They are always watching and learning....

One of my big parenting things is being very aware of the fact that kids learn by example. Kids learn how to live through watching their parents or whoever they happen to live with, and they do not miss a thing. If you sit around cursing, watching TV all of the time, being disrespectful to others, eating exclusively junk food, do not exercise, nine times out of ten that is the way they will be - fat, lazy and rude. Because of this, I expect the same things from myself that I expect of my children, minus a few cuss words here and there when they are not around - there is always a double standard hidden somewhere. :)

That brings me to this funny story: Evyn has been questioning a lot of lifestyle-related things lately, one big topic that she keeps revisiting is smoking and another is exercise. Her grandpa is the perfect example of why we should not smoke (and should exercise), and he is referred to a lot during our anti-smoking conversations. He is also referred to quite a bit in regard to our why-you-should-exercise conversations. Evyn has asked all kinds of questions about what will happen if you don't exercise, what kinds of things can exercise help you do and things like that.

Holly was sleeping in last Saturday for much longer than she usually does when it is her morning to sleep in (she also had a girls' night out the night before which explains the prolonged "sleep.") Anyway, at some point late morning Evyn went back to Holly and was talking about one thing and then another. At this point, Holly was informed that if she did not get up soon her muscles would basically waste away. Needless to say, I laughed quite hard when Holly asked me what I had been teaching her. I love the logic of a 5 year old.

See what I mean? They ask to use the treadmill and play on "my" ball and doubt they would if they did not see us using them. I am not so hardcore that I would make them exercise at 3 and 5 years of age - they get plenty of exercise just playing.

****************************************************************

In Reed news, well, lets focus on the cute stuff and not on the fact that his latest obsession is climbing his closet shelves to unfold and move his clean clothes around, thus pulling the shelving units out of the wall not once but twice in a week. Oh yeah, sorry, I was not going to talk about the unpleasant things..... This morning he came into my room as we were about it get up. We snuggled for a while and really enjoyed a few peacful moments. As we were lying there, he started rubbing my head and said "you're so cute mommy." He then repeated it again after I obviously seemed to enjoy his compliment. These are the adorable moments that keep me from strangling him when he is being not-too-cute.

P.S. Blooger would not spellcheck, so ignore any typos. :)

Hide and Seek

This game is the latest with Evyn and Reed. They play all of the time, any chance they get. Evyn even tells me that if she and Reed happen to be on the playground at school at the some time, they play there too. They love it! Good times!

This game has also created problems. Reed has been hiding at inappropriate times at home and at school, which is quite annoying when he should be following directions but is instead giggling from his hiding spot. We are working on this.

The other problem came this morning when Evyn decided to disappear. Holly was sleeping in, I was trying to work and Evy and Reed were playing the V-Smile. Evyn asked me for a bagel, I told her to wait a minute, finished what I was doing and proceeded to make her a bagel. When I went back out to speak to her she was not sitting on the sofa anymore. Once I had looked all through the house and then checked Grandpa's apartment, I was starting to worry a little. Long story short, I kept looking everywhere and pleading with her to come out if she was hiding. No response. I looked out front, looked out back and called her name while freezing and thinking that she had only a nightgown on. I panicked and woke Holly up and as we both searched and called her name and begged her to come out if she was hiding we heard NOTHING. I was ready to call 911 until I looked under Reed's bed and saw her little hand waving in silence.

Let's just say my fear turned to intense relief and anger. I don't think she will do that again. I never imagined that this great game could become such a source of trouble.

This explains it....

This explains what I witnessed with Evyn and Reed at the dollar store the other day: Thank you, Erica, for sending this to me, lol.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Puppy Update: The puppy Cheryl was trying to get us to take found a home today with one of Holly's coworkers. Yay!

Calling all animals....

Stay away from the lively household!

We are like animal magnets, as you have probably gathered. For the last few weeks, we have been noticing a stranger at the cat food bowl that we keep on the porch (and we wonder why we attract 'em??). We have heard a few cat fights at night. This has happened before. It was about eight years ago when 'Tom' joined the clan. This time it is a cat that looks a lot like 'Tom' but with longer hair. I hope he belongs to a neighbor and is just trying to get a rise out of our old kitties, but with our luck he is probably making the transition, joining the group. Little does he know, he will pay a visit to the spay/neuter clinic as soon as we can get our hands on him. Have I mentioned I really do not like cats that much??

