Lillian update

I have officially written more posts this year already than I did in 2010 and 2011. Huzzah! Not bad considering I took a 3.5 month break in the spring/early summer!


Don't get too excited though, because I don't have much to blog about today. Lillian has her first real bug and it is a doozy. Hand, foot and mouth disease, though it is much less gross than it sounds, is still not fun. Fortunately she is feeling better today and is happily playing near me while I type this. She just pushed her little portable piano into our poor snoozing dog and scared the metaphorical poop out of him. If I haven't mentioned this before, Sullivan is pretty much the wussiest dog alive and acts like he weighs 7.5 pounds instead of 75 pounds.
Oh, and L is just about a full time walker! She took her first steps about a month ago, and has been steadily progressing since then. For long distances, she still crawls, but walks or cruises everywhere else. 


I promise to write a more substantive post next week, but here is a picture of Lillian to tide you over until then. Poor kids of today--so many different places to post embarrassing pictures of them!

11 months old! We've almost made it!

Playdates: How to realize you have no control over your dog

I know that I have a huge trip to update you on, but our pictures are still a jumbled mess (835 at last count), so that blog post will have to wait.
Yesterday a woman riding her bike zips past Sullivan and me out on our morning walk and then proceeds to turn around for a quick chat. Turns out she has a newly adopted ten year-old dog in desperate need of some doggie company. She manages to hold her composure when I tell her that Sullivan is five and a half months old and bravely does not rescind the invitation.
So, at 9 am on the dot, after a longish morning walk (in an effort to wear out the puppy so he doesn't kill the geriatric), Sullivan and I trot over to this house. Two things run through my head first:
1. Is this normal? I thought only kids had play dates? What happens if Sullivan claws this dog's eyes out?
2. Holy cow, this house is on a pond. A big one. And my dog is obsessed with water. And swimming--despite the fact that Thomas had to jump in the water at the dog park the other day b/c Sullivan likes to "swim" vertically.

The dogs run around together for a bit and the older dog is surprisingly spry. Sullivan's goofy uncoordination is evident and hilarious. After about 4 minutes of happy playing, both dogs BOOM are in the water. I scream like a fishwife on shore for about 15 minutes as Sullivan ignores my crazed shoutings and swims like a champ while running in and out of the water. So we take the dogs around front to play. Of course, 30 seconds later they have returned to the backyard for some more aquatic expeditioning.
The play date came to an abrupt end when both dogs, out of the water for once, were tearing around the backyard and due to an unfortunate aligning of positions, Sullivan bodyslammed the older dog into a palm tree. Lucy took it like a champ but it pretty much freaked out the two dog moms. After a quick shower together (oh my! on the first date!) the dogs parted ways.
I suggested my pondless, fenced in backyard for the next one, though my gauge of "how much of a disaster was that?"may be malfunctioning.

This sealed the deal for me on puppy training classes. I'm especially interested in the commands:
"Sullivan, get out of the pond right now" and "Sullivan, stop humping a dog old enough to be your great great grandmother"

Litterbugs

I never realized how much people litter until I started walking Sullivan every day. Said dog is the ultimate magnet for trash--I can almost hear his little doggie mind producing thoughts like "oooh a beer can! oooh a gum package! delicious trash!"
Trash is, of course, second only to his actual favorite thing to pick up while we are walking: poop. Bird, beast, bug, it doesn't matter. It's all delicious defecation. Usually I attempt to steer him away from those tasty treats, but I have determined it's impossible to prevent all ingestion.
The picture was obviously taken on the beach and Sullivan is dominating (or attempting to dominate) some seaweed. Note the batlike ears, the ferocious look of determination, the crooked tail (ultimate sign of happiness) and the muscular stance of this goofy animal.

Big Fish

This picture of my handsome man is from several months ago when he went on a manly fishing trip.
I'm just glad that he had washed his hands by the time I saw him.