Sometimes I don't realize I have an accent. I grew up in Central Virginia, but assimilated pretty well when I lived in Chicago for two summers, so I got a little Midwestern. Then I lived in Louisiana for a year, where I settled into a deeper Southern accent, but I thought that a few years in Northern Virginia had neutralized me a bit.
I was wrong.
I have had Siri on my phone for over a year now and I never use it because she can't understand a word I'm saying. When I ask her to call my husband, Aaron, she offers to look things up on the internet. When I enunciate, I hear this twang come out and I throw the phone across the room in horror. Siri's dumb anyway. I don't REALLY have an accent.
If I have an accent, it would rub off on my kids, and they would say things in some random dialect that I've picked up and they wouldn't know where it came from. Can't be having that. Plus, since we're a military family, we'll be moving all over the place and my kids need a Newsanchor Neutral accent so everyone can understand them.
I had a close call years ago, when my Little Man was born. Aaron's mom brought it to my attention. She hails from Pennsylvania and spent years moving with the military before settling in Virginia, so she's the source of Aaron's pretty neutral accent peppered with what I think are Pennsylvania-isms (ex: The laundry "needs washed." Who skips the "to be" that should be in there? I think it's Pennsylvanians). I have a notably stronger accent than Aaron, but it doesn't take much.
Anyway, Sebastian was like six months old and Aaron's mom mentioned that the women in her aerobics class asked how the "Little May-un" was doing. My eye sockets expanded so fast I had to catch my eyes before they popped out. She immediately looked embarrassed, but I laughed. I knew exactly where it came from - my brain already had a montage ready of me cooing a six-syllable "man" at my child for this moment when I realized I was passing on some serious Southernness to this innocent baby. I fretted about it for months, and successfully reduced my term of endearment from 4-6 syllables to a comfortable 2-3.
Fortunately, Sebastian's babysitter was a Mexican woman who had previously lived in London, so when he started talking and somehow picked up the term "Oh Man," the word came out kind of surfer-Californian - and thankfully, only one syllable. I celebrated and forgot all about accent modification, figuring that if I kept my children around enough other people - especially Aaron - they would be immune.
Then last week, Sebastian asked me which car we were taking: the green one or the "vay-un." The next day, he lectured Audrey about dragging her blanket on the "gray-ound." The final straw was when, through his four-year-old speech impediment, I heard him ask for Ironman fruit snacks, with an empathic "Eye-oon MAY-un!"
Maybe Audrey - whose speech patterns deserve their own homage - has somehow been saved? No. She might sing the "Spiderman" theme song as "Spi-Mahn," with that same surfer-style single syllable that Sebastian used to use, but if you ask her to open her Eye-oon Mahn fruit snacks by herself, she'll tell you sadly that she "tay-un't."
These poor innocent children...
AFTERWORDS: After finishing this post, I heard myself asking Aaron if I could read it to him, when he gets a "chay-unce."
Friday, July 26, 2013
Thursday, July 18, 2013
See Fish Hide
As you might remember, we got the kids each a betta fish several months ago. They lived in a small aquarium in Sebastian's room with a divider down the middle so they wouldn't fight and the kids could each see their fish at night and everyone was happy. Except me. Because Audrey's fish sucked at life.
We got a "baby betta" that never grew, and it pretended to be dead every day because it hated me or it was making a bubble nest but more likely because it hated me. It was my nemesis.
But I'm not going to dwell on that because the problem seemed to resolve itself during our trip to Virginia in May. When I returned, I went to feed the fish and found that the divider keeping Sebastian's awesome blue fish from her sucky pink fish had been removed. I confronted Aaron (because I would have preferred he scheduled the death match when I was in town), but he said he took it out after finding the little pink fish dead at the top of the tank. I like to imagine that the little pink fish was just playing dead to try and mess with Aaron the same way it's been messing with me for months and then came to life briefly while it was flushed, feeling fear and remorse and cursing my name as the water drained it into the sewage system, but Aaron insists it was seriously dead this time.
