Puck's Excellent Adventure

Puck was an excellent traveller (both ways). He was quiet, polite and didn't even smell bad, the whole way there.

He made many doggy friends in Wawa. I thought he did very well, he tried to play with every dog that he met, but he respected their body language and always came to me when he was called.




Puck enjoyed running on the rocky shore


And playing on the beach









He got to meet Aunt Sharon, he was pretty good with her considering that he is supposed to be a big goofy puppy.

Matt was blown away by how good this dog is. It was a bonding experience for man and dog.

Aside from some bad smells, Puck was very good on the trip home. Well, his presence did cause some problems. Let me explain. I had wisely bought the boys each a tennis ball sized jawbreaker to have on the trip home. I thought that it would mean hours of quiet driving. I thought wrong. Damon and Campbell couldn't even get them into their mouths, and Patrick's kept falling out of his mouth. First it landed on Puck's back, getting white sugary goop all over him. We had many tears, but I washed off the short brown hairs with bottled water and a napkin and he tried again. About 5 minutes later I hear, "Awwwww, I dropped it again." "It's okay, I can wash it off again." In a very grumpy voice, Patrick says, "No you can't, it landed on Puck's dink." The boys all made jokes about that for the rest of the drive home.

He is very loved and he knows it. So, what do you think, does this dog need his own blog? Maybe a blog day.

You know you are keeping your fridge too cold when

you have to use a chisel to get your pickles out.

HOW?

Well we couldn't get an appointment on Monday, so instead of waiting, we went to a walk-in clinic. The doctor said that Patrick had swimmer's ear and that fluid was also building up on the other side of the ear. Damon's was almost as bad. So he gave us a prescription for oral antibiotics (zithromax) and antibiotic/steriod ear drops. It took about 3 days for them to start to feel better. They have pink discharge coming out of their ears now, which is apparently within normal. Yesterday they were still relying heavily on Advil to quiet the wailing.

How did both Patrick and Damon end up with swimmer's ear? And stranger still, Patrick's friend S. and his brother both have the same thing! They have spent many days together this summer, some of those in the friend's swimming pool. But it is a brand new pool that is crystal clear, and S.'s brother's friends have spent even more time in the pool and they don't have an ear infection. S's mom was worried that it might be her pool and was going to ask an expert, but I told her I wasn't worried that it was her pool. My theory is that they are swimming a lot and it has been a hot summer, which means that their ears are very warm moist environments for bacteria to get into. Or it could be that all 4 of those kids were swimming in the Great Lakes (Lake Huron, Lake Erie and Lake Superior). Oh well, my brain hurts, so I'm not going to think about this one too hard.

I'm getting things under control here, so I thought I should update on the phones. I have found all 3 cordless phones! One was in Patrick's room on his bookshelf. One was underneath my bed and the last one was between the couch cushions. Typical places, but things were so busy here, I didn't have a chance to look.

Trying my patience, and trying their patients

After another night of WAILING children, I started calling the doctor's office at 9:30, which is when they supposedly start to answer the phones. Busy. I wait 5 minutes, busy. I've been calling every 5 or 10 minutes for the past hour and 40 minutes and it has been flipping busy every time.

I like our doctor, I've been going to her for 12 years and she has been the only doctor my kids have known. But here I am with two kids in pain and I can't even get a freaking appointment. This is unnacceptable. I'm going to try for another 15 minutes and then I'm packing up my 4 kids and going there anyway. UGH. If they can't see me then I'll have to look for another family doctor.

Look in the pool at the 2020 Olympics

You just might see Kira. JussPress | New The girl has no fear of the water. When she was swimming in the big pool on Friday, she wanted to take her water wings off. I let her and she swam, desperately trying to keep her head up, but she kept sinking (my arms were waiting). I'm going to look into private lessons, because the only classes available at her age is to get them familiar with the water and this girl wants to get going.

A Pain in the Ear

Dr. Mom has diagnosed both Patrick and Damon with Swimmer's Ear (Otitis Externa). It is strange because I hadn't heard much about swimmer's ear until about 10 days ago when Patrick's buddy had it. His mom figured he got it from swimming in gross lake water when they were campting. A few days ago, Patrick started complaining that his ear ached from time to time. Then yesterday, Patrick and now Damon started WAILING about their ears. Only having had experience with inner ear infections, I was figuring they would both end up with fevers, but so far nothing. They have pain when you touch them anywhere near the affected ear and they do swim every single day. Either in our little pool or at friends' pools. I think it is strange that even though it isn't contagious, both of them got it at the same time and shortly after Patrick's friend. So I guess we are headed to the doctor's office tomorrow to get some antibiotic drops. That will not be fun, but I'll just be thankful that only 1/2 of the kids were affected.

Kissing cousins

Aren't they adorable together?

