Plum, Janos-Faced

It is hard to get a good picture of Plum, because he really prefers to spend most of his days lying on a hassock in a dark-ish corner of our living room, or lying like roadkill right in the middle of where one walks from the dining room to the kitchen.  But this weekend he was up and about and I got a few good shots of him with eyes open!

Sean likes to take him out on the deck for a bit of fresh air.  Plum seems to like this very much too—he will talk the entire time he is out there, and if you hold him up to a nearby tree, he will nibble a leaf or a twig.

He is still on clomicalm for his spraying issues.  He is just on a quarter of a pill, instead of the prescribed half, but it seems to work for him.  While on the meds, he doesn’t seem too out of it, yet it takes the edge off his more annoying behaviors.  On Saturday I ran out of pill pockets so skipped a dose, and he then tormented Posy all Sunday.  Plus Sean thought he might have been spraying upstairs, although we haven’t found any proof other than odors.  So on Sunday evening he went back on the meds, after Sean personally bought him two bags of pill pockets so we wouldn’t run out in the near future.

I still don’t get why he bothers Posy, since she never bothers him back, and doesn’t try to stand up to his authority.  Perhaps he is just a bully?  Or perhaps his neutering wasn’t quite completely successful?

A good thing about Plum is that he is still great with Owen.  Owen is quite gentle with the pets on the whole, but whereas Posy will run away, and Dorothy will sigh and mope, Plum will stand his ground and even on occasion seek Owen out.  He will rub against him, and talk to him, and not be bothered by Owen’s pats.  So there’s that!

I was feeling pleased with myself yesterday because I was able to cut 17 of Plum’s 18 nails.  The last one is too close to his footpad and he didn’t like me touching it.  We shall try again tonight though.  He also has a few clumps that need to be cut off.  The indignities of old(ish) age!

Plum thinking I am alpha cat, hear me roar.

 

Muddy Puddles

For the last four or five months, Owen has been, to put it mildly, a big fan of the Peppa Pig cartoon.  One of Peppa’s favorite activities, proper little piggy that she is, is to jump in muddy puddles.  And she is often getting admonished – and in turn admonishing her little brother, George – that if you jump in muddy puddles, you must wear your boots.

Owen has been quite intrigued by the whole idea of muddy puddles and jumping into them, and I finally got him a pair of rainboots so that he could do just that.  We had the boots, and now we needed the puddles!  “Luckily” (and please sprinkle a bit of sarcasm on that), our neighbors decided to drain their broken swimming pool on Sunday, and didn’t let the hose run out far enough into the lot that backs up onto both of our yards.  I was outside in the backyard with Owen at the time, when all of a sudden I realized that there was a steady stream of water running into it.  After hollering politely to the neighbor that his pool was ending up in our yard and could he please do something about it, we decided to make lemonade, so to speak, and I got Owen his rainboots.

Thus proceeded a good hour of muddy puddle jumping!  And it was just as much fun as Peppa had described.  Owen kept saying, Mommy jump in muddy puddles, too? Upon which I reminded him that if you jump in muddy puddles, you must wear your boots, and I was not wearing my boots.  Alas!  But Owen had a lot of fun, and by the next morning the puddles had been absorbed into our yard, as puddles are wont to do.

Progress

Owen is no longer crying or whining when he gets dropped off at his nursery school playgroup, which is nice.  He happily goes into his classroom and then is pleased to see Susan when she picks him up in a couple of hours.  I’m told he doesn’t always sing the goodbye song, but perhaps he prefers a handshake or some simple sprechtstimme.  Or even a see you later.  At any rate, school is going well, although we are all braced for Illness #2.

We’ve also seen some changes with Owen’s counting abilities.  He can count along with us – when we are walking down the stairs, say – up to twenty.  But until recently, when counting things on his own (something he likes to do), he would count thusly:  2, 10, 2, 10, 2!  So I started counting 1-2-3 to try to balance out all the 2’s and 10’s, and now he has started counting like this:  1, 2, Ghee, Pa, 15, 18.  Hmmmm.  I guess he heard “three” as “Ghee”, his nickname for his Granny, and then figured he should throw in a “Pa” so his Grandfather wouldn’t feel left out?  And then he's always been fond of reciting the teens.

We’re still working on his numbers!

He likes to tell us what colors things are, too, and gets them all correct except he can’t seem to tell the difference between pink and white.  All pinks are pink and all whites are pink too.  Perhaps that’s a remark on my laundry skills?  

