This Is Bliss

Everything worked out! The puppy home inspection went well and Harry is "ours". He's also the most well behaved puppy you have or will ever meet. He abides by commands, he loves to cuddle and he barely ever barks. It's a phenomenon.

He also has ring worm at the moment. So check back in 5-10 days.

And the Boyfriend, who was all "I don't want to a dog!" and "I'm not walking it", has completely fallen for our little man. In fact, the Boyfriend spent Harry's first night at home on the couch so he could be there in case Harry "got upset". Let me tell you- the two of them spend all their time together now; from their mornings on the couch watching Fox news (yuck) to their long walks on the beach holding hands... ok wait, where am I going with this?

Point being: the Boyfriend adores Harry. They are like two peas in a little pod. But alas, neither of them like to have their picture taken. So I'm going to have to be uber sneaky to catch a shot of them for this here website.

In the meantime, here is the cutest f*n picture ever of my niece playing with "our" Harry.

This picture makes me want to have babies.

So does this picture, but that's an entirely different blog entry all together.

Lessons In Parenting

My very overworked, wonderful, super mom of a sister gave me two of the greatest things a girl could ask for; two extremely adorable nieces. Perhaps it's the fact that my sister is 7 years older than me (ok, ok, 6 and a half) or perhaps it's simply because she was blessed with better nerves than me, but no matter what happens to her my sister is continually patient.

*Sometimes the differences between our personalities make me wonder if she wasn't lying all these years and I really AM the milk man's baby.*

Because my sister is overworked and overtired I attempt to help as best I can when she actually asks for help. This past Saturday was one of those I'm-Pulling-The-Sister-Card-On-Your-Ass-Kelly kind of days. So there I was at 10am, slightly hungover and going to dance class. But before I tell you this story, I want you to know that there is a special place in heaven/earth/kharma for Moms.

My oldest niece, Princess Superior, who you learned about here, is 3 and a half years old now. She is also the cutest punk you will ever meet in your life and when I say punk think Ashton Kutcher punk'd because for real... the girl is the queen of punking folks into thinking that she's helpless when she isn't;

"No, Aunt Kelly I don't know how to take my shoes off"

"Can you carry my bag? My dress is in the way"

"Just one more cookie... I don't think Mommy will mind"

All the while she's smirking at me and I know she's won and there isn't a damn thing I can do about it.

Now as if making it to dance class in the first place wasn't hard enough, the rest of the morning just got much worse. Princess Superior was in class and there I was thinking "wa hoo! break time!". How hard could it be to take care of one of my nieces for an hour?

In retrospect, I would like to say "DUH" to myself.

In my defense, no one told me that my younger niece went from sitting still and making cute faces to "hel-Lo I'm a wiggle worm, aren't I cute?". I chalk this up to parenting ignorance. So there I was; no stroller, no baby bjorn, nothing but my arms. Envision this. I sincerely believe this is my sister's form of providing me with birth control.

I mean don't get me wrong; it all started off nice. We sat outside the grocery store. That is, of course, until a hord of teenage smokers arrived. We went to Marshall's. That is, of course, until a man decided to hit on me with a BABY in my arms. I won't even go there. We went to Saladworks, my favorite place on earth, to purchase my must have buffalo chicken salad and then womp womp this is where the story starts to go downhill because I realized ah shit, I gotta pee.

So where do you put a baby down when you have no other hands available? The only regretable, nasty option of course; the bathroom floor. I was trying so hard to make sure she didn't put any nasty floor litter in her mouth that I didn't realize I was basically peeing all over myself. When I was done I washed my hands, her hands, her cheeks, whatever I could reach and she's thinking "yea-ya there's a baby pool in here and no one told me?"

There was soap and water EVERYWHERE.

I will just leave it up to your imagination as to the kind of state that I was in when I left Saladworks. Think frazzled.

Princess Superior came rushing out of dance class not much later and she was so excited and so innocent to the fact that I had pee on my pants that she flings her bag at me. I'm trying to put her shoes on and I'm hoping that no one smells my piss covered self so I'm trying to keep my butt against the wall and out of nose reach from unknowing parents. I really just wanted to yell "I swear I'm not homeless" or "I normally smell good, really"... all the while wishing I had showered that morning.

We were the last ones out of the lobby and I thought I was home safe despite my arms being full of babies and bags and cute tiny hands when BOOM! my salad fell out of my hand and crash landed right in the parking lot.

Have I told you how much I love Saladworks? Just checking.

In the end, we all made it home safe despite me storming through my sister's door to declare, "I am NEVER having children." I know that I'm lying, I know that I want to have children, I mean c'mon they are so freakin cute. Who cares about a spilled salad? Who cares that I was starving? Who cares that it cost me $10?

At the end of the day, I guess those little faces are worth the sacrifice.

I Realized It Was Cruel and I Did It Anyway

I love children... especially children that belong to other people and even more especially when that person is my sister. The reason for this is that most other people wouldn't allow me to continue to answer the "why?" questions from a 3 year old with answers like "the sky IS purple on Tuesdays, you're just not paying attention". "But...why?". "Oh, that's because on Tuesdays eggplants float". However, when you test fate, fate gets you back and although my sister is ordinarily a sweet, kind and loving sort of person (yes, we are related) she has her own ways of getting back at me.

It all began around July. My sister was trying to teach my eldest niece, we shall call her Princess Superior, about respecting who's in charge. In order to relay this, she would inform Princess Superior that Mommy was the boss of her and Mom-Mom was the boss of Mommy and so on and so forth. One day I walk into my Mom's house and my niece comes running up to me, puts her hand on her hip, shakes her finger at me like a scolding school teacher and goes "Aunt Kelly, I'm the boss of YOU!!!". You can envision the fits of laughter that then raged from my sister and my Mom at the glory of paying me back for years of my own overbearing behavior.

Now it's been two months and Princess Superior is holding true; she's my boss and she's not backing down. My sister tries to explain to Princess Superior that she needs to listen to her Aunt Kelly and Princess Superior looks at her like "are you f*n kidding me? I'm her f*n boss Mom..". So on my last babysitting adventure I tried to stem a deal about how many books we were going to read before bed. This is how it went:

Me: "We'll read one book, how's that? You can make it a looooong book"

Princess Superior: "How about two books? Two books is better"

Me: "One book, one loooooooong book"

Princess Superior: "Aunt Kelly, you know... that... I'm the boss of you"

Me: "I'm aware... and... I'm the boss of you" (just to try it on for size)

*She looks up at me, contemplates whether to barter for 2 books and wager her boss status, then shrugs her shoulders*

Princess Superior: "At least we're both the boss of someone"

We read two books and sang three songs...

Then Boyfriend came and I decided that after hours of having my eyes poked out with crowns and having to dress up as Sleeping Beauty only to have the Wicked Stepmother order me to clean the floor while prodding me with a "magic wand"...it was only fair... (my ONLY real regret is not having an actual camera around)