We did what most good parents do when a child's fish died: We didn't tell Audrey and debated whether to pick up another one that looked similar in case she asked. Avoidance is underrated. We were tacitly united in this decision, though Aaron decided not to buy a new one before I decided not to buy a new one.
I got caught in a tight spot the other day, when Audrey asked me to lift her up to see her fish. I said "Well, um..." and froze. Aaron and I had not covered protocol for this moment, but it seems he had found himself here before with Audrey and she filled me in.
"Mom, pick me up so I can see my fish hiding! Daddy show me my fish is hiding in the leaves!"
Of course! While Aaron and I did not confer on the new strategy, I see where he has helped me to evolve to the next step in good parenting, shifting seamlessly from Avoidance to White Lies. Glad Audrey caught me up.
Good bye fish! And good riddance!
We got a "baby betta" that never grew, and it pretended to be dead every day because it hated me or it was making a bubble nest but more likely because it hated me. It was my nemesis.
But I'm not going to dwell on that because the problem seemed to resolve itself during our trip to Virginia in May. When I returned, I went to feed the fish and found that the divider keeping Sebastian's awesome blue fish from her sucky pink fish had been removed. I confronted Aaron (because I would have preferred he scheduled the death match when I was in town), but he said he took it out after finding the little pink fish dead at the top of the tank. I like to imagine that the little pink fish was just playing dead to try and mess with Aaron the same way it's been messing with me for months and then came to life briefly while it was flushed, feeling fear and remorse and cursing my name as the water drained it into the sewage system, but Aaron insists it was seriously dead this time.
We did what most good parents do when a child's fish died: We didn't tell Audrey and debated whether to pick up another one that looked similar in case she asked. Avoidance is underrated. We were tacitly united in this decision, though Aaron decided not to buy a new one before I decided not to buy a new one.
I got caught in a tight spot the other day, when Audrey asked me to lift her up to see her fish. I said "Well, um..." and froze. Aaron and I had not covered protocol for this moment, but it seems he had found himself here before with Audrey and she filled me in.
"Mom, pick me up so I can see my fish hiding! Daddy show me my fish is hiding in the leaves!"
Of course! While Aaron and I did not confer on the new strategy, I see where he has helped me to evolve to the next step in good parenting, shifting seamlessly from Avoidance to White Lies. Glad Audrey caught me up.
Good bye fish! And good riddance!
The Nuclear Option
Every inch of my legs is burning with fire ant bites, real and imagined. One bite on my left calf has a 5 inch radius of swollen, hot skin. I took an antihistamine. I had more than a few glasses of wine last night. We ran out of ibuprofen. As I nursed my numerous wounds, I had but one thought to comfort me: The Exterminator is Coming.
Let me give credit where credit is due: Audrey is the one who started all this, when she fell on a hill getting into the house the other day. My little run-in from Tuesday night was chalked up to Personal Stupidity (which has been beating me for years) until Aaron told me about Audrey's little incident. That night, I dreamt that the dog was covered in fire ants, that she disintegrated like The Mummy, and I had to get my kids onto a spaceship. I checked the yard the next day and we have upwards of thirty ant hills on our tiny yard. The back yard also has an infestation.
Whatever do I mean by fire ants? Excellent question.
When I grew up in Central Virginia, we always had ant hills. They were a little red/orange mound of dirt and we had two ant varieties: black and red. Black ants supposedly didn't bite, but red ants supposedly did. I don't think I ever got bitten by an ant, though I would pick up the black ones whenever I got the chance. I'd find a tiny one and let him scurry over my hands while I walked, naming him and talking to him until I put him back on an ant hill. When he arrived on the new ant hill, he probably upset the new tribe and was torn limb from limb, but I gladly went along my merry way, satisfied that I had given my ant friend a ride. Awwww...
