Wordy

A friend of mine (who will remain nameless) told me last night that I’m too wordy in my posts here because he can’t stay focused past a sentence or two.  He said he just looks at the pictures… so….

(nameless, but not faceless)

Mega Update

So, I blogged last about our new puppy and her arrival.  Then disappeared for three days.  Disappeared probably doesn’t accurately describe the situation.

I took three days off of work so I could be home and help get the puppy acclimated to her new home, as well as get us acclimated to her.  It was a fun, but very exhausting three days. 

Bindi has definitely settled in to her new home.  She’s gaining more confidence each day, which is both good and bad.  She’s definitely a good dog!  She’s friendly and has an appropriate level of submissiveness.  She likes to sit behind you, but isn’t afraid of a lot of things.  She follows  you around the yard or the house and likes to be near us.  But she’s definitely a puppy!  When she gets frantic, she tends to chase the kids or us and nip a lot.  We’ll work on that and it’ll improve with age, but it’s difficult to prevent it with the kids running around.

She’s learned her potty spot already and the accidents have been limited to two so far.  She has even gone to the door and asked to be taken out already.  That was probably mostly coincidence, but she did go right away when she went out.  The first night involved 4-5 trips outside, the second night only two and the third night was only one and that was because I was already up with Alex and woke her up to take her out.  Last night she slept through the night. 

She loves her play area and her kennel and can be found sleeping peacefully there quite often, especially after playing with the neighbors dog and getting worn out. 

Her first vet visit went well.  She was very calm until they gave her some freeze dried liver treats.  After that she was a nut case looking for more treats.  Who ever heard of treats making the vet visit worse!?  Her checkup went well.  We’ll probably have her spayed around 5 months after all her puppy teeth are out and she’s ready to head to puppy kindergarten and play with other dogs now that she has her vaccinations. 

The kids are doing pretty well with her, but so far they haven’t been terribly  involved with her, short of running around the yard. It’s a little hard to get kids their age involved in training a puppy her age.  They’re all a little intimidated by the nipping.  Well, Alex isn’t, but he doesn’t know any better.  Sterling is also doing well with the new addition. They’ve been face to face a few times with no incidences.

 

Two Days, 940 Miles, 4 pees, 1 poop

Welcome home Bindi!

What a sweetheart of a dog!  The whole family is quite impressed with Bindi.  She seems to have just accepted her new family and has been a great dog so far.

Kathie and I met her first this morning at Sycamore Creek Ranch.  I highly recommend them for anyone looking for an American Mastiff.  The breeder took a lot of time answering our questions and introducing us to all her dogs this morning.  The most impressive, for me at least, was the one year old male mastiff that tips the scales at 220 lbs!  They had what I think are 6 foot high kennel’s and this dog could stand on his hind legs and look over the top easily.  All of their dogs were extremely friendly.

We met Bindi and her litter in stall where they were all cuddled resting.  The were all very calm and friendly.  Amazingly, the first dog to come over and sit right next to me was our new girl.  The breeder said it seems like they just know sometimes. 

The kids were very excited to meet her when we finally got home.  She had to do her business outside first, which, I’m sure was a challenge with Braden and Emma watching from the window.  But she did a great job and then came inside to explore her new home.  She was very calm and gentle with the kids and seemed very excited to explorer her new environment.  She loves her new kong… it’s very fun to pounce on.  She also has taken to her kennel very well.  She lays down in it as soon as you put her in it and hasn’t whined at all.  In fact she’s sleeping very soundly in it as I write this. So soundly that she’s fallen asleep in her food dish.

We have a long road ahead of us in training Bindi and making her a part of our family, but I’d say the first day was a bigger success than I imagined it would be.

You Are My Sunshine… NO I’M NOT!!!!

Emma can definitely hold her own with regards to tantrums and screaming contests.  When she gets angry, she certainly digs her feet in… some times literally.  Kathie will sometimes poke the bear, so to speak, by singing “You are my sunshine” to her in the middle of the scream fest. 

Titles

So, I’ve discovered that one of the major reasons I don’t blog more is that I really struggle coming up with titles for my posts!  Maybe I should switch to using titles that are just the current date.  But that’s so boring!

We are now less than a week away from the arrival of our new puppy, although I’m not sure arrival is the right word since we have to drive 8 hours to get her and then 8 hours back!  We have her kennel and play area ready to go.  We have a sport picked out for her ‘potty.’  We have food and treats ready and collars and leashes all set.  We have a bell by the door to train her to use it when she needs to go out.  Of course, it’s low enough right now that Alex can ring it, but we’re pretty sure he doesn’t need to go out.  It’s very cute… the kids have been pretending to take care of a dog all week.  Or they pretend to be a dog. 

Braden’s latest saying is “Dad, you’re up to your old tricks.'”  I honestly don’t know where he gets it.

It’s nice that springs seems to have sprung this week.  The kids got outside and played some this weekend.  It’ll be nice if it stays a little warmer for when the puppy is first potty training.  It’d be even better if it stays dry!