Here is the other reason for this post. We got a phone call out of the blue last night from someone we have not seen or heard from in ages, Cheryl. She called and left a message, called back and expanded her earlier message and when she called again Holly finally picked up. She said she had a situation and we were the first ones who came to mind. Cheryl has had this "situation" before and I knew we were about to hear something we really did not want to hear. She rescued a Rottweiler/Beagle puppy who was neglected, emaciated, etc. Her landlord only allows one dog and she already has one dog and she heard that Grayson died, blah, blah, blah. After Holly explained that we have a group of seniors, one of them needing a stress-free existence for her final days, weeks, she still persisted. For once, we stood our ground and said no. As cute and fun as puppies are and as much as we love to help needy animals, especially puppies, we said "NO"! That, my friends, was a first for us. By the way, Cheryl is responsible for bringing two of our remaining three dogs to live with us when they were needy puppies, Sage and Mika. I hope she does not call back or show up here. We have her number now and are thankful for caller ID.

The dollar store

Mimi recently sent Evyn and Reed $5 each with a request that I take them to the dollar store so they can shop with their own money. Now my kids are not that well acquainted with cash. They see plastic much more since I am a debit card user. This is a good time to introduce basic money concepts (good idea, Mimi).
Well yesterday we went to the dollar store and I explained that they each had $5 which meant they could only get five things each (saving the whole sales tax lesson for another time) and it was up to them to pick wisely. As soon as we entered the store Evyn was trying to pick up greeting cards, ribbon, basically everything that was a color she liked or shiny or whatever, she wanted to put in the basket. I kept having to remind her of her five item limit in order to stay within her budget. She had a shopping spree state of mind going on, and I had to trail her to keep her in check.
Reed, on the other hand was not so eager to pick up every little thing. He very carefully and thoughtfully picked his items. He even waited patiently as I trailed Evy and tried to talk her down out of shopping spree mode. For a moment there I thought Reed might not even pick five items and would leave the store with money in his (my) pocket. This scenario is a perfect example of how different these two kids are.
So, in the end, Evyn left with a small spool of ribbon, a plastic container full of tiny, colorful erasers, a stuffed mermaid doll, a baby outfit that is too small for baby Sally ("and she is upset now because she does not have a new outfit for her birthday party"), and some pretty round scrapbooking stickers. Reed picked a miniature bowling set with tiny pins and a ball, a huge red bow (like you would put on a huge Christmas present), a box of cars (to add to the other 500 we already have), a red foam ball and a red plastic basket to carry it all around in. They were very happy and it was a good experience for them.
Once we got home, Evyn pulled one thing (the mermaid doll) out of her bag and tossed the rest to the side. Reed, however, pulled everything out of his bag, wanted it all open and has been carrying it around in the basket he bought. Evyn wants his basket and now wishes she would have picked one herself. She is ready to save some more money so she can go shop again. Reed is still happy with his purchases, although his big shiny red bow is not looking too hot anymore due to being at the bottom of his basket full 'o toys. As a matter of fact, Holly found Reed sitting in the entry way this morning, way early, using the light of the fish tank to play with his bowling set. Evyn is still complaining..... :)

Snow

We actually got a tiny bit of snow today. It fell for a few hours this morning and was pretty while it lasted. The kids got a few minutes to run around in it before we left for school. I have to admit is was pretty exciting, probably just because they were so excited about it. Evyn exclaimed as we were driving down the street, "The whole town is covered in white!!!!" (but only for a couple of hours).

Canine Hospice

There have been times in my adult life where I feel like we could have qualified for our own animal-related reality show. We have had one of our dogs treated with acupuncture, taken a couple of road trips to visit a veterinary teaching hospital for treatments not offered locally, a cat neutered in my kitchen, and the list goes on. Like many pet owners, we bend over (really far) for our pets. I know I have mentioned all of this before.

The reason I bring it up again is because we are in full hospice mode with one of our dogs, Misha. We are back to having weekly conversations with our wonderful vet and friend, Dr. K, regarding Misha's progress and medication changes and back to visiting a compounding pharmacy for a drug normally prescribed to Parkinson's patients nicely bottled and flavored like beef. Dr. K is telling me that her bag of tricks is now empty, Misha's meds are at a maximum and other than a fentanyl pain patch (which we will not do), we have reached the end of our options. Her body has been through it. She has three legs, only two that have been functioning normally for the last 12.5 years of her life.

I met her while working at a vet. She was a patient who had been through some tough times - she lost her front leg and 6 months later almost lost her rear leg on the same side in some kind of crazy accident. All of us at the vet loved Misha. Obviously, she did not ever go back with her owners who apparently did not have a fence. She became Holly's dad's dog and later became part of our pack 'o hounds.

