Spending time in the kitchens

"How was your day dear?" my wife asks me as I walk in the door.

"Great!" I say in a sarcastic tone, "how was yours?"

In the background you can hear the familiar tune of "A, B, C, D...." as our son stands in front of out fridge repeatedly pressing a button that plays the song over and over... yet he never lets it get to any farther than D.

"Oh, it was good..." she continues, talking as she rumages through our pantry, most likely looking for something to cook us dinner for that evening. "Just a few more days until summer starts..."

I am also excited about the idea of summer because this summer will be my first I can actually enjoy without the lingering and painful thought of having to register for another semester of school. I am graduating this May and am so very excited about the accomplishment. Now, I say this in hopes that I pass my three remaining classes and that the party my wife has been planning for a month will not go all to waste.

"Oh, I'm ready for some warm weather..." I say. "We really need a vacation."

A vacation is not in our near future, however, due to the bundle of joy that the stork is dropping off at our door step come the end of June. I see him on the radar getting closer every day whenever I wake up and see that my wife, Laura's, belly is expanding at an alarming rate.

"My back is killing me," says Laura. "I feel like Elle just can't get comfortable for some reason."

We have decided to call our little girl "Elle." You may be a bit confused, but it is pretty simple, it isn't pronounced, "Ellie" it is just like the magazine or letter! Her full name is Estelle Lillian, but we are going to call her "Elle" for short. Sweet, simple, classy... well, atleast we think so.

"Dadadadadada," my son says as he come toddling to me at a quickening pace.

"Boom!" Laura and I say in unison. He gets to going so fast he can't seem to stop so he inevitably falls face down. Then we wait, we wait for the cry or the laugh. Thankfully this time he became distracted by a toy he saw on the floor near by and headed that way over to "his" kitchen area that his Aunt and Grandmother purchased for him at a garage sale. It is a pretty impressive set up he has, however, I will say the lack of food in his kitchen makes it seem like he is in a baby recession. Maybe they sell the food and baby food stamps too!

"Oh that's the correct place for this," Laura says as she opens the little, silver fridge door.

"What is it?" I asked.

"His phone, he put his phone and a blue block in his fridge," Laura said.

"Well, maybe that's where he knew he'd find it!" I said. "If I remember correctly you seem to misplace things a lot nowadays!"

"It's because I'm pregnant," she continued. "I can't help it!"

She reached down to pick up our little boy who was quickly pulling everything out of the cabinets where we keep "his" bowls. The bowls were actually a wedding gift from, well, I actually don't remember, but we still use them to cook with, but due to the multicoloredness they seem to make for fun play items for a 13 month old.

"Da!" Mauldin retorted. His right arm quickly rose and he pointed in the direction of the stairs, no where near where "daddy" was standing.

"Mauldin," I said. "Gimme five."

He quickly patted my right hand and proceeded to clap as if he knew he had done something correct.

"Yay!" We all clapped to show we approved of his accomplishment.

"Okay, Mauldin, are you ready for bath time?" I asked as if I was expecting a competent "why yes father, I would appreciate you taking me upstairs so I can bathe this evening... and afterwards I would prefer a massage while you sing "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and we can end the evening with a rendition of my favorite story, Pat them gently.

Instead all I got was "Da!"

One day at a time.

What's that smell?

The past week my wife, Laura, and I have been putting up with our dog’s pungent stench. The disgusting odor is because we have not taken our Westie, Andy, to get groomed in the past few months due to two things, scheduling and budget cuts on the home front. Logan, our regal beagle, stinks just as much as Andy does, however, Andy, being white, causes his dirtyness to stick out like a smelly thumb. I have tried to mask their odor with febreeze pet spray, but to no avail, and under much protest to my wife for spraying the pups, I was stuck with finding another way to get this disgusting odor from our home. Not only does Andy stink, but he looks terrible too. We have weeds down the hill of our backyard and Andy insists on going through them and coming back into the house covered in sticky thorns that are close to impossible to get out of his fur, hair, what do dogs have? I don’t care he is nasty! Picture a cute white puppy with black thorns all stuck in his fur, face, butt, tail, legs, etc… So, last night, at about 6:30pm, Laura and I just started watching our recent Net-flix rental “X-men,” and were talkin' to Baby Skates my nose turned and I knew what it was...

(Please note: Picture was taken after said Bath)

"I'm mean really?" I said, "Could they stink anymore?"

I made the executive decision, we have to give them BOTH a bath.

“Well, you know I can’t,” said Laura with a you-know-what-that-means look.

Laura, being pregnant has caused her to not only be extremely tired, but her immunity is lowered and has contracted a virus. No, not like a horrible stomach bug, just a virus that makes her very congested and stick to her stomach. So, it was up to me and me alone to clean our dogs and free us from the pungent stench that has been plaguing our home for the past couple o’weeks.

“Andy! Lets go buddy, you know what is about to happen don’t you?” I said while leaning over the couch to find him snuggled up comfortably on the bed next to Logan. His face speckled with little briars that had fallen onto the hardwood floor to look like little dead black bugs… gross… I know.

“I will wash their bedding while you give them baths,” said Laura lovingly.

Oh how I would love to trade with her, but when I think about it, washing dogs and washing their bedding, makes me sneeze equal amounts.

“Okay,” I said while I trudged up with stairs with Andy in my arms stretched out so to make sure no stickers ended up on me.

After I had him washed, de-stickered and dried it was Logan’s turn. Logan wasn’t nearly as bad, but she is just a little big larger than Andy, so while bending over the tub and washing her with the personal shower my back started to feel a wrenching pain. A pain that would not end, “how am I gonna finish this,” I thought. “Man, I need to work out more, this is sad.”

The one thing about bathing dogs that I despise is when they decide to shake with water and soap all over them. You smell the wet dog smell and then it is sprayed all over your guest bathroom walls. Logan has officially made herself the queen of, wash me. She will stand and look at your like, “you missed a spot.”

Finally, after all the washing I covered her with a dry towel and held her next just to ensure she wouldn’t shake and spray her “so-called” clean body all over me and the newly cleaned bathroom. I got out Laura’s hair dryer and after about 10 minutes of puppy pampering we had two clean puppies with flea treatment included. Although, after they were cleaned, I had to go and take a shower myself, I think they transferred their stink to me! But, as you know, both Andy and Logan immediately returned outside where the stink originated. They love to roll around in the, sometimes, wet grass and weeds on our hill. (I have since called to have them cut by our yard guy, Jim.) Ugh… Well, atleast they don’t smell as bad as they did before!!! Makes you wonder what all the people on Survivor smell like?

Side note: Is it bad that we bathe the dogs in the same tub where the baby will take a bath????

Hmmmmmmm….