it all evened out.

Zach’s mom, Dana, said it’s best to just let the kids work these things out on their own.  Okay with me until it gets out of hand, I guess.  Plus, I didn’t have the time out chair handy.  But Nathan is starting to really copy everything he sees, so I have to keep a balance.