Misha has the type of drive that certain humans could seriously learn from - ever see a dog walk on two legs on the same side of their body? Misha did, for quite a long time too. She had no choice if she wanted to function/live. So when I say that her body has really been through it, I am not at all exaggerating. Now that she is pushing 15, she has good days and not so good days. I just reported to Dr. K that her prednisone increase (final allowable adjustment) seemed to have a slight positive effect, but today I am not so sure. Her spirit and drive want to help push her through this, but her ability to function is slipping, she is slowing down and it makes me sad.

I hate this part of pet ownership. It is so hard watching your faithful friend slip away. I am the one in the house that makes the pharmacy/vet phone calls, fills Misha's double-decker pill box each week, medicates (although holly helps), massages, carries her up steps on the bad days, watches for changes in her routine and basically gets bossed around by the old girl all day, everyday. I take this on because I am home more and it is just my nature.

I used to dream about owning my own full-service, upscale boarding facility but now I am thinking that there might be a market for a canine (and feline) hospice service. Many people go to great lengths to care for their aging and ill pets, so why not? The only difference here would be the fact that at the end of life, the animals have the privilege of euthanasia but we people are left to linger until our dying breath - morbid thought but it is the truth.

So as Evyn said the Holly ther other day as Holly was grumbling about Misha's annoying habit of lying in the middle of the kitchen floor, "We have to be extra nice to Misha because she is going to die soon." That is the way life is around here - extra love for Misha.

Random news, trying to catch up.

I hate it when life, work and responsibilities get in the way of blogging and all of the other non-essential things I try to do in my spare time. Here is a funny and a couple of updates.....

First, I sent my mom a purse with a photograph of E and R on it for Christmas. My dad is quite the joker and altered it slightly to get my mom's attention, so she took a picture of it and sent it on. No harm done, he used a piece of black felt. :)

In other news, Evyn lost her tooth the day after my last blog post. It was funny the way it happened. We went to get Reed's haircut last Friday and both kids were given a sucker. Evyn knocked her loose tooth with the sucker stick and basically completely loosened it to the point I was pretty sure it was no longer attached. She was upset about it, staring in the mirror with shear panic on her face as I tried to calm Reed who was having his first real clipper cut and was not at all enjoying it.

We left there and went to grocery shop at WalMart. I packed a snack for the store, and as I shopped and they snacked Evyn announced that her tooth fell out while she was eating and immediately started to panic again. I happily reassured her that this was in fact a cool thing to have happen and that the tooth fairy was going to come and, best of all, Sissy would be so excited. Then we could not find the tooth. Picture us in a WalMart grocery isle with at least six other shoppers in the immediate vicinity looking all over for a tooth that was basically the same color as the floor. I looked under the shelf and was sure I had found it until I got a closer look and realized it was some tooth-colored object that was sorta tooth shaped (if you're a shark). She was convinced that I was a hero and even upon closer inspection never realized that it was an impostor. Shew! Later that night, the tooth fairy woke up in a panic at 3 a.m., forgetting she had a very important visit to make. She normally does not carry cash but happened to have a dollar. She did her work and all is well. The impostor (shark tooth) will never be seen by Evyn again. I love a happy ending. (And yes that is food on her face)


Lastly, our little man had his gobs of long-ish hair cut way off. He is barely recognizable but is so handsome. I am still a fan of the long, shaggy hair, however, he is so cute and so grown up looking now that he is even more irresistible. I can kiss the back of his neck now while giving him what looks like it could be equal to whiplash. Isn't he handsome?

La-la-lala, La-la-lala, Evy's World....

Can you name the tune that does with the title? Man, my brain really is turning to mush.

I just wanted to talk about Evy for a minute. She is going through a time in her life where, well, she is growing up and it shows big time! First of all, she is sooo close to losing her first tooth (no trauma involved with this one). It is hanging on by a thread or two. She is scared to lose it but excited for the tooth fairy, and speaking of the tooth fairy she says that the tooth fairy has a tooth bag where she dumps all of the teeth that she collects each night and it is labeled "Tooth Bag". She also went into great detail in an interesting story about the other fairies that the tooth fairy associates with, which lasted about 8 minutes - all the way to school. She definitely has some inside scoop from somewhere but claims that she learned it all in a dream.

