Our First Nights Away From Home

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Our little family made its first trip away from home this past weekend. We took a ride down to Orlando to see Brandi and Robby and Ethan while they were at Disney World. To accommodate the baby girls, though, we stayed at the Royal Pacific on Universal Property (we're old hat at that now). Marc and I were a bit nervous about taking Luna who has proven to be not only amazingly vocal but also a bit protective, especially when Big Sister is around.
The first few times Luna heard people in the hallway, she got a little rowdy, but after our reassuring her a couple of times and her figuring out that they were not coming in to bother us, people could pass undisturbed. A couple of times, early in the morning, drunk folks came by and were being loud so she went to the door and growled-- no barking, though. When we went out, she tolerated the strangers fairly well unless they decided to head our direction or look or way at which point she would growl and bark a bit. Overall, she was very good. I was remiss, though, and forgot to take any pictures.
To make up for it, here are some from when we made it home.When they put in the pool, they left a little pile of sand. it took her a week or so to notice it, but when she did, she decided it was absolutely GRAND.

Elbows and Hips

Sunday, May 16, 2010
44#
I have all these great pictures just waiting to be edited. For three weeks now I've been avoiding doing a post in hopes of getting them finished for posting here. Instead, I have decided that, as with many things in life, I should forget about making everything just perfect and focus instead on just making. So here goes...
Honestly, things have been cruising along pretty steadily with little news to report until this week. We went to see Dr. Green for our six month check on Monday since Big Sister was going to get her annual exam. Luna was a handful on this trip, barking in her big girl voice at people in the office and returning with her hackles raised after being taken to get a stool sample (can't say I much blame her for that one). When they raised Abbie up onto the mechanical table, Luna was none too happy with the proceedings. She sniffed and whined and raised up onto the table so she could see. Generally, she was just one serious handful. Dr. Green noted my frustration and talked at length with me about some ways to help modify her behaviors and promised me that he would find some literature for me to read and maybe even be able to find a trainer for us to work with. Luna's being a good and polite citizen is very important to me, so I don't want to drop the ball on this one. Then we scheduled a visit for this past Friday for Little Sister to be lightly sedated and have x-rays of her hips and elbows. While we can't OFA certify her until she is two, the most important thing to Marc and me is her well-being and living as pain-free as possible. In order to do everything we can to ensure that, we wanted to get x-rays as early as possible. That way, we could intervene if necessary. Luna's elbows are perfect right now, and her hips are good. The pelvic bones and hip bones are formed well, but Dr. Green did express a small amount of concern about some incongruency in the way the femur fit into the acetabulum and is going to discuss the films with radiology at UF to make sure it's okay. We're going to be optimistic that it is. When we went back for the x-rays, he also confirmed that Abbie's labs looked great, so we now officially have two beautiful bills of health.

On our way home...

The Toy Basket and Cleaning the Tub

Monday, April 26, 2010
37# @ 22 weeks, 3 days

I bought a basket to teach Luna to put away her toys. Funny enough, the basket became as much of a toy as the toys themselves. Here are a couple of videos of her playing distructo-Luna.
We are almost through the teething phase. I think the last of her puppy teeth are out and the big girl teeth are coming through. I'm glad. The puppy teeth were frikkin' sharp. Now that the teething is almost over, she is less obsessed with chewing on our hands and arms. Actually, she seems to be calming down over all. About 3 or 4 days ago she just out of nowhere began to be more calm a bigger percentage of the time. Until then, she seemed to just be all or nothing, full-tilt-boogie or dead-to-the-world. Now she has a sort of medium speed where she lies around observing or wanders aimlessly. She has taken to going into the bedroom and lying on the bed quite a bit. Of note is her new-found ability to jump flat-footed onto the bed.