Fast forward about 25 years and I'm in Texas and ants are NO JOKE. I'm always running around outside barefoot, so I got my first ant bite in April or so, when I was checking out my garden. I was surprised to see one of my old ant friends running away from my foot, but I didn't learn my lesson. I keep going outside barefoot to ask a neighbor a question and inevitably, no matter how careful I am, I get bitten. They'll bite and keep running too - I caught one on my bicep the other week and from the time I felt the pain (immediately) to the time I grabbed him was mere milliseconds and he was biting me while he was sprinting, not kidding. Over the next three days, my entire upper arm, from shoulder to elbow, was red, hot, and swollen from two close bites from ONE TINY FIRE ANT.
Another fun trick from my childhood was dropping a cookie on the ground next to an ant hill, then watching the ants descend and demolish it over the afternoon. I'm sure my mother liked that too, since I always got an extra cookie for the ants.
That also doesn't work with Fire Ants, as I learned today. I put a cracker on their hill to show my kids a fun childhood moment. Thousands of ants showed up, but the cracker is still there hours later so it got boring once the ants stopped moving. Some are guarding it as part of the hill, but nary a bite has been taken. Now I remember: in April, I found a dead baby bird in our yard, missing its head and heart thanks to our former neighbor's sadistic cat. I reported it to our housing office, ants covered it. Animal Control showed up the next day, and there wasn't so much as a baby bird beak left as evidence. Lesson learned: fire ants feast on flesh. And dog food - Madigan hasn't been able to eat outside for a while now.
Anyway, after Tuesday night, I was plotting my own revenge. I went on Pinterest and Google to find Fire Ant treatments. I foresaw a drawn out battle where I would try a new kind of torture on every ant hill to see what worked, taking glee in their suffering. Aaron and I have used water to wash away the hill, but it comes back (the ants are underground). My father-in-law told us at dinner that he and his friends used firecrackers or something when he was little. The explosion was cool, but didn't kill the ants. I silently decided to set my yard on fire and spent dessert debating how to build a fire break to protect the house.
Yesterday morning, I put in the work order before I could stop myself. I went outside and looked at the ants. The slightest touch and hundreds came to the surface. I wondered where the matches were but then remembered the work order. As a temporary Texan, that resonated and I modified an old battle cry to channel my anger and guide the fight: "Remember the Work Order!" Then I thought about fashioning a fur cloak as a Stark of Winterfell to tell people "The Exterminator is Coming." Then I got old school and went "The Ant Man Cometh" and this devolved so that I was distracted for a moment. Until I started itching again and looked for a lighter and came full circle with "Remember the Mantras!"
When the kids came home, I decided to show them a new 2-foot ant hill that had popped up overnight, to educate them about the ants before the exterminator drove in with his own Enola Gay to blindside these antropolises. Antropoli. Antropoles. Whatever. We were standing a safe distance from the New Ant City when I noticed Sebastian's shoe was covered in angry fire ants, who had emerged from a new suburb we hadn't noticed. SON OF A...
We ran inside, I threw his shoe out the front door and scrambled to check both kids feet before my own. As I finished, the phone rang. The exterminator would be here the next day (today). I nearly wept with gratitude. It would have been very awkward if that woman had shown up at the house to deliver the news in person because I would have collapsed in her arms. With Sebastian standing there lecturing me about throwing shoes.
The company said they would be here between noon and 4, but I have waited since 6:30 this morning. I have not showered: I really didn't want to miss the guy. I kept the kids home to watch, though they are suddenly not interested. If I wasn't having lunch with Aaron and talking to the landscapers who suddenly showed up to fix our backyard (in response to my December work order, yeah), I would have put on my war paint.
When the gentleman came, I walked him to every ant hill on our tiny rental property, though he assured me he knew which type of ant this was and what type of stuff to use from the moment he saw a bunch on our tree that we hadn't noticed. I showed him my leg. He understood it was personal and he let me walk the battlefield. I'm supposed to wait an hour, but a part of me wants to be out there, kicking the hills and watching the colonies go silent. This is war.
