Our Own Brand of Dog Whispering

Any of you who have watched Cesar Milan, The Dog Whisperer, know that he practices Dog Psychology. In our life with Jolly, we have been forced to develop to Dog Reverse Psychology.

Jolly is scared of our stairs. They are unusually steep and pretty slippery for his little paws. The wreckless abandon with which he flings himself at them has led to some glorious wipeouts. Now, I wouldn't care if he never came upstairs again, but he whines at bed time when he is separated from the pack. Again, I wouldn't even let this bother me (I'm cold-hearted like that), but he stands in the hallway that connects to our neighbor's unit and the sound reverberates and is amplified by the space. In order to have our wonderful neighbor not hate us, we try to coax him up the stairs ever night. In a fit of extreme frustration the other night, I stopped trying to get him up the stairs and instead created the "get in the living room" command. In dog language, this must translate as "go climb up those stairs that you're more than happy to climb when you think we're leaving you alone in the house for the day" because he raced right upstairs.

I was able to use this command again last night to great effect. Now I just need to figure out the opposite of everything else I want him to do and he'll be a perfect dog!

5 Months Old!

For those of you keeping track, Margot has entered the 5th month of her life with us. Since we haven't written much lately, I thought you might want to hear about her accomplishments so far.

1. Two teeth!
About a month ago, the two front bottom teeth came in. This resulted in lots of drool, mild crankiness and one day of a fever. With the help of Infant Tylenol, we got through the worst of it. I, for one, had no idea how sharp those little tiny teeth could be. Nursing was tough, but we've gotten past any pain and are back to normal.

2. Daddy is funny.
Margot now laughs when you do something funny (like kiss her) or if you're laughing. The laugh started as little gasps and has developed into something more recognizable. And what, you ask, is the best way to get her to laugh? Daddy's kisses.

3. Sitting up is all the rage.
Who wants to lean back when you can sit up. Margot strains to sit up straight if you lean her back. She'll even grumble if you lean her back. This has made the bouncy chair less fun. She doesn't quite have the muscles to pull herself up, so she slumps over like you see here. That said, she was much happier when she got into this position.

Lots more happened, but we're going to post this message now rather than wait to finish it. If you're REALLY good and send me LOTS OF CHOCOLATE, I'll post more.

An original Andersen design

I had a vision for this hat and was very excited to find the time to figure it out and knit it. It was exciting to do something creative and I am very happy that it turned out the way I had imagined.

Super extra bonus, complete strangers went out of their way to compliment the hat!

Here Margot shows off her stylish new look.

umm, hello?

ring ring
me: hello
some guy: is this the radio shack in porter square?
me: no, sorry, you have the wrong number
some guy: (in an entitled voice like it's my fault he got the wrong number) oh, can you tell me what the right number is?
me: um, no


In what world is it the job of the recipient of a wrong number call to play phone book?

Maybe I wouldn't be so peeved if I hadn't gotten three calls from the same wrong number on my drive in to work this morning.

Sigh.