The sounds of the holidays

(Originally written 12/22/08)

Sam sat at the table tonight, eating his spaghetti, serenading us with the song "Up on a Rooftop", which he learned for his school's holiday concert. He knows all the words, and even remembered all of the little hand motions the music teacher taught him. It was so sweet! I love the sound of his little voice, and it was even nicer to hear because he's been sick and feverish for three days and hasn't done much except lie on the couch and moan.

Not to be outdone, Norah was in the living room singing "Deck the Halls" for us. It would have been a lovely rendition of the song had she not done one thing...

She changed every word to "poop".

Heh heh. Gotta love toddlers!.

And they call it puppy love...

On Tuesday, we adopted two Papillons from a local rescue group. When we got to the rescue worker's house, we took one look at these two adorable girls and fell instantly in love!

First moments:


Taz, the black and white one, is now known as Jazzy. Dazzy, the brown and white one, is now Daisy. Jazzy took an instant shine to Jake and decided he was her human.

But that doesn't mean they didn't like the rest of us:

Here, Norah gets some "puppy love" from the girls.

We've been home for about two days now and so far, so good. We had a few small accidents, but I don't blame them. Sam literally scared the pee out of Daisy by falling off a stack of chairs about 20 minutes after we got home. Poor girl nearly jumped out of her skin! Daisy is definitely the shy one of the pair. Jazzy is the dominant one, the leader. It's neat to watch Daisy become bolder when Jazzy acts boldly first.

Here they are snuggled with "Daddy" on the couch. They have taken a shine to Todd, too!

The only one they're not sure about is Peanut, the cat. He weighs more than both of them combined and is being VERY intimidating. I give him credit though, because he's restrained himself more than I thought possible. He's been giving them looks, and at one point puffed himself up and made the hair on his back stick straight up, and once yesterday he took a swipe at Jazzy, but he missed her face and ended up scaring her and not hurting her. I've got my fingers crossed that if they can't be friends then they can at least coexist peacefully. I guess we'll see!

Spring Break

Spring Break takes on a whole new meaning when you're a parent. No trips to Daytona Beach, no flights to Cancun, no breaking out the bikini and going crazy for some MTV reality show. (Not that I ever did ANY of that when I was younger. I was really boring.) We're off school this week and this is what my "Spring Break" will consist of: fighting with the kids, begging them to NOT trash the house, breaking up fistfights between the older two, trying to keep them from running down to the road and playing in traffic and beating my head against the wall out of sheer frustration. Oh yeah, I'm also cleaning and fixing up my laundry room. Whoop-de-friggin'-doo.

The only girl goin' wild around here will be my one year old daughter. She's a real party animal: throwing Cheerios, playing in the TV cabinet, pooping in public, and occasionally taking her top off and flashing the world. I'm pretty sure Joe Francis ain't gonna be knockin' on my door any time soon. Oh dear Lord, I just PRAY she never ends up on a commercial in the middle of the night, flashing her ta-tas and saying "I've never done this before!". I don't think my heart could take it.