Alex has had quite a couple weeks.  Before this last week, he was unable to pull himself up to standing.  Now he can get stand up holding on to pretty much anything and everything.  He especially likes standing up by the tree in the living room… it’s fun to play in the dirt!  He can also climb stairs a little too easily now.  The other night I heard “Look at Alex!” and came into the living room to find him one step from the top of the stairs looking down at me and giggling!  I had only been out of the room for a few minutes and thought the stairs were blocked off.  We’ll definitely need to be more careful! 

And since I seem to be rambling so much, I thought I’d share a thought I had today.  Emma bit Braden pretty hard today.  It was a bit of a struggle disciplining her.  She was actually laughing about it.  We ended up sending her to her room because she wouldn’t apologize to Braden.  Eventually she calmed down and came to apologize to Braden.   That finally gets me to my thought… Braden’s reply was “That’s ok.”  And you know, I think a lot of us do the same thing.  Someone apologizes to you and you say “That’s ok…” or “No problem.”  And for adults, that is probably fine because we understand the apology and the underlying concept of forgiving people.  But when considering the same situation with a 3 year old, I have to think that’s probably not the right response.  Because the original action is most definitely not “OK.”  I wonder if a better reply might be “Thank you.”  Who knows… maybe I’ll switch to that response. 

A New Direction

This week marks a new direction for me.  I’ve been asked to take on a new role at RedPrairie, and I’m very excited about it.  We are kicking off a new user experience initiative and have formed a new agile development team for it.  I’m serving as the Project Manager / Business Analyst for the project.

This is quite a different role than what I’ve done for the last 16 years at Software Architects and RedPrairie.  It’s not a technical role in that I will not be doing any development work.  Instead I will help guide the vision for the new product.  That means I’ll be working with our project stakeholders to create user stories.  I’ll also be helping set the priorities for these stories and help the agile team set their priorities and slot them into sprints. 

I will still have the same reports I do now, but will not be involved in the day-to-day development or support of my ‘old’ products.  This will free me up to focus on this new task… a task that is moving very quickly and has some very aggressive goals. 

I’ll probably miss some of the technical aspects of my current job, but will not miss the support responsibilities that seem to always dictate why I can or have to work on every week. 

I also think this new position means a lot of opportunity for me and I look forward to tackling the new challenge.

Puppy Update

Our very busy breeder found some time to send us some new pictures.  She’s adorable!

For Brett… good luck!

In light of Brett’s recent news, I thought this video was very fitting.  Any time you want to practice, feel free to stop over.  We promise not to video tape any more of it!

Gumming up the works…

I took a vacation day yesterday. Woohoo!  Well, not quite… it was to try and unclog our kitchen sink.  And yes, this time it was the kitchen sink and not the TV that was clogged.  So, after breaking my own plumbing snake trying to get it, and $25 to rent a power snake at Home Depot, I finally gave up and called a drain cleaner.  Well, ok, Kathie called the drain cleaner while I showered off the gunk that I had all over me from trying to fix it.  And if it weren’t for the ‘gunk’, I think I’d go into the drain cleaning business… $125 for 20 minutes of work.  Nice take home!

Braden had his IEP review yesterday and he has done so well in his speech therapy that he no longer qualifies for services through the school district!  We’re so proud of how he’s done in the last few years and the progress he has made.  At this point his really missing only things like ‘L’ at the end of words and that’s pretty typical for a boy his age.

We also bought a new kennel for the coming puppy.  I don’t think the size of this dog had really sunk in with us until we saw the kennel put together in the store.  Kathie didn’t believe that was the size we’re supposed to have.  It’s 54”(D) by 37”(W) by 45”(H).  We’ll probably use our current kennel until the puppy is a little larger.  The plastic crate will give her some more privacy and it’ll give us some room to give her a play area too.

Science Night

Last night was Science Night 2009 2010 at Trinity.  I crossed out 2009 because I figure I can just use this post again for the next 5 years as we’ll have someone in preschool at Trinity for that long!  Next year it’ll be both Braden and Emma!  Good thing it’ll be Kathie’s turn to take them.

It was another fun night.  Braden loves science night.  His favorite experiment last year was blowing up a baloon with carbon dioxide.  His teacher was oddly impressed when we told her we do this one at home all the time.  She also asked if we're going to make paper airplanes for the class again this year, since that was so much fun last year.

I think Braden's new favorite experiment is the baloon rocket.  It's all about speed in these things... the faster they move, the more fun they are!

I also ran into an old friend.  Well, an old friend's dad any way.  Richard Ash, who taught at Manitowoc Lutheran when we lived there, saw my name on the sign in list and sought me out.  I was good friends with his son Allen in grade school.  His daugher is a member at Trinity and her daugher, Lucy, is in Braden's class.  Talking about a small world!

Monday

Kathie thinks I love Monday because it means I get to go back to work and escape the hustle, noise and general chaos that exists in our house on weekends. 

While she does have a point in that I do lose some of the general chaos and screaming, I have to say that I’d rather be home.   Dealing with some of the crap that goes on at work is just painful.  Doing it with a bad headache is even worse. 

On a more positive note, I actually got my fat ass on the treadmill last night!  I even remembered how to plug it in and turn it on.  To work into it and hopefully get my knee back in shape, I only walked.  But I walked at 12-15% inclines the whole time and did 2 miles in just over a half hour.  So, all in all, it was a pretty decent workout.  I feel so much better today and think I can stick with it going forward.