I had but one request at the end of this war, but I didn't think the exterminator could comply, and Aaron was right there and would probably have undermined the seriousness of the request. ALL I want, all I want in the WORLD, is the thorax of each of those wretched little fire demons, hand delivered to me. I will thread them together in the dark of moon, creating armor the likes of which the world has never seen. When any other fire ant dares to return to this property, I will put on that Fire Ant Thorax Armor with my face painted, and I will charge out the door, yelling "FOR FREEDOM!"
And then I will probably feel a small burning pinch on the back of my leg that will send me back to the work order website.
Let me give credit where credit is due: Audrey is the one who started all this, when she fell on a hill getting into the house the other day. My little run-in from Tuesday night was chalked up to Personal Stupidity (which has been beating me for years) until Aaron told me about Audrey's little incident. That night, I dreamt that the dog was covered in fire ants, that she disintegrated like The Mummy, and I had to get my kids onto a spaceship. I checked the yard the next day and we have upwards of thirty ant hills on our tiny yard. The back yard also has an infestation.
Whatever do I mean by fire ants? Excellent question.
When I grew up in Central Virginia, we always had ant hills. They were a little red/orange mound of dirt and we had two ant varieties: black and red. Black ants supposedly didn't bite, but red ants supposedly did. I don't think I ever got bitten by an ant, though I would pick up the black ones whenever I got the chance. I'd find a tiny one and let him scurry over my hands while I walked, naming him and talking to him until I put him back on an ant hill. When he arrived on the new ant hill, he probably upset the new tribe and was torn limb from limb, but I gladly went along my merry way, satisfied that I had given my ant friend a ride. Awwww...
Fast forward about 25 years and I'm in Texas and ants are NO JOKE. I'm always running around outside barefoot, so I got my first ant bite in April or so, when I was checking out my garden. I was surprised to see one of my old ant friends running away from my foot, but I didn't learn my lesson. I keep going outside barefoot to ask a neighbor a question and inevitably, no matter how careful I am, I get bitten. They'll bite and keep running too - I caught one on my bicep the other week and from the time I felt the pain (immediately) to the time I grabbed him was mere milliseconds and he was biting me while he was sprinting, not kidding. Over the next three days, my entire upper arm, from shoulder to elbow, was red, hot, and swollen from two close bites from ONE TINY FIRE ANT.
Another fun trick from my childhood was dropping a cookie on the ground next to an ant hill, then watching the ants descend and demolish it over the afternoon. I'm sure my mother liked that too, since I always got an extra cookie for the ants.
That also doesn't work with Fire Ants, as I learned today. I put a cracker on their hill to show my kids a fun childhood moment. Thousands of ants showed up, but the cracker is still there hours later so it got boring once the ants stopped moving. Some are guarding it as part of the hill, but nary a bite has been taken. Now I remember: in April, I found a dead baby bird in our yard, missing its head and heart thanks to our former neighbor's sadistic cat. I reported it to our housing office, ants covered it. Animal Control showed up the next day, and there wasn't so much as a baby bird beak left as evidence. Lesson learned: fire ants feast on flesh. And dog food - Madigan hasn't been able to eat outside for a while now.
Anyway, after Tuesday night, I was plotting my own revenge. I went on Pinterest and Google to find Fire Ant treatments. I foresaw a drawn out battle where I would try a new kind of torture on every ant hill to see what worked, taking glee in their suffering. Aaron and I have used water to wash away the hill, but it comes back (the ants are underground). My father-in-law told us at dinner that he and his friends used firecrackers or something when he was little. The explosion was cool, but didn't kill the ants. I silently decided to set my yard on fire and spent dessert debating how to build a fire break to protect the house.
Yesterday morning, I put in the work order before I could stop myself. I went outside and looked at the ants. The slightest touch and hundreds came to the surface. I wondered where the matches were but then remembered the work order. As a temporary Texan, that resonated and I modified an old battle cry to channel my anger and guide the fight: "Remember the Work Order!" Then I thought about fashioning a fur cloak as a Stark of Winterfell to tell people "The Exterminator is Coming." Then I got old school and went "The Ant Man Cometh" and this devolved so that I was distracted for a moment. Until I started itching again and looked for a lighter and came full circle with "Remember the Mantras!"
