Casey

Our life has been delightfully upended by the addition of Casey, a white boxer. Casey is deaf--CULTURALLY deaf :) He has been deaf since birth. The story of how he came to us is thought-provoking.

With the loss of Miss Minnie last spring, we knew that at some point we would want another dog. We figured we would get a pug, because we know and love that breed (and I swore I'd never have anything else). For a long time, we just weren't ready. About a month ago, I started to think it might be time. I saw several ads in newspapers for pug puppies for sale. I even made a few contacts and tentative plans to go see litters of pups. Nothing came together; in some cases, schedules just didn't allow us to see a litter before it was gone. In other cases, all that were left were black males, and we wanted to leave that role to Leo. At any rate, it just wasn't coming together and I basically gave up and figured I'd try again later. Besides, with my schedule of driving to Fargo for days at a time and our days already filled to the brim, it seemed kind of stupid to bring more work into the house.

So then one day I was driving home from Fargo, on the phone with my mom, and she mentioned that Britta (my cousin) was working with a deaf white boxer and thought it would be perfect for Hans. It caught my interest right away, but I didn't think it could work out.

Well, here I prefer to just make a long story short. Suffice it to say we now have a beautiful new family member and he has definitely made himself at home (on my bed, on my couch, head in my toilet). He is EXTREMELY bright and learns extremely fast. He picked up on the invisible fence in a snap, and knows and response to several signs. I should mention that he is without question Daddy's boy. They clicked right away.

I'm sure readers will wonder how fares the pug. If he could talk, he would mostly be saying "Would you just screw off?". But I am catching glimpses of friendship forming. After weeks of Casey chasing Leo, today Leo chased Casey. It was too funny. Casey has this thing with flashlights and will follow a light anywhere. So I was making circles with a light on the living room floor and Casey was chasing it in a circle and Leo was chasing Casey in a circle. Truly a hilarious sight. I will try to get it on tape.

I'm nearly done with this semester------------and then only one semester to go to finish my BSN and RN. That will be quite welcome.

Christmas picture attempts

Someone always has to ruin them. This year, Zac is taking that role, for the most part. Except....in these.....it was not two legged kids who were not cooperating.

Time Marches On

The other day Ana and I were doing her practice for Knowledge Bowl (she just joined and is doing great--it's like a trivia contest for elementary kids, they compete with other districts). One of the questions involved the definition of a word ending in -cide. I explained that suffix means "to kill". I gave her some examples. Homocide--to kill another human. Suicide--to kill yourself. Paricide--to kill your parents. Genocide--to kill a group of humans. And fratricide--to kill your brother.

She smiled.

And then we heard from the other room: "YOU'RE NOT GONNA FRATRICIDE ME!"

quick check in

The school year is well underway--for me as well as the kids--and my free time is nonexistent right now as my senior year of nursing school is pretty intense. Just so everyone knows I"m still alive (and so are the kids), here are some pictures! Hopefully they will be worth the thousand or so words I should be typing.

A few quick things to mention. First, Ben turned 7 last week. Second, on that same day, Elijah got his white belt in Tae Kwon Do. So now we have two martial artists! He is doing great and his teacher says he is very lucky to have his big sister in his class.

Wils is funny as ever. He doesnt like almond snickers because "it makes my breath stink" ???

Zac is Zac.....too cute and too loud.

speedy dewivery

When Hans (brother) was little, he had this game he would play, where he would make me "mail", knock on my bedroom door, and announce "speedy dewivery!" and run away. This was his take on the mail guy on Mr. Rogers.

Well, I have been getting speedy dewiveries. Wils and Elijah have been playing post office and then Wil drives around in Zac's cozy coupe and delivers the mail from the trunk. We all get mail, with our names on it even. The way he gets around having to write our names is he gives us a piece of paper and tells us to write our name. Then he makes that paper into our mail. Then he delivers it!

On my way out to go to work yesterday he told me he needs stamps, for his post office. Oh really, I said. What kind? "With the flags on it!" I heard from a ways away--Elijah, the postmaster general, was overseeing it all.
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Strange things for mothers to do

I found the COOLEST road kill yesterday. The biggest snapping turtle I've ever seen! I"m not kidding, the head is the size of a softball. It was very, very, very dead; the guts were 100 feet down the highway. It has claws an inch long, and spikes on its' tail. The shell looks like something you'd find on a dinosaur.

So, being the unique mommy that I am, I took the kids on a bike trek to see it, and we brought a big garbage bag and shovel so we could take it home, bury it, and see if the skull will remain for us to have a souvenir. We really had to take a good look at those claws and spikes though, it was just so cool, and being that I'm 37 and have never seen one close up, much less that big, I figured it's an experience they'll remember.

Earlier this week, I caught a few snakes for Elijah, and then it got loose in the car while we were driving (long story as to why it was in the car). Elijah was screaming "it's loose! it got out!" and everyone went nuts. I found him right away under something in the cargo area.

And I DO tell the kids................"I hope you appreciate having a wierd mom, because I doubt your friend's moms are bringing home roadkill and catching snakes for them"

Cold Spring Parade