I’ve started keeping a training journal using iWeb. It is far easier to update and add photos to, and I’m hopeful it means I’ll actually stay current. I also hope it will record my progress with the whole clicker training thing we’re embarking upon.
You can check it out here: http://web.mac.com/apmom99.
So if you’ve kept up with Justin’s blog, then you know we brought home an adorable puppy this weekend. Willow is settling in wonderfully. The first night home she was up quite a bit, but we had no accidents in any houses (and she was at our house, Susan’s house, and my friend Teri’s house!) the first two days, so it was worth it. The last two nights have been wonderful
with at least a 4 hour stretch, and no whining in the kennel. I have her right next to me at eye level in our room.
I introduced her to the Clicker on Saturday. It was hard to tell if
she had the association between the sound and the treat, but she was
sitting so prettily right in front of me, and if I paused while she
was standing or walking, she would immediately sit again. Yesterday
she definitely was clear on the association as she would look back
and forth between the clicker and the kibble. She doesn’t seem to
notice the clicker if I use it when she is not right next to me
giving me her attention, though.
I really want to try working on eye-contact, but we have a lot of
distractions! Maybe today during Carson’s nap.
So far she has met quite a few children, an elderly couple at the
veterinarian’s office, and 4 dogs, including Lexie. Lexie is trying
to set some ground rules with Willow, and I’m just trying to remember
to stay out of it. Willow was initially intimidated by Lexie’s growls
and air-snaps, but now she just takes a few steps away from her and
she is definitely getting bolder around Lexie.
I’m keeping a notebook and trying to decide if I should blog each
entry here or just put a summary every week or something. In the
meantime check out the pics over on Angrydome!
So this post is just the equivalent of a “bump” I suppose. I haven’t posted in so long it would be almost impossible to catch up. I have two clients due in the next month, and I am interviewing with a potential VBAC client tonight. She is in Baltimore and her fiirst c/s was for “FTP” (it was an induction of sorts for SROM at near-term). She would be due in between the other two clients I have now and she’s planning a hospital birth at St. Joe’s in Baltimore. My other two clients are primips and one is with Maternity Center and the other is planning a homebirth. I just finished a birth at FMH a couple weeks ago which went very well. Mom even managed to fight off the nursery nurses and kept her baby with her for the entire stay.
In family news, we’re officially ’schoolers’ now. Logan started MVMS two weeks ago. He’s in the primary classroom (3-6yo) and everyday he comes home and says the same thing: “it was great!” He can rarely remember more than one or two things he did during the day, but he is loving it. Kadin can’t wait to go- he said yesterday on the way home from co-op “maybe I can start school if someone else finishes and I can have their space. Then I don’t have to wait until after it snows and after it gets warm again.”
I have no knitting projects, but feel like I’d love to have my fingers busy with the needles. I just need some inspiration and a project. My roses look horrificallly sad since they deleafed for the winter. I do think I’ll be excited about greeting them again in the spring, though. So now that I’ve managed to hit all the categories…
So I haven’t blogged in a really long time, but I had to post that Carson finally took his first real steps this afternoon. He only did it once, and it was about 3 or 4 steps to me while we were out doing errands. He is 14 months, 9 days old, making him officially my latest walker out of all four kids. Peyton was the earliest, almost a full 5 months earlier, taking her first steps at 9.5 months. Logan took his first steps the day before his first birthday, although he had been standing unassisted from 9 months on. Kadin was 13 months and we think he was just hiding it from us for a few weeks before he showed off his new skills ;) I have a feeling it wil still be a few days or more before Carson is walking full time, but he definitly has the ability. It’s the confidence he’s lacking!
In other big news, after homeschooling for the past 4.5 years, Peyton started school again. She got into our local public charter school, Monocacy Valley Montessori. Today was her second day and she loves pretty much everything about it so far. She also has the opportunity to take violin lessons as part of the program and she is very excited. I need to get the violin ordered this week. They sized her last night, and while I played a 3/4 size when I was 12-13, she needs- get this - 1/4 size! She’ll have to blog about it on her own blog one of these days. Logan is already on the waiting list for the 1st grade classroom (3-6 yo all in one classroom) and he may even get in this year since he is first on the list. Kadin may have to wait it out until next year to begin, but he is also on the waiting list for pre-K. He would be in the same age group as Logan, although they may not be with the same teacher.
I should have blogged about the most recent birth I attended but it didn’t have a happy ending so I’ll spare the details. My next birth is sometime in October or Novemeber- and the mom is expecting twins!
