Tormenting Lucy August 16, 2012

Recently the kids have started to pay a lot of attention to the dogs. While we like that they are interested in the dogs wI think Lucy in general is on the bad end of it. Lucy will be taking a nice nap and then suddenly for no reason Hayden will decide it’s time to go and give her a kiss and lie on top of her and then grab her by the collar and have her follow him around. Layla is the same and if the dogs are around she will go and snuggle up to one of them or start climbing on them. The kids mean everything with the best of intentions but I feel the dogs are feeling a little tormented. I swear Lucy looks a little sorry for herself these days!

We have had to tell Hadyen to calm it down because he can get a little over zealous. He knows sometimes that he is supposed to be giving her a break, but I swear he watches us to see if we are watching me then when we are not looking and he will go in and give Lucy smoother her with Hayden lovin’.

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He’s outsmarted the dogs already.. May 2, 2010

Our dogs get a little excited if we use their favourite words (dinner, breakfast, treat and walk come to mind) so often if we are trying to evaluate if we are going to on a walk, or something we’ll talk in simple code of spelling out the letters so the dogs don’t get too excited.

Well we have the challenge with Hayden.  If we mention the word walk we have two dogs going crazy and Hayden getting his shoes on ready and half way out the door.  So we figured the code would be also be useful for Hayden.  Unfortunately Hayden’s brain works a little different.  So the other day I asked Kara if she wanted to go on a w.a.l.k., then Hayden perked up with “I want to go on a w.a.l.k.” and he knew exactly what we meant as well!  He had obviously observed enough of our code and cracked it!

Hayden and Lucy November 13, 2009

Hayden has always loved the dogs. He loves playing around with them. Getting toys and having them chase him. Recently if the dogs are outside, he opens the back door he’ll start shouting at the dogs to come to the door. Generally he’s just showing more interest in them.

Something specific that’s happened recently is Hayden has started to show Lucy as his clear favorite. When we go on walks he wants to take Lucy. We ask him which dog he wants to take and every time he replies Lucy. He’s generally only interested in walking Lucy. If Lucy is in the room he’ll want to go cuddle her and try and get kisses from her. Generally he just likes to know what she’s up to up. Occasionally he even likes to ride her like a pony! Lucy is brilliant throughout this process of course and just lays there and takes it! (she makes up for it being a bad dog in every other way!) Watching him walk and run along with her is priceless (except for when Lucy make a run for it, drags Hayden along, eventually he lets go and she escapes!)

Mimi is fine around Hayden, but she just pretty much doesn’t really notice him unless it’s dinner time (in which case she has learned from Lucy to beg for scraps). Hayden is pretty much the same, he doesn’t really try and sit on her and torment her like he does with Lucy!

Jokes October 1, 2009

Hayden has started telling his version of “jokes,” which absolutely cracks me up.  It’s all around saying he wants to do something that he doesn’t really want to do.  He will be playing and he’ll look up at me and smile and say “day care!”  So I’ll tell him it’s not a day care day and Mommy gets to spend the day with Hayden today, and he doesn’t really want to go to day care, does he?  And he’ll smile and say “day care!” again and laugh, and eventually I’ll say, “Okay!  You can go to day care!” and he’ll say “No, home.”  Then I ask him if he was teasing Mommy and he just laughs!  When I brought him home from day care yesterday and I was about to get him out of his car seat he said “day care” and I said, “You want to go back to day care?”  He said, “Yep,” so I said, “Okay!  I’ll take you back!”  He then said, “No, home, home,” and again laughed when I asked if he’d been teasing Mommy.  You can also replace “nap” with “day care” and have the same scenario.

The first “joke” he told was when we were looking through a book of sheep and he pointed to one and said, “Mimi.”  I started tickling him and said, “That’s not Mimi, that’s a sheep!” and he was laughing and laughing, and for a few days he would point to Mimi or Lucy and call them sheep or see a sheep in a book and call it Mimi or Lucy and laugh every time.

Move! September 25, 2009

Hayden is starting to learn that the dogs are chopped liver.  The dogs (well particularly Mimi) tend to get under feet a lot especially when going and down stairs.  Kara treats then appropriately and tells them to “MOVE” with clear authority.  Well Hayden being impressionable has picked this up!  So whenever Mimi comes near him he just shouts “MOOOOOOOVE” at her.  Cracks me up!! I’m trying to get him to add please to the add of it as it sounds so rude, but I must admit it’s funny and as Kara says they are just dogs!!   I”m just hoping he doesn’t do that at Daycare!!  Bossy little guy!!

Bossy Boy August 13, 2009

Hayden is starting to learn that the dogs are chopped liver.  The dogs (well particularly Mimi) tend to get underfoot a lot especially when going up and down the stairs.  Kara treats them appropriately and tells them to “MOVE” with clear authority.  Well Hayden being impressionable has picked this up!  So whenever Mimi comes near him he just shouts “MOOOOOOOVE” at her.  Cracks me up!! I’m trying to get him to add please to the add of it as it sounds so rude, but I must admit it’s funny and as Kara says they are just dogs!!   I”m just hoping he doesn’t do that at day care!!  Bossy little guy!!

Well when I started this post it was just the dogs he was being bossy to….well now it has moved on to mummy and daddy!!  He’ll come up to one of us and say “Hand”, then take us by the hand and lead us to where he wants to go (normally where his toys are).  Just yesterday morning he took me my the hand into the lounge and then patted the couch and said “Daddy Sit!” and then after I had done what I was told, he gave me a book and told me to “Read, Read Daddy!!”!!  I have no idea where he gets it from!!