When the kids came home, I decided to show them a new 2-foot ant hill that had popped up overnight, to educate them about the ants before the exterminator drove in with his own Enola Gay to blindside these antropolises. Antropoli. Antropoles. Whatever. We were standing a safe distance from the New Ant City when I noticed Sebastian's shoe was covered in angry fire ants, who had emerged from a new suburb we hadn't noticed. SON OF A...
We ran inside, I threw his shoe out the front door and scrambled to check both kids feet before my own. As I finished, the phone rang. The exterminator would be here the next day (today). I nearly wept with gratitude. It would have been very awkward if that woman had shown up at the house to deliver the news in person because I would have collapsed in her arms. With Sebastian standing there lecturing me about throwing shoes.
The company said they would be here between noon and 4, but I have waited since 6:30 this morning. I have not showered: I really didn't want to miss the guy. I kept the kids home to watch, though they are suddenly not interested. If I wasn't having lunch with Aaron and talking to the landscapers who suddenly showed up to fix our backyard (in response to my December work order, yeah), I would have put on my war paint.
When the gentleman came, I walked him to every ant hill on our tiny rental property, though he assured me he knew which type of ant this was and what type of stuff to use from the moment he saw a bunch on our tree that we hadn't noticed. I showed him my leg. He understood it was personal and he let me walk the battlefield. I'm supposed to wait an hour, but a part of me wants to be out there, kicking the hills and watching the colonies go silent. This is war.
I had but one request at the end of this war, but I didn't think the exterminator could comply, and Aaron was right there and would probably have undermined the seriousness of the request. ALL I want, all I want in the WORLD, is the thorax of each of those wretched little fire demons, hand delivered to me. I will thread them together in the dark of moon, creating armor the likes of which the world has never seen. When any other fire ant dares to return to this property, I will put on that Fire Ant Thorax Armor with my face painted, and I will charge out the door, yelling "FOR FREEDOM!"
And then I will probably feel a small burning pinch on the back of my leg that will send me back to the work order website.
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Whispers in the Dark
It happens almost every night, in the wee hours. Normally between 2:30 and 3:30, just as the dark is darkest and my dreams are most vivid. The streets are silent, all cars are parked, not a dog is barking in the city.
A whisper.
Moooooommmmmm.
At first, I believe it is part of the dream, because it comes from the mouth of my fourth grade teacher or the police officer handling the rogue circus elephant or the person who is handing me the Hope Diamond to watch for a few days.
Moooooommmmmm.
I try to figure out how this works in the context of the dream. Do I have kids if I'm only 10? Why isn't someone babysitting them with this elephant running around? Is the curse of the Hope Diamond so real that the kids can't even touch it? And how do I keep it from Audrey when it coordinates so well with her princess skirt?
I neeeeeed mooowwwwwwwk.
"What?" I ask, suddenly recognizing that I'm a bit groggy to be handling a rogue elephant.
I neeeeeed mooowwwwwwwk.
"There's milk in the fridge." That makes sense in any situation.
Moooooommmmmm. I need mooowwwwwwwk.
"I know." Let's please get back to the Hope Diamond.
Doe deeeettttttttt it! Doe det da mooowwwwwwwk! Moooooommmmmm. Doe det iiiiiittttttttt!
My eyelids peel back. It's Audrey. I need to doe det da mowk for Audrey. I always need to go get milk for Audrey. Suddenly everything comes together: the weight on my arm, the hot moisture on my ear, the small fingers pushing my hair around. I stumble out of bed, trying to figure out how I didn't know she had crawled into our queen-sized bed, how I missed Aaron's instinctive little pushes that protect his side from invaders and squish her farther onto my pillow.
I check the time. It is 2:39 AM, of course. I get the milk, remind myself to do this before bedtime and to show her where it is so I might sleep through the night for once.
I stumble back to my room, where Audrey looks to be in a state of deep sleep, sprawled on my side of the bed. I take in her slumbering form and wonder if it was all a ploy to take my side of the bed. I sigh.
