Bob Barker Would be so Proud

I love the month of October.  Now, I know that plenty of people say things like, "Oh, October is so great!  I just really love fall!  Or "Autumn is my favorite season!" 

I respond to these people by punching them in the stomach all while screaming, "TAKE IT BACK!!! NO ONE LOVES OCTOBER AS MUCH AS MEEEE!!" 

Don't ever tell me you love October because I WILL challenge you to a fight to the death, and have I ever mentioned that I don't lose?  Because I don't.  I win at life, and that includes your measley sense of affection for my beloved month.  Just kidding.  Sort of.

Because ohmygod, what could be better than the profusion of pumpkin-flavored stuff available in October?  I MEAN EVERYTHING! FLAVOR EVERYTHING WITH PUMPKIN!!  And don't even get me started on the weather, and the color, and the breeze, and the crazy blue sky that makes me think God must have done a ton of hallucinogens and is going nuts with some finger paint in heaven, and the smell of smoke in the air, which doesn't smell good any other time of year, but for some reason is making you hot for your husband.  Like you look at your significant other and want to tear him right out of that college hoodie he is wearing.  Or the perfection that is CHILI and APPLE CIDER and RED WINE. 

You know what else is in October?  The best holiday of the year.  My countdown to Halloween starts on the 1st, and I faithfully watch every horror film on television in preperation.  And on the actual glorious night, I pray that It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!  will be on t.v. and then I pass out in a glorious sugar- induced coma. 

But this October is a little different because Ms. Savannah hit the six month mark and since we are conscientous citizens, we knew that this was the month she would need to be fixed.  I plead ignorance here because our other two dogs came to us pre-sterilized with no worries of crazy dog humping and bastard litters of puppies to be handed out for free at the local supermarket.

I had no clue exactly what the process was, but when we picked her up yesterday, I was reading through the paperwork they gave us and, ya'll.....they take out EVERYTHING.  It's a puppy hysterectomy, and while I was reading, my insides were literally squirming with a level of uncomfortable I had never experienced before.

So the past day has been an adventure in "No, don't run.  No, don't jump.  No, don't play.  No, dont bark too hard, or walk too fast, or do anything that might remotely lead to tearing your sutures because I think I might possibly come unglued and then cry so please, please, please just stay still and be quiet until everything is healed and that weird mark on your abdomen is gone because every time I look at it I get roller coaster style queasy." 

Thank goodness there is still a week till Halloween.  I don't think my love for October has been tainted....much.

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The Return

This was the weekend that my husband and I have been waiting for.  After a year of living apart and scheduling phone conversations to catch up, he finally made the sixteen hour drive from Odessa back to Atlanta permenantly.  (Or semi-permemantly.  Who knows what could happen in six months?)

And so this weekend has been strange because the past weekends when he has been home, we've raced around feverishly trying to fit in every moment of fun and necessity we could before the Monday deadline when he had to get back on a plane and fly back. 

But it's Sunday now, and I'm still trying to quell that intense desire to rush, to hurry, to get in everything we can before he leaves again.  Because tomorrow, he doesn't have to leave.  Tomorrow, he will still be here when I wake up and get ready for work.  Tomorrow, we can have our coffee together, talk while we are in the shower. 

Tomorrow, I will have help taking care of the dogs before leaving.  For that alone, I could cry from sheer relief. 

And then he will be home Monday night, and Tuesday night, and Wednesday night..., and when I think about that, I just don't know what to do with myself. 

There is a degree of sadness that I feel so overwhelmed by the fact that I get to actually live with my husband.  I don't feel that I should be in so much shock that he will physically be here when I get home, and my heart still breaks for those wives who go even longer than I have with even less communication.  I cannot say that the reasons for these absences are not worth it, but the entire situation strikes me as strangely inappropriate. 

But as I sit here typing this while he is in our driveway washing his car, I'm still marveling over the fact that he will physically be here in the coming weeks, and I'm incredibly thankful.   Thankful to have had this man by my side for the past ten years without wanting to dismember him.  Thankful for our home, which we thought would never be possible.  Thankful for our friends who have kept us sane throughout this ordeal, and whom we will repay in November with quite possibly the biggest party this house has ever seen. 

This is a rambling post, I know.  But I'm too full right now to not let some of it out. 

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I think I might be somebody's mom...

In the past week, I've had both vomit and poop on me simultaneously.  I think I can officially call myself a mother. 