O-sey July 3, 2009

Hayden finally started saying Lucy’s name a few weeks ago.  He’s had Abbey and Mimi down for a while, and Lucy has seemed a difficult one for him to get up the nerve to try.  It comes out “O-sey,” like “horsey” without the H or R.  John and I have found ourselves calling her O-sey most of the time now, too!  Also in the Goodwin household for the time being, milk is moot and heavy is heaby.  I’m sure once he starts saying them correctly we will too… or will we? 🙂

Ear Infection and Loosy Lucy May 14, 2008

Yesterday was crazy.  I had a busy day at work to start.  Hayden’s day care called at one point to say his ear was bleeding a little bit, they thought he had scratched it or something but couldn’t find where it was bleeding from.  I asked if it looked like it was coming from inside his ear because I would want to get that looked at right away, and they didn’t think it was but said they would call if it got worse.  When I picked him up it did look to me like it was coming from inside his ear which seemed like a bad thing.  I called the pediatrician but it was right when they close so no answer.  Their office is right next door to the day care (and I was still at day care at this point), so I walked over since I figured they were still there just not taking calls.  They were there and the dr said he would see me (he is really nice).  He was worried Hayden’s eardrum might have ruptured but it was only an ear infection closer to the outside of his ear (not all the way to his eardrum).  Phew!  I didn’t expect them to see me, I just wanted to know if it looked serious and if I should go to the hospital.  It wasn’t proper blood but more like fluid that was a little pink like there was a bit of blood mixed in, but it seems like if there is a chance there is blood coming out of your ears you would need to get that checked out!

So anyway the dr gave him a prescription for a week of drops twice daily, then I had to go pick Lucy up because she was at doggie day care where she will be boarded when we go on holiday in June.  She had to have an evaluation day because during the day it is a dog day camp where the dogs all play together and they go to their own crates at night to sleep.  So in order to check she gets along with other dogs she has a trial day.  So I go picked her up and we went to the pet store to get some cat litter, and you can take dogs in there so I was getting her out of the car while holding Hayden and she slipped out of her harness!  I managed to grab one paw so she couldn’t get away, but I couldn’t move because I was holding Hayden and was in a position where I’d have to let one of them go if I moved.  So I tried to get someone walking by to help but they couldn’t hear me (I will give them the benefit of the doubt anyway).  Someone did notice us though and a young woman came over and held Lucy for me while I put Hayden back in the car so I could get Lucy back in her harness.  Luckily Hayden thought the whole thing was hilarious and he was just laughing the whole time – I would hate to add baby screams on top of that!

Meanwhile, while I am dealing with a good 1 1/2 – 2 hours worth of this drama, Hayden is just saying da da da da da da DA non stop!  Where’s the mommy love?!  Actually, it’s exciting because I think he is starting to mean me when he says mama now.  🙂

Mutt Strut May 3, 2008

Last Sunday Lucy, Hayden, John and I did the Mutt Strut, which is a dog walk around the Indy 500 track.  It was really fun!  There were so many dogs there, and Lucy was a really good girl.  We saw a few doggie scuffles but Lucy was a perfect lady the whole time. We met up with my mom, Jim,  and their dog Sophie.  We walked a short time with them, but they decided to walk the short circuit so most of the walk we did without them.  It’s a fairly long walk since the track is 2 1/2 miles long.  Hayden was really good until the very end when he got fussy, but it turns out his diaper had leaked so who could blame him!  And considering he had been in his stroller for near enough to a couple of hours he did well really.  Lucy was funny because she didn’t want to drink or pee on the walk.  There were loads of water stations with big baby pools of water for the dogs to drink from, and we would lead her over to the water but couldn’t get her to drink (I thought it was horses that applied to?).  When we got home she had a very long pull from her water bowl!

Macy April 14, 2008

So Lucy’s best friend Macy came to stay for a week while her family was on spring break. We had sooooo much fun with her! She actually stayed in our house, and we were wondering how it would go since she is a good 70 lbs so if she would be stubborn she would not be as easy to show who is boss as Lucy is. But she was a perfect lady. She had to obey the same rules as Lucy, so she had to be trained to stay off the couch, not jump up on us, and sit and stay before being fed. She learned things pretty quickly (although I would not go so far as to say she mastered any of these things 🙂 ). She was also very good around Hayden, which was a relief because she had not spent much time around babies before. She was very gentle with him (you have to love labs!), and he cracked up whenever she would come near him.

Of course, Lucy had a ball with her being here! They played and even laid in Lucy’s bed together once. It was interesting though because it only took a day or so before the novelty wore off for them and they did their own thing in the evening. Lucy is pretty much a free spirit, and she is not terribly attached to me and John considering she is a dog. She will often disappear in the evenings into the office to sleep on her own, and even with Macy hanging out in the lounge with us she would still go off on her own. Macy is very much a ‘people dog,’ and she loved nothing more than sleeping at our feet in the evenings. Actually, she would have loved nothing more than to be on the couch with us, but being at our feet was second best! She spoiled us with affection!

She did get a little confused at times and would sometimes go over to her yard and start barking at the back door to be let in. I think about three days into her stay she also got a little homesick I think. That day she seemed to really want to be let into her house. But she was good about coming back to ours when we called for her, and once she got a couple of treats she seemed to be happy again!

We loved having her and miss her now that she has gone home again. I asked her family if they were sure they hadn’t developed some sort of animal allergy while they were away, just in case they needed us to take her for good. They said they didn’t, so John and I are developing a way to steal her. I think I might make some trousers with really big pockets to try to sneak her in!