Extreme Frustration!

How absolutely frustrating this is to me! I've blogged at www.holyboogers.today.com for the past year now. I couldn't find the time to get on to blog for a little over a month and when I last logged on I saw that another domain was taking over the blog network I was blogging with. Okay... This week I attempted to log on again to post a blog and www.today.com is no longer there. I can search out my blog and I see they've got it, but it seems to be lost somewhere in cyberspace. What??

I think I'm back here at blogspot indefinitely. That's fine with me, but where is my work from the past year? There were some great blogs there, blogs that I'd love to share with my boys when they're older. And now they seem to be lost.

Never really thought this would happen...

Movin' On Part Two

I published the last post a bit prematurely :) For now I'm attempting to move my posts over to www.holyboogers.today.com/ and I'm still fiddling with the settings. I can't seem to find how to do away with the AdSense or insert a photo of myself or my boys. I like the way my blogger blog looks right now and wish I could just move the entire site over :) But alas...I can't. So bear with me as I try to get my blog looking good, the blogs moved over, and begin writing my blogging heart away. :)

Movin' On...

I've moved my blog. I absolutely love to write and getting paid to do so is most definitely an added benefit to my continuing to find time to do what I love to do. It's not a lot, mind you, but I will get paid per post and paid a small amount when my blog is viewed a number of times. So...keep on reading! :)

www.holyboogers.today.com/

Misinterpretation

Oh, he does try :) Ryan is about to get what we call his "goodnight movie," a small bit of television before he goes to bed. Jay asked him what he wanted to watch and Ryan replied with "Pablo Tyrone," meaning The Backyardigans in which you find the characters Pablo and Tyrone. Jay smiles and all-knowingly says "you want me to pet Toby?" Ha! Didn't hear quite right, Jay, but good try :)

All smiles

I write this as Jay pulls elated screeches from Ryan in the bathtub. My husband is home. I couldn't be happier in this moment, truly. Although he's home for just the weekend, he's home nonetheless, and as I hear the sqeals of my son upstairs, my body floods with contentment. He's here. I'm able to put my arms around him and feel his warmth. I look at him holding Noah, his exact look-alike, and wonder at how he seems to engulf this tiny being in his arms. I watch as he wrestles with Ryan. Ryan's wide-eyed expression says it all. His smile doesn't seem to want to go away. I take a step back, look on. This is what it's about afterall...

Move Over Marley!

I was pregnant with Noah when I read Marley and Me for inspiration. I knew I needed something. My Goldendoodle, Toby, had just leaped out the window of our playroom to chase a squirrel that had caught his eye in our backyard. Picture it now: 80 pounds of curly golden fluff, long ears flopping up and down in slow motion as his hindquarters are lifted out the window, long tail flopping in the air, mouth agape, tongue panting relentlessly...yeah, okay, I'm overexaggerating. In actuality, he was too quick for me to store any mental picture of his leap in my memory. All I remember is the simple fact that one moment he was in the room with us, and the next he was moving faster than Superman on a mission.

So here I was, a woman with what I thought to be the most obnoxious dog around. And I did mention that I was pregnant, didn't I? In the height of my hormonal fluxtuations...cry one minute, laughing hysterically the next. Bringing the behavior of Toby into that mix made me feel that he was the Devil reincarnated. Beyond jumping out the window to chase his squirrel friend, Toby would pace back and forth throughout my house day in and day out. He would see an animal out any window of my house, and dart to another window in high hopes of tracking this animal in it's footsteps, leaving deep scratches along his way in my once very beautiful hardwood floors. If I left any food on the counter and left the room for even a moment, it would be gone by the time I got back...this included french toast cooling on the cooling rack, muffins cooling in their tins (I'd come back to find my muffins topless), and even bread ripped out of it's plastic wrapping. He had even gone to the extent of jumping up on my table, big paws batting at crumbs left from Ryan's snack that I hadn't yet gotten the chance to clean up. My bathroom garbage can has a top on it...doesn't matter! Toby has figured out how to open this top and gets into the tissues on a daily basis. When I was ginormously pregnant waddling around my house caring and playing with my son, Toby's behavior is the last thing I wanted to deal with.

Enter Marley.

I had heard of the book Marley and Me from a girlfriend that said it was just simply a great read for animal lovers. And that it was. From start to finish, I was living the journey with Marley and his owners. I found myself nodding my head from page to page at the behaviors Marley exhibited. I laughed, I cried. But most of all I realized that even with all the behavioral training we poured into Toby, he was probably still going to be, well...Toby. Obnoxious, disobediant, nail scratching Toby. And yet, I love him. The day ends now, Ryan and Noah are sleeping, and Toby does eventually wind down and lay himself next to me. This is when I can sit and cuddle him. When I can look at him and conclude that through it all, I wouldn't trade him.

Buuurrrrppp

Wet burps make me jump. You know the kind...you've got your baby over your shoulder and the sound of the burp they've just made sounds like they've just left the contents of their last feeding on your shirt. Ryan used to spit up after almost each feeding, so I was definitely justified in my jump, a little pop of the shoulders, eyes widening up as I grab him from under the arms and away from my body. Gave me time to survey my shoulder...would I have to wash another outfit? But Noah at three months old has only spit up a handful of times. Knock on wood for sure, but I've lucked out! Why is it, then, that each and every time he has a wet burp I continue to react as if he was inevitably going to leave his mark? It's funny how our instincts take control :)