No, there is no DeMeester bun in the oven (although that sounds like it would taste delicious), but after the week I've had, I can't help but wonder if I've stepped off of the cliff into the deep abyss of semi-motherdom.

To my mommy readers- I absolutely understand that I will never know what it's like to be in your shoes until there is a Justin 2.0 running around my home, but until then, I feel that I've earned an honorary mommy badge. 

Please allow me to introduce the hellions:

This is Hank the Dog.  The sunglasses say it all. 

My husband got Hank during college, and needless to say, Hank grew up in a fraternity house and never learned any manners.  What does Hank do best?  DESTRUCTION. 

At various points in his lifetime, he has had all of the following pass through his GI tract (do dogs even have those?): dry wall, linoleum, remote controls, cell phone chargers, cell phones, shoes, ties, a dress, all manner of soft doggie toys, a child's plastic ring that topped a cupcake, cupcake wrappers, cupcakes, half of a birthday cake intended for my brother in law, any other type of pastry he can get his teeth on, a green ink pen (disastrous), portions of our Christmas tree (ornaments, branches, and light cord), DVD cases, DVDs, the back of a couch, and three sets of blinds.  I'm certain I'm forgetting some items. 
How he manages to digest all  of these items with no apparent problems baffles me.  I'm convinced the doggie gods graced him with a trash compacter instead of a stomach. 

This is Charlotte.  She's a Chihuahua; therefore, she's got attitude to spare. 

Charlotte is 100% my baby, and she knows it.  We got her during an afternoon run to Petsmart for dog food.  We didn't get the dog food, but we did come back with Miss Sassy Pants here.  Poor Justin didn't understand the power a cute little dog can have over women like me.

Charlotte's favorite things?  Feet wearing fresh, white socks, sleeping in blankets, eating everything she can find, kicking her dad's ass at play fighting, acting like a diva, and generally being a boss.  If you cross her, she'll let you know with a well timed growl and squeak.  It's pretty funny to watch her chew someone out in her own little way.

But Charlotte is also a surreptitious pooper.  If she has an accident in the house, you won't find it until weeks later when you go poking your vacuum into some corner that doesn't usually see the light of day.  

And this is Savannah, our in-resident tomboy.  She looks awfully cute, but she's a terror.

Savannah was a whoops baby.  A happy accident, if you will.  When we got her, she was six pounds and the vet estimated she wouldn't grow to weigh more than fifteen.  Currently, she weighs about twenty-five.  Good call, doc.  Despite a complete lack of blood affiliation, Savannah takes after her brother.  If she was a human, she would like to climb trees, play with frogs and bugs, and get in fights with boys at the playground.  I'm constantly pulling her out of something she shouldn't be doing.  There is a distinct possibility that she might also think she is a cat.  I've never seen a dog rub against people's legs the way she does.The biggest frustration, however, is her insistence that she pee and poo all over my nice hardwood floors instead of using the lovely grass that is provided for her OUTSIDE.  But LOOK AT THAT FACE.  HOW CAN YOU BE ANGRY AT THAT FACE!?

So last Monday, Charlotte was acting strangely mopey, and I was a little worried at her less than perky attitude.  I had gotten down on the floor with her to hold her in my lap.  Five seconds after picking her up, I found out why she was moping.  She desperately needed to vomit, and guess who took the brunt of that force?  You got it.  Yours truly.  You know that overwhelming feeling of relief you get right after you throw up?  That look was written all over her face. 

My reaction was pretty comical.  Here I am covered in fresh dog sick, doing my best to keep it from leaking onto the floor, petting my dog and telling her "It's okay, sweetie, it's okay," the same way you're mother did when you were a kid and had a belly ache. 

After establishing that she was fine, I went rushing to the bathroom to rinse myself off, and as I turned the corner to go into the bathroom, I slipped and fell into...you guessed it, a rather large pile of dog diarrhea.  I sat there for a moment because the fact that I had all sorts of dog fluids on my body hadn't quite sunk in, and then, I started to laugh.  Because the old me, the me that hadn't yet learned what it's like to love something selflessly, to get up for 3 a.m. potty runs, to cry when you're scared to death that a being you love is having seizures and you are powerless against this thing that you don't understand, would have been disgusted at this situation.  But this new me could only laugh, get in the shower, get the paper towels, the Clorox wipes, the mop, the Febreze, and go back to my dogs without caring about the rather nasty things I had been covered in. 

And in that moment I knew...in a unique way, I'm somebody's mother. 

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