Audrey jumps up, gathers Ninnie (her blanket), and grabs the milk from my hand. She takes a swig and scurries down the side of the bed, navigating expertly to the door. In the light of the hallway, she breaks into a run.
"I doe sleep in my bed! Duh'night Mom!"
A whisper.
Moooooommmmmm.
At first, I believe it is part of the dream, because it comes from the mouth of my fourth grade teacher or the police officer handling the rogue circus elephant or the person who is handing me the Hope Diamond to watch for a few days.
Moooooommmmmm.
I try to figure out how this works in the context of the dream. Do I have kids if I'm only 10? Why isn't someone babysitting them with this elephant running around? Is the curse of the Hope Diamond so real that the kids can't even touch it? And how do I keep it from Audrey when it coordinates so well with her princess skirt?
I neeeeeed mooowwwwwwwk.
"What?" I ask, suddenly recognizing that I'm a bit groggy to be handling a rogue elephant.
I neeeeeed mooowwwwwwwk.
"There's milk in the fridge." That makes sense in any situation.
Moooooommmmmm. I need mooowwwwwwwk.
"I know." Let's please get back to the Hope Diamond.
Doe deeeettttttttt it! Doe det da mooowwwwwwwk! Moooooommmmmm. Doe det iiiiiittttttttt!
My eyelids peel back. It's Audrey. I need to doe det da mowk for Audrey. I always need to go get milk for Audrey. Suddenly everything comes together: the weight on my arm, the hot moisture on my ear, the small fingers pushing my hair around. I stumble out of bed, trying to figure out how I didn't know she had crawled into our queen-sized bed, how I missed Aaron's instinctive little pushes that protect his side from invaders and squish her farther onto my pillow.
I check the time. It is 2:39 AM, of course. I get the milk, remind myself to do this before bedtime and to show her where it is so I might sleep through the night for once.
I stumble back to my room, where Audrey looks to be in a state of deep sleep, sprawled on my side of the bed. I take in her slumbering form and wonder if it was all a ploy to take my side of the bed. I sigh.
Audrey jumps up, gathers Ninnie (her blanket), and grabs the milk from my hand. She takes a swig and scurries down the side of the bed, navigating expertly to the door. In the light of the hallway, she breaks into a run.
"I doe sleep in my bed! Duh'night Mom!"
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Rain and Housetraining
Iiiiiiiiitttttttttt's raining outside.
Not just raining, but angry-heaven raining that's been going on for three (four?) days now. Which means our backyard is a mud pit. It won't be a mud pit for long: the housing maintenance guys came by to measure for the sod and they plan to fix it soon. Of course, they measured to re-sod about three weeks ago and it was in response to my December 28 work order, so let's take "soon" with an ocean of salt. Which is better than an ocean of mud which, incidentally, can be used interchangeably with "my backyard."
This means that Madigan is in the house... all day... every day...
It was nice at first. The rain cut the heat and she and I have been folding laundry together. She's enjoyed more than her share of treats. She's been great with the kids, so sweet with us, and completely incompetent at, you know, NOT POOPING IN MY HOUSE.
We've been walking her in the morning and the evening but (as I understand) many dogs have issues with going during an active rain. I've been trying to go out in the dryer moments, made walks more frequent, and I'm praising her a lot when she pees, but somehow she just won't go.
As usual, this wouldn't be as much of a problem if it was just between us, but I have two particular individuals who make the situation that much more fun.
Yesterday, Audrey saw it. There was a pool of pee from the dining table that was quickly approaching the rug in the living area, where the dog had left a huge pile. I immediately lurched into action, cleaned it up, Resolved the crap out of the carpet (haha, see what I did there?) and bleached the tile floor. I'm not kidding. That stuff's disgusting. Audrey, meanwhile, decided to seize the moment with her best impression of a two-year-old who has discovered questions.
"MOM! Did Madigan pee and poop in the HOUSE? WHY did Madigan pee and poop in the house? Madigan! Do NOT pee and poop in the house ANYMORE! Mom! Is Madigan supposed to pee and poop in the house? Why did she pee and poop? Does Madigan always pee and poop? Are you cleaning up the pee and poop?"