The Mosquito Buffet Is Closed

We have had many days with weather in the sixties as of late, which means that we can finally spend time outside without becoming a mosquito buffet.  It seems very freeing.  No smelly bug spray that doesn’t really work, and no looking down to find mosquitoes polka-dotting my legs.

When it stopped raining this past weekend I went outside with Owen and Dorothy and enjoyed watching the birds and occasionally pulling a weed while keeping an eye on Owen and his antics.  We have a little faded slide thingie that neighbors down the street passed on to us, and Owen enjoys climbing up it and sliding down while informing me that I am too big for the slide.  Yes Owen, I am indeed. 

He also can spend a very long time puttering about the yard, gathering sticks, and throwing pebbles in bushes and generally doing a good job of keeping himself entertained.  And of course the whole time he is doing so he is also making a running commentary that is often quite amusing.

And Dorothy loves nothing better than to be out in her yard with people on a cool day!  She takes a few big sticks and brings them under our largest tree and lies down and chews them.  

Every once in awhile she will bring a stick over to us to show us that she is a dog with a big stick.  She also likes to whip around and thwack us in the ankles with them.  And then she’ll return happily to underneath her tree.

We’re still trying to keep her from doing too much running and jumping, as she will get limpy after a session in the yard in which she is too active.  

This is precisely what she is not supposed to do:

She went on a neighborhood watch walk the other day and some policemen drove by, and then stopped when they saw her neighborhood watch bandanna so that they could meet their newest deputy!  They gave Dorothy much admiration, and she was very, very proud.  She has yet to report any suspicious activity, but that doesn’t mean she is not looking for it!

Fall Bullets

First of all, does anyone want to purchase some delicious fruit and for a good cause?!  If so, go to, and I kid you not, www.yummybandfruit.com and then click on the button that says ship to anywhere in the continental US.  When you place your order, please choose “Lily Hunter” (my niece!) from the “Choose Seller” menu.  Yum!  You know you like to get fruit nestled in a crate.

I tend to get USA healthcare rage, and this tendency was only augmented the other day when suffering a bad sinus infection, I called my doctor to get antibiotics, and was told that she had to see me first, and then that her first available appointment was in the second week of December.  Keep up the good work, USA!  If only we had the same healthcare plan as our senators and representatives….

Martha came to visit a few weekends ago!  I haven’t been in a writing mood so have not yet recorded the visit on my blog (although Martha did so on her blog here).  For unknown reasons, Owen called Martha “Apple” and enjoyed bossing Apple around on Friday night.  On Saturday poor Owen came down with the First Nursery School Illness of 2014 (an illness with which I am still afflicted, sigh), so was feeling poorly all day.  But we did go to a playground and he had a good time swinging with his auntie.  Since she left, Owen has asked about Apple frequently.  The other day he asked me if Apple poops.

Owen is liking his nursery school and didn’t cry when Susan dropped him off on Thursday.  He brought home this lovely picture he made using fall leaves:

Owen talks A. Lot. these days.  He will chatter throughout dinner, not letting Sean or me get a word in edgewise.  He likes to point out what we are all having to eat and drink (Mommy wawa, Daddy beah, O milk), and then he likes to point to what’s on our plate and ask if he can “hold it”?  Not that I believe in the communal plate (and have indeed been known to use my fork as a weapon if someone reaches towards my plate when it has dessert on it), but since Owen doesn’t eat much variety, I’ve been letting him “hold it” and take a few bites of whatever it is.  

Owen will gladly tell you, if you ask, that Posy (Popey) likes cupcakes, Plum (Pum) likes o-gurt from a finger, and Dorothy (Dorty now, and no longer Dorr Dorr) likes a hamburger.  Yesterday Owen asked for candy corn in a cup for dinner, and had a tantrum when we said, um, no.

If Owen is mad at us, he will tell us bye bye.  Bye bye Mommy or bye bye Daddy means, please leave the room; you are dismissed.  Little tyrant.

Here he is playing with the Peppa Pig dollhouse he got from Susan and his grandmother:

Dorothy had her last laser treatment the other day.  We are still restricting her movement to try to give both of her knees more time to heal.  She actually doesn’t seem to mind spending most of her day lying on her back on the couch.

Slander!

Owen’s been getting up at 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning and calling the night a day, so to speak.  This is very much not okay, and I absolutely refuse to let him get up before 5:15, and even that time makes me grumpy.  6:15 is a much more civilized time to get out of bed, if you ask me.  Anyway, after getting up in the wee small hours of the morning, Owen is often tired throughout the day (hello consequence).  Here he is pretending to sleep during music class.