Clutter

I can't find any of my phones. I'm not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing. Action figures and newspapers I'm having no problem locating though.

Vacation's over

Oh where to begin, where to begin. Well at the beginning. Since I can't get anything done when the kids are up, I stayed up for most of the night getting everything packed. We left at 6 am, and I slept most of the 12 hour trip.


Wawa, well Michipicoten actually, is a beautiful place. Lake Superior is gorgeous, although cold. The views from Matt's aunt's cottage are breathtaking. Photography doesn't do it justice, but we keep trying.

Kira enjoyed her trip. Between playing on the beach and tearing the cottage apart, she kept very busy.

The boys had lots of fun, fishing, looking at the bears at the dump, building a fort, climbing on rocks, playing in the waves, and going in the sauna (of course they do this until they are hot enough to go jump in the lake).

As for Puck, he came with us and experienced his first family vacation. Now that is a blog entry for another day! Matt was complaining when he looked at our photos, saying we might as well title that folder "Puck's big vacation." It was hard to resist though, a gorgeous puppy in a beautiful surrounding.

I have a lot more photos, I took about 600 of them. I will blog some more of them as I sift through them.

Like quizzes eh?

Your Slanguage Profile

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What Slanguage Do You Speak?

Got to get out of here

We're leaving for the cottage.  With 4 kids, a puppy, grandparents, and 2 doting aunts, it will be very busy, and fun.  We will be hiking, fishing, kayaking, surfing, visiting and maybe if I'm lucky, relaxing.

The true face of Kira

Finally, captured on film. Now you see what I am up against, what the WORLD is up against.

Videos

I just uploaded some video clips to JussPress | New

So far I only have a few of Puck. I'll try to get the kids on there soon. You can see Puck's favourite tricks. I'm still trying to catch him turning on the tap, but he's quick.

The lacrosse finals ended in heartbreak

okay, not really. But Damon's team lost. Damon was awesome too. He got the ball of their players many times and he had 4 breakaways and shots on their net. It was SOOO close and they only lost by one goal that was scored in the last minute of the game. The final score was 7-8. The playoff games were all really exciting, the crowds get really excited and cheer for their teams. We were sitting with our friend who is the mother of the other team's goalie, so it was all friendly cheering. Damon was a little bit sad, but he was proud when all the coaches from both teams remarked on how he played and excellent game. Matt's parents even came to watch the game and then visited with us afterwards.

I would like to say that we are finished lacrosse for the year, but that wouldn't be true. We were back at the arena last night and again tonight for Select team practices.

Splash

Kira at her brothers' last day of swimming lessons modelling her Gymboree Splash outfit (minus the matching sandals). It looks a bit wrinkled there, but I LOVE that outfit so much.

Trying on Damon's camo flip flops.

Now try teaching him to turn it off!

Puck learned a new trick this weekend. It's a pretty good trick for hot weather too.



He started this because he was hot and thirsty in the backyard and I offered him the hose on a low stream.  He lapped it up.  Then whenever I tried to use the hose for anything, he was jumping up and trying to drink from the stream.  Then he came inside and saw the kids washing their hands and saw that there was a stream there.  Now he is hooked and can even turn on the cold water in the upstairs bathroom.  It's our fault for having lever handles.

There's a new princess in the family

Look at how pleased Uncle Matt is with little Tenley. She's quietly scheming.

The queen of the castle

This was taken at Campbell's class picnic on the last day of school. Kira ruled the playground that day.

If I'm a little bit cranky

this should explain a bit. This is INSIDE my house at night, with fans and windows open.

Oh and did I mention that Matt is sleeping in an air-conditioned hotel room and I've been taking care of sick feverish kids in this?

My mother and my sister let me know that I can come over to enjoy their air-conditioned comfort. What they forget is that my a/c in my van is broken and that would mean an awfully uncomfortable 1/2 drive there and back. Once Matt gets back, he is going to take the van in to be fixed, but I'm not going to drop it off, because that would mean trying to make my way home across the city with 4 busy, hot, whiney kids.

So I sit here and sweat. Okay, I'm done now.

Spicy dog

Can you imagine? I was trying to cook a meal. SO of course, Kira took over my spice drawer. First she took out the ground oregano and spilled a little on the floor. I was surprised to see Puck lick it up and then ROLL in it. Kira thought this was great so she sprinkled it on his back. I took away the oregano and she threw a mini-tantrum, stopped midway and got out the onion salt and sprinkled that on him.

He does look happy about being well-seasoned though. And I must say that oregano and onion salt smelled much better than that usual stinky pointer smell.

"No Damon those aren't bug bites, those are my muscles."

OMG, I actually heard Campbell say that. Isn't that a punchline or something? I had to go look. Campbell has a little mosquito bite near his wrist and the "bumps" Damon was referring to were up his forearm muscles closer up to his elbow.