I think I almost vomited more from the repeated reference than the actual cleaning.
Tonight, I actually had a day-long job interview (exciting, right?), then we had dinner, and everything was going well. Madigan was inside, didn't try to eat anyone's chicken, and waited calmly through our dinner, which she spent in her crate because we really don't trust her with our chicken (and Audrey, who is very generous). When we let her out of the crate, she was jumping and it seemed like she wanted to go out so I praised her for letting me know and we went outside.
Where she didn't... do... anything.
We went inside. She still freaked out. We went outside. I expanded the walk to right next to our backyard. She peed. She sniffed around. I waited. I felt a bite on my ankle. I felt another bite on my calf. I looked at my sneaker and, in the faint light from the street, saw the FIRE ANTS crawling ALL over my right foot.
I was standing on a fire ant hill and my dog was still sniffing.
Because God created fire ants to torment people while they are trying to do the right thing.
Five more fire ant bites. I waited. I felt another bite on my calf. That was it. I moved away from the backyard, closer to the street. I'm still outside with a fire ant family reunion on my foot, but I WAITED BECAUSE I WAS PROUD OF MY DOG.
We went inside. I took off my shoes and threw them out the front door. I picked all the ants out of the welcome mat and squished them. I pulled my pant legs up and found more, which also met their end rolled in my fingers. The dog was calm, so I went in the kitchen to wash my hands.
I felt eyes looking at me and glanced to my left.
Our eyes met.
My dog was squatting. In my house.
After we had been outside twice. For that very purpose. And I had suffered for it.
Just to drive that point home, at that very moment, one of the ants in my jeans bit the back of my knee. Again.
I took Madigan outside again, wearing a different pair of shoes. I waited again. She tried to walk across the street. I pulled her into my yard. After a moment, she just sat and looked at me. I felt an ant bite the bottom of my toe. I backed off the yard and looked at the shoe, again covered in ants from a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT PART OF THE YARD. So help me, my dog is in league with the little demons.
We went inside and she went to her crate. I took my shoes off and scoured them for ants. I took off my jeans, turned them inside out, and picked 11 fire ants off of them, include three that had been super-sized. I don't know what we've been feeding them.
So there I was, without pants or shoes, and trying desperately to figure out whether the stings I felt were old or continued punishment for walking the dog in the rain. That, of course, is the moment Sebastian asked me to bring juice to his bed.
I opened the door. He noted my lack of pants. I told him he was one to talk. I also mentioned that I had ants in my pants from walking Madigan after she pooped on the floor.
"MOM!" He said.
"Yes Honey?"
"You need to turn around and look to see if poop is coming out of the heiny!"
"What?"
"You need to LOOK and SEEEEEE if poop is coming OUT of Madigan's heiny and if it IS you get the LEASH and you put it ON her and you take her OUTSIDE and she will poop OUTSIDE and then she won't poop in your HOUSE! You needed to get the LEASH this time and she will not poop in your house next time!"
I let the door close on its own. I don't need another small creature stinging me repeatedly about this poop thing.
I can't wait until the rain stops.
Not just raining, but angry-heaven raining that's been going on for three (four?) days now. Which means our backyard is a mud pit. It won't be a mud pit for long: the housing maintenance guys came by to measure for the sod and they plan to fix it soon. Of course, they measured to re-sod about three weeks ago and it was in response to my December 28 work order, so let's take "soon" with an ocean of salt. Which is better than an ocean of mud which, incidentally, can be used interchangeably with "my backyard."
This means that Madigan is in the house... all day... every day...
It was nice at first. The rain cut the heat and she and I have been folding laundry together. She's enjoyed more than her share of treats. She's been great with the kids, so sweet with us, and completely incompetent at, you know, NOT POOPING IN MY HOUSE.
We've been walking her in the morning and the evening but (as I understand) many dogs have issues with going during an active rain. I've been trying to go out in the dryer moments, made walks more frequent, and I'm praising her a lot when she pees, but somehow she just won't go.