The other big thing in her life right now is her spelling book, which is actually a little organizer type thing that Ashley gave her. In the spaces intended for daily activities and/or addresses, she is carefully writing her first words. She has been writing for some time but usually the same 'ole stuff, "EVYN LOVE" or LOVE EVYN". She has also been pretending to write by making lists which consists of marks that look like stick figure birds, however, her world literally expanded overnight. I freely admit that teaching spelling, reading and writing is not something that I used to spend time doing with her. I do read to her, and we talk about letters and the sounds they make on occasion, work on alphabet puzzles and that is about the extent of it, until today. She informed me that she was going to start writing and damn if that is not exactly what she did. She would not use any of the pre-school/pre-K workbooks, she wanted to do it herself. She would say a word, I would tell her what letters made up the word and she would write them down. She really had very little trouble with this, and you should have seen teh excitement on her face (and mine too). She, of course, had trouble with M, W and K and still writes her N backwards but, really, she surprised me. Her handwriting seemed more legible too. I was waiting for her to let me know she was ready and now she is obsessed.

A New Year's Day Message

An interesting thing happened yesterday, New Year's Day. Basically, when I was medicating Misha, our ailing dog, I realized that I had failed to refill one of her meds and since the vet was closed I was faced with the fact she would have to do without, which, in her current state, would not have been good. I remembered that my BFF's dog had been on that same drug, so I called to see if she had any to carry me through the day. She did not have them at her house but offered to meet me at the vet (she's the office manager) where she had been keeping them after Rudy passed away.
Evyn, Reed and I jumped into the car and headed to CaryTown. After Milly got the pills from her office and met the kids and I outside, we were chatting, wishing each other a happy new year and saying that things had to be better in 2008. Just as I stopped myself from saying "things have to better, they could not be worse..." a man in a wheelchair with no legs and looking rather homeless who was being pushed down the street by a female looking equally as unkempt belted out a "Happy New Year!" with a huge, sincere smile and a friendly wave.
Simple gesture, perfect timing, message received. Things *could* be so much worse, what was I thinking??

Happy New Year!

Wow, We survived 2007. I have to say that it was one of the most trying, emotionally draining years that I can ever recall. I think the overall theme was loss. We lost two dogs to cancer early in the year within months of each other. The dynamic of our entire household changed as a result - a new pecking order with the remaining three dogs emerged, some cats that once made themselves scarce came out of hiding and realized that Reed and Evyn really are not too bad after all, and the pet population became easier to manage - obviously hard dealing with the loss but life became easier too, which is never a bad thing.

We also had some family members and friends who experienced some hard times. Although not directly affecting us, it definitely was cause for reflection and thanks along with sorrow. So many of our friends also had to say good bye to their aging, ill dogs. Dogs that were our friends too, ones that came over to play, ones that stayed at the "lively pet hotel" when their parents traveled or came over to swim while the rest of us lounged.

Thinking through the events of 2007, I found myself realizing that the best thing that happened in 2007 was also the most painful and clearly the most unforgettable. Being there and witnessing the birth of Skylar on August 30th was a highlight of my entire life. Seeing Skylar come out fighting and beating the odds was the best feeling, and loving someone so tiny and hearing your first grandchild referred to as a miracle by seasoned NICU nurses was beyond cool. Having to say good bye to that same tiny person who changed your world while watching her parents suffer was harder than hard. Watching them recover, remember and honor her while trying to pick up the pieces and plan for their future has been a relief. This is life. It is not always easy. One thing is for sure, having Skylar in our lives for those five weeks was a blessing - there were lessons to learn, and I think we all got the message(s).

On the flip side, 2007 was good too. This was the year that Ashley and Gary came together and were married in the smallest, sweetest ceremony I have ever witnessed. There were other family and friend weddings as well as an engagement. A couple of previously strained relationships took a turn in a better direction in '07. One of my closest friends from college returned safely to her children after 15 months in Iraq and made the most of her time there by doing some extremely important/impressive work. There were also two babies born into our family and several of our friends' families were blessed with babies too. Overall, we are so lucky to have such great friends and family and always enjoy being able to spend time with them. It was also wonderful to be supported by them when life was hard for us. For that I am grateful - that is what friendship is about, good times and bad.

I've never been so glad to start a new year. This year will likely be one that involves more joy, less loss, and a greater appreciation for life. I have hope, much more hope than I had before August 30, 2007, and I have a certain little angel to thank for that. Because of hope, I feel ready to face whatever life has to offer.

We wish all of you a very, very Happy New Year. May 2008 bring you health, happiness or whatever your heart desires (have I been watching too many princess movies?).

Love from the Lively Fam......