Damon: (still in disbelief) Mommy, is it true? Are those really muscles? He's just trying to look strong.

I couldn't help laughing.

Of course!

It's the first week of summer vacation. Daddy's away on a business trip. We have daily swimming lessons for all 3 boys in the morning. I have a million things to do around the house and in the garden. My sister just had a baby and could probably use some extra help with her kids. So you know what that means right?

Yes, somebody had to go and get sick. Kira started a fever yesterday afternoon, but it cleared up with Motrin and she was cheerful and busy in time for Damon's lacrosse game. She ran all over while I tried to watch him play (he was the goalie). Then when we got home, her fever went up again, to 103.5. This morning, Damon came into my bed with a fever too. He took Tylenol and it cleared up, so 2 hours later when it was time for Patrick and Campbell to go to swimming, he begged me to go in. I would have preferred to say 'no' to him, but he can't afford to miss too much swimming and I figured that the other kids in his class were exposed to him yesterday anyway. He came home and went to sleep and has been on the couch ever since. Kira is very clingy though.

My sister's kids are sick with an ear infection and a gastro infection. Luckily my mother has the week off of work to help her out.

Take me to the river...

drop me in the water...

Patrick made his kayaking debut today.

He did pretty well for his first time.

But he had a bit of trouble with steering! LOL I had a serious case of deja vu watching this happen. I still have nightmares about being made to paddle in one of those when I was about 10!*

Campbell is helping Grandpa. He even got a chance to steer later on.

Damon is on the lookout for swans, beavers, ducks, turtles, fish and hopefully a crocodile.

*(In case you don't know my dad's family is very involved in canoe and kayak racing. My grandpa, uncles and father have been to many Olympics amongst them. Now they are coaches of some of the top paddlers in the world. Two of my cousins are on the Provincial and National teams. *I* on the other hand, am a paddling failure. Patrick has dreams of making up for that though.)

When we got home

we were greeted by Puck, at the door. THE DOOR! Yes, he had managed a jail-break from his travel crate! For as long as 8 hours. Unreal. We ran all over the house checking rooms for damage.

We found one of Kira's diapers half-eaten at the bottom of the stairs and a trail of poop all the way up the stairs, but that was IT as far as we can tell. I'm impressed. He tore around the house and yard looking guilty because of the poop and the diaper, but quickly got over that when he smelled the hot dogs I made the kids for dinner.

Happy Birthday Canada!

So today is Canada Day, our nation's "birthday". My sister was being induced, so we went to her house to help "distract" 3 1/2 year old Peyton and 19 month old Maddox. Poor Maddox fell down the stairs again last night! (This is the same boy who fell down the stairs in my sister's arms and fractured his skull at 11 weeks. For his sake they need to move to a bungalow!) So the night before her induction, my sister sat in the ER with Maddox to see if his cheekbone or browbone was broken. He freaked out when they tried to put ice on it, so when I was putting Canadian flag tattoos on all of the kids, I put a "just add ice" tattoo on his face. Here he is modelling with me and Damon.


All of the kids together (Campbell forgot his matching Canada Day shirt at his grandparents house).

We also went to visit my grandfather. After a few close "urgent" phone calls from the doctor over the last week, he seems to be doing better. He was very boisterous today and was screaming out, spitting out his drink, trying to bite my hand. The kids thought that it was awesome and can't wait to go back to the senior's home! Here he is chewing on his own fingers and Kira, the copycat, is inspired to do the same.

My sister had an easy labour and soon we got the call that Tenley, had arrived. She weighed 8 lbs. 10 oz. and both her and my sister are doing great.

Patrick couldn't wait to get her into his arms.

Meeting Kira...

who insisted on holding her baby. ("Me, baba, no, me")

Welcome to this world, happy birthday and Happy Canada Day to Tenley!

The poor kid shares her birthday with 2 other Canadians, Pamela Anderson and Dan Akroyd. Now how do you top those 2!

Puck at 6 months

Hey, Mulan, you only need to ask me once to show off your cousin Puck.  (they are cousins, right?)  LOL  Here he is in my yard stalking everything that moves.  He just figured out that he's supposed to NOTICE the birdies.  First he's guarding the birdfeeder...

And chasing flies...

He's pretty good at catching them too!

Puck is a great dog.  He has his occasional naughty moments, but it is still hard to believe that he is still a 6 month old puppy.  And a 6 month old GSP puppy at that!  I'm amazed at how well he listens off lead already.  The only time he doesn't listen is when he is hunting puddy cats, he is quite "cat sharp".  There may be hope for him as he does obey me when he is carrying Buddie by the ear and I say "Drop it". ;-)

Mulan, Congrats on the field dog test!  After seeing those pictures of her going after the ducks, I'm sure she's having a great time with it.  Thanks for clearing up the question about the ants on the peonies.