As usual, this wouldn't be as much of a problem if it was just between us, but I have two particular individuals who make the situation that much more fun.
Yesterday, Audrey saw it. There was a pool of pee from the dining table that was quickly approaching the rug in the living area, where the dog had left a huge pile. I immediately lurched into action, cleaned it up, Resolved the crap out of the carpet (haha, see what I did there?) and bleached the tile floor. I'm not kidding. That stuff's disgusting. Audrey, meanwhile, decided to seize the moment with her best impression of a two-year-old who has discovered questions.
"MOM! Did Madigan pee and poop in the HOUSE? WHY did Madigan pee and poop in the house? Madigan! Do NOT pee and poop in the house ANYMORE! Mom! Is Madigan supposed to pee and poop in the house? Why did she pee and poop? Does Madigan always pee and poop? Are you cleaning up the pee and poop?"
I think I almost vomited more from the repeated reference than the actual cleaning.
Tonight, I actually had a day-long job interview (exciting, right?), then we had dinner, and everything was going well. Madigan was inside, didn't try to eat anyone's chicken, and waited calmly through our dinner, which she spent in her crate because we really don't trust her with our chicken (and Audrey, who is very generous). When we let her out of the crate, she was jumping and it seemed like she wanted to go out so I praised her for letting me know and we went outside.
Where she didn't... do... anything.
We went inside. She still freaked out. We went outside. I expanded the walk to right next to our backyard. She peed. She sniffed around. I waited. I felt a bite on my ankle. I felt another bite on my calf. I looked at my sneaker and, in the faint light from the street, saw the FIRE ANTS crawling ALL over my right foot.
I was standing on a fire ant hill and my dog was still sniffing.
Because God created fire ants to torment people while they are trying to do the right thing.
Five more fire ant bites. I waited. I felt another bite on my calf. That was it. I moved away from the backyard, closer to the street. I'm still outside with a fire ant family reunion on my foot, but I WAITED BECAUSE I WAS PROUD OF MY DOG.
We went inside. I took off my shoes and threw them out the front door. I picked all the ants out of the welcome mat and squished them. I pulled my pant legs up and found more, which also met their end rolled in my fingers. The dog was calm, so I went in the kitchen to wash my hands.
I felt eyes looking at me and glanced to my left.
Our eyes met.
My dog was squatting. In my house.
After we had been outside twice. For that very purpose. And I had suffered for it.
Just to drive that point home, at that very moment, one of the ants in my jeans bit the back of my knee. Again.
I took Madigan outside again, wearing a different pair of shoes. I waited again. She tried to walk across the street. I pulled her into my yard. After a moment, she just sat and looked at me. I felt an ant bite the bottom of my toe. I backed off the yard and looked at the shoe, again covered in ants from a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT PART OF THE YARD. So help me, my dog is in league with the little demons.
We went inside and she went to her crate. I took my shoes off and scoured them for ants. I took off my jeans, turned them inside out, and picked 11 fire ants off of them, include three that had been super-sized. I don't know what we've been feeding them.
So there I was, without pants or shoes, and trying desperately to figure out whether the stings I felt were old or continued punishment for walking the dog in the rain. That, of course, is the moment Sebastian asked me to bring juice to his bed.
I opened the door. He noted my lack of pants. I told him he was one to talk. I also mentioned that I had ants in my pants from walking Madigan after she pooped on the floor.
"MOM!" He said.
"Yes Honey?"
"You need to turn around and look to see if poop is coming out of the heiny!"
"What?"
"You need to LOOK and SEEEEEE if poop is coming OUT of Madigan's heiny and if it IS you get the LEASH and you put it ON her and you take her OUTSIDE and she will poop OUTSIDE and then she won't poop in your HOUSE! You needed to get the LEASH this time and she will not poop in your house next time!"
I let the door close on its own. I don't need another small creature stinging me repeatedly about this poop thing.
I can't wait until the rain stops.
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