So a few hours ago Logan comes upstairs and asks, “mom, some day can we get toaster strudel?” …big pause… “with twenty percent more icing?”
::sigh:: I hate it when we don’t have TiVo in New Jersey. ;)
So we belong to the YMCA and they have this nice playroom and childcare is included in our (fairly expensive) monthly membership. This means that in theory I can go, drop the kids off at the playroom, and workout. There is a two hour limit, which is plenty of time- heck I could even shower and change clothes and maybe even sit in the sauna. When we first joined, Carson was only 
about 6 months old, and he did pretty well. Then we stopped going for a couple weeks because all the kids were sick on and off with various winter colds. When we started going again, unfortunately Carson had entered a super-clingy phase, it was right before he started crawling and he was really unable to be put down (even at home) for even a minute without crying. It lasted about three weeks, but it made the playroom situation very bad. Twice I was called to get him, and both times he was strapped into a stroller, screaming in a way I had never heard before, and obviously very upset without me. One other time when they called me, I was in the pool, so they actually had to get Peyton from upstairs (oh, I forgot to mention that since the Youth Center is only open during non-school hours, she had noplace to go but the lobby since the playroom has an age limit of 8). By the time I got dried off and ran to the playroom, Peyton had him happy. After the second incident when Carson was strapped into the stroller crying while the staff person was folding towels I got very annoyed. I was told, “he’s fine as long as we don’t put him down, but we can’t hold him the whole time.” I got a little miffed by this, and I pointed out that Peyton could hold him, and I also made a point of bringing up the fact that one of the employees had her own daughters (both older than Peyton) in the playroom every afternoon.
Anyway, that same day, I got a call and one of the staff had actually gotten permission for Peyton to come into the playroom to be with Carson. We tried it the next day, and he was perfect. He did fine for an hour, and by then I was done working out anyway. This setup has been working like a charm ever since. Unfortunately, there were some changes in staff recently, and something went awry. Two weeks ago, we had to have Carson go to the playroom without Peyton for about 45 minutes because she had a dance class. Since Jutsin and I were both there, we knew that if he got upset, one of us could go get him while the other finished working out, then we could switch. He did fine, and I thought we might try to gradually increase his time without Peyton so that she could do her own thing instead of being stuck in the playroom babysitting her brother. So the next time we came to the Y, one of the new employees tried to stop Peyton from coming in, saying that “he came in without her before…” We explained that it was only because we overlapped the schedule accidentally, and when the woman tried to take Carson from my arms he immediately started to get upset. I said I’d be glad to walk him in and hand him to Peyton because he would start to cry if I tried to force him to go to her. She said, “that’s okay if he cries…” I curtly told her that it wasn’t okay with me if he cried. If he’s freaked out before I even walk out of the room, there is no chance I’ll get to workout. Well, anyway, suddenly on Wednesday night when we show up for our appointment, the new night supervisor (who I thought I liked) asked me if anyone had called me that day. Nope… She then goes on to say that it would be Peyton’s last time in the playroom, that she wouldn’t be allowed in anymore. No explanation. No period in which to gradually have him adjust. And no, no phone call to even forewarn me. This morning we got “the phone call” which was from the daytime supervisor and she basically said Peyton isn’t allowed to come in with Carson anymore- that he had “enough time to get used to the playroom” and that Peyton was “just too old” to be in the playroom. She gave me the name of a director who supposedly mandated this decision.
I wrote a letter addressing this highly unprofessional decision and the manner in which it was handed down, and dropped it off today. Mr. Ireland wasn’t even in (I suppose his three-day weekend is far more important than living up to his title as the Directory of Programs and Community Outreach). In any case, it would have been nice to at least hear the real reasons for the sudden decision. If you’re bored you can read the letter I’ll be quite interested to see whether I get a response. If I do, you can be sure you’ll hear about it here.
So I was browsing the forums over at Garden Web and there was a really great post about spider mites with closeup photos. So as I was out deadheading today, I decided to look closely at the yellowed leaves I’d been chalking up to a bit of Black Spot to see if perhaps I had mites. I took some photos of different leaf damage and posted to get opinions. The beautiful bloom below is from a Tiffany. Unfortunately, the photo next to it is also from the Tiffany. After I posted, I found out that both of the Tiffany roses I planted this spring are infected with Rose Mosaic Virus.
After verifying that even if I were to ask Gurney’s to replace them, it would be quite likely that all of their Tiffanys carry the virus, I decided to test out their guarantee. The customer service number was broken, but I finally got through to a sales rep and he was very helpful- they immediately refunded my money or the plants, and he said to contact him if the Peace HTs show signs of the virus. I’m crossing my fingers and really hoping that they are not infected.