Funny story...
The other day I was cleaning house in preparation for a get-together we were having. I got in the garden tub to wash the window next to it, and I could see the wheels in Luna's head turning. She decided to jump in with me and try to help. While I was taking one of the manufacturer's stickers off, she started looking at the other one. She looked at it, watched me, looked at it, then began trying to pull the other sticker off herself. She never got any off, but she surely tried. When I finally get finished, she and I got out of the tub, and I went in kitchen. All of a sudden I heard this HUGE CLANK AND CRASH, and she comes slinking out of the bathroom like, "Did you hear that?! I wonder what that was? I wouldn't possibly have caused that noise!" I swear. It was hilarious. "The noise?" you ask... It was her pulling the poinsettia off the window sill into the tub. No worries, nothing broken, and she didn't eat any of the plant. I did, however, end up doing a LOT more cleaning.

Just Lookin' For Something to Get Into

34# today...20 weeks 4 days old

Luna has decided that life is just painfully boring. She has started the habit of cruising the house obviously looking for things to get into. She'll open the doors to the rooms that we have shut her out of and walk through the room she has gone into looking for things to do. She'll try to open cabinets. She'll poke through boxes or bags or bins. Today she got into my suitcase that I hadn't put away and ate the buttons off my new sweater (!). When she has exhausted all of her options, she'll come look at us, whine pitifully, sigh, and flop down. "I am SO bored!" She is such a ham!

Rambunctious

19w3d
Today Luna weighed 32.5 pounds.

When I left for Tennessee 10 days ago, she weighed 30 pounds. I don't know where she gets the energy to grow because one would think she's using it all to run around like a banshee. While I suppose she is getting better, she still has her incredibly crazy moments of rambunctious pandemonium. She also still has the occasional accident in the house. Tonight, for instance, we left her alone for about 30 minutes and came back to a couple of little gifts in the floor. The occasional teeth marks on things and the fetish she has for paper products is tolerable, but because her pop is SO soft, I really wish we could completely break her of these accidents.

A few weeks ago, we had a little visitor for a couple of days. This is Corndog.

Leaps and Bounds

It seems like every day that we wake up Luna has gotten just a little bit bigger during the night or picked up yet another little milestone. She weighed 30 pounds this morning which means she is officially twice as big as she was when we brought her home. She seems even to be growing into her ears a little bit which makes me more than a little sad.

We're trying to take her on fun car rides as often as possible in hopes that she won't have the aversion to it that Abbie does. Here recently we took her to Uncle Wayne's at Amigo's Dive Center.

She finally got big enough in the last week to climb up onto the bed by herself. My only worry is that she also jumps down, and I don't want her to cause dysplasia in her elbows.

And, finally, a picture from today. Oh, my goodness, I just LOVE those ears!

Roll Over, Roll Over

These last few days I have thought a lot about and been in awe over how much we can love them, and how quickly. We have many nicknames for Luna: Goober Dog, 'Tard, REtard, Devil Dog, Luna-tic, OH MY GOSH!, Luna-Balloona, Bella Luna, Little Bit, Little Sister, and I'm sure there are more that I'm missing. They are uttered in amazement and frustration, and occasionally anger, but always there's at least a little bit of love behind them. More often than not, there is a lot of love behind them, even when we're frustrated. Always, though, there is love. Though we loved her from the start, she has become a piece of our hearts. ..How could she not? Have ya seen those ears?!

She looks such the regal guard dog in the picture above. She's definitely becoming more sassy. Today a couple of folks came to the door and knocked, and she was not fond of that at all. The bark she offered was not a welcoming one.
For whatever reason, Luna loves our shower. She has to check it out every time we go to the bathroom and the door is open.
While we want her to be a good citizen, and much of her homeschooling is for that, we have to throw in the occasional just-for-fun work. "Roll over" has been our project the last couple of days. Dad helped her master the final touches today. When I got up this afternoon, I decided I wanted to get it on video. Luna was so excited, though, that I couldn't quite get her to do it. That I had the camera in one hand and the treats in the other didn't help any. She's accustomed to some accompanying hand gestures, so I confused her. The result was amusing, so I posted it and the more perfect results when Dad came to help out. (Note how Big Sister is sitting and downing trying to get treats, too in the first one.LOL)