Anyway, as long as the plant continues to produce such pretty flowers I’ll try to just think of the interesting foliage as a bonus ;)
So I didn’t get a chance to blog about the roses recently, and while I was simply admiring the beauty of the blooms that are appearing on all of the roses, apparently the Japanese Beetles were just sitting back, grinning and planning their attack. While my parents were here, the roses were really gorgeous. All of the bare root roses had leafed out and there were numerous buds about to burst forth. The Lily Pons in the front finally bloomed, but I missed my chance to get photos. It is definitely different from the other white rose, though, so I need to post to the forums to help identify it soon. The Blue Girl was absolutely beautiful, and the Betty Boops were covered in tiny buds. The first of the bare root Tiffanys also bloomed. They are quite pretty- starting out with yellow on the undersides, and getting pinker as they bloom. I really love their form, too.
Then this morning I went out to see if the Peace buds were starting to open yet. That’s when it happened. I noticed some little holes on the first Peace bud that had started to open, and as I looked closer, I saw the shiny green metallic beetle feasting on some of the leaves! I walked from one bush to the next, surveying the situation. The leaves on one of the Mr. Lincoln’s were a lacy mess, and I flicked several of the pests off of the buds on my Tiffany and Peace roses. Then I walked around to the front yard, and the Blue Girl was being assaulted by a horde of the beasts!
I’ve already sprayed with Orthenex and Immunox, and I’m trying to decide whether to buy traps or not. Some people think the traps just attract even more of the beetles, and others think they’re a great way to control the adults and maybe short-circuit the reproductive cycle. There are some sort of nematodes you can get that will control the larvae over time, but all I know is they really are destroying my beautiful flowers, and I hope I can get them under control soon. I knew there was some reason I didn’t like gardening.
My parents’ visit was great! Despite the fact that Kadin ended up with a bad case of food poisoning thanks to some bad strawberries on their first night in town, we managed to make the best of their time here. Dave worked all weekend to get our downstairs bathroom tiled. Previously it was a half-finished mess. There wasn’t any easy way to add a shower, so we opted for putting in a nice linen cabinet to cover the roughed in drain. Then he installed a new sink to replace the one that didn’t match anything else in our house. He also ended up installing a new door, and the tile work turned out beautifully. The whole thing is a huge improvement! I’ll get pictures up as soon as Justin hangs the mirror. While Dave worked on the bathroom, Grandma Melinda spent time with Logan and Peyton- playing endless games of dominoes and Trouble, taking walks, and holding Kadin while he was sick. On Saturday, Kadin made a miraculous recovery throughout the day, so we ended up going forward with the plan to celerate birthdays at Chuck E Cheese! Grandma Susan joined us and the boys had a blast, and I think that Darth- I mean grandpa- did, too!
On Sunday, Kadin said he felt well enough to go to Six Flags. My parents had actually gotten the tickets on Thursday morning, and just as we were heading out, Kadin got sick. All weekend the big kids were really worried that we wouldn’t get a chance to go with Grandma and Grandpa. My parents packed their car and we all set out for Six Flags. We spent the day riding rides and splashing in the water park. Grandma went on lots of rides with Peyton and the boys, and we all took turns staying with Carson to ride a few of the coasters. Kadin was still not feeling 100% better, but he went on a few rides- the Tea Cups were his favorite! My parents headed out to catch their plane around 5, and we stayed at the park for a few more hours so Peyton could ride a roller coaster. Kadin really wanted to have another ride on the Tea Cups with daddy, but he was sick again, so we headed for home. It was a great weekend, and the kids miss Grandma and Grandpa already! We’ll probably head down to Florida in a few months to see everyone again.
Yesterday was Carson’s first birthday. It’s cliche, but I can’t believe how fast the time goes by. He has three teeth- two on the bottom, and one on the top. He doesn’t seem to be close to walking yet, but his vocabulary includes: duck, doggie, daddy, hello (while holding my old cell phone, or when he hears a phone ring), and today while I was changing his diaper, he added “stinky.” He’s also learned how to get back down the stairs, and he can get on and off of the boys’ bunk beds. I came into their room yesterday to find him standing on the inside of the ladder, grinning from ear to ear.
We didn’t do anything to celebrate yesterday. We’re waiting until my parents get here and then we’re going to celebrate all three boys’ birthdays at Chuck E Cheese this weekend. I’m completely clueless about a gift for Carson. He really doesn’t care about toys much- he’d much rather play with the printer or empty the books off the shelves. Leave suggestions in the comments!