Sunday, August 24, 2008

Odd Sunday

This has been sort of an odd Sunday. Normally, on Sunday, I do my best to try and relax, maybe play around in the art room, spend some extra time outside walking the dogs, or working in the yard. Anything to avoid looking at what my family is doing to my house; because, everyone is home and I just refuse to spend my day walking around, picking up after them. There's always Monday, and Monday is a much better day to get things accomplished. (When they're all at work and school.)

But today, even walking the dogs has been a chore. Nick has always been a one dog kind of person. He has a hard time sharing his affection with more than one animal. As a mom, with four kids, my mind rebels against that kind of thinking; but at the same time, building a selfless, care-taking sort of relationship is very therapeutic for Nick because of his ADHD, so I've sort of allowed it. With our current pack of dogs, Nick has chosen Peter as "his dog". So when Nick feels restless, he grabs Pete, and takes him for his version of a walk. In other words, he spoils him rotten, and does his best to reverse all the discipline and training that I have worked so to instill in him. As a drug addict, Nick has no concept of the importance of discipline or control.

So ever since Nick has moved back in, he has been showering Pete with all kinds of extra treats, extra walks, and extra attention. It's been driving the other dogs crazy, and sending Pete a lot of conflicting messages - which makes life around here very difficult. Because of the weather, and my attitude on Friday, the dogs haven't been out since Thursday. But Nick has taken Pete on long car rides and to the lake, leaving the other dogs at home. So today, when I woke to see the sun shining and cool weather, I set about walking the dogs - one at a time. Normally, Pete and Midnight go first, but I decided that since the other four had been neglected lately, Pete would go LAST. Needless to say, that didn't go over well with Pete. ( Pete literally howled when I took the other dogs without him) Nick would never have allowed that to happen.

Except, today, he was busy dealing with Jennifer. Jennifer woke up this morning with a fever and a bladder infection. So while he was at the doctor with her, things went MY way - not his. Still, it wasn't easy. After I had walked the first dour dogs, (one mile each) Nick came home with Jennifer, and I had to call a time out so I could go get Jennifer's prescriptions filled. So Pete had to wait another whole hour for his turn. By the time I got home and took Pete for his walk, he was amazingly humble and appreciative.

There's no doubt about it, I am going to have to sit my son down, and have a talk with him about what he is doing to their pack structure. (not to mention, my sanity) He wants to claim Pete as 'his dog', but Nick isn't able to be responsible for himself, much less be responsible for Pete.

Other than Nick's personal brand of chaos, My two younger kids have done their part to make life interesting today. Heather and her girlfriend, Alexis, have recently developed an interest jogging. Before I woke this morning, the girls were up and out at the Junior High school track. They had stopped to rest against the side of the school building, when the door opened and the school janitor wheeled a large, 4 foot by 8 foot, flat bed furniture trolley outside. He asked the girls if they would like to have the cart, since one of the four wheels were broken off, he was going to throw it into the dumpster. I can just imagine how their eyes must have lit up. The average 11 year old can come up with about a 101 cool uses for a 4'x8' rolling piece of plywood. So, of course, the two of them wheeled it home. Over the course of the day, they dragged it all over the neighborhood and all around the park trail like a new found puppy. Around 3PM, after they got frustrated with trying to keep the stupid thing balanced, they talked dad into welding the missing wheel back on.

They gathered up as many kids as they could find, and rolled it back to the school, in search of the biggest hill they could find. They all loaded themselves on to the cart and pushed off. They sped down the hill laughing and screaming at the top of their lungs! When they hit level ground, they all rolled off, chattering and laughing. When they tried to push the monster back up the hill to go again, they discovered that not only had the recently welded front wheel come off, but the other front wheel had broken off as well. How sad, no more opportunities for near death experiences and possible serious injury! They came home, and borrowed dad's moving dolly to tow it back to our drive way, where dad pronounced it DOA. They were all pretty sad until Roy told them that the aluminum in the frame was probably worth about $40.00 in scrap.

Once again, their tear filled little eyes lit up. For the next few hours, my drive way was filled with about 15 kids with hammers, taking out their frustrations on this poor, abused furniture trolley. Once they wore themselves out, Roy stepped in with the welding torch, cut it into pieces, and loaded into his work van. He promised to bring home the receipt from the scrap yard, so that Heather and Alexis can divvy up the money. He says that aluminum has been paying about 25 cents per pound.

Well, I need to get myself to bed. I have to prepare for tomorrow night's bed migration. Roy and I will be tearing down, assembling, and moving, three different beds before we can lay our heads down to sleep. What fun!

Good night all.
Love,
Susan

2 howled back:

Anonymous said...

Entertaining as always!! You could never be bored with your lot really :)

I have no smart advice for the dog thing (obviously)...but it sounds jsut like a little toddler training - mum sets the boundaries all day and then dad comes home and ignores the lot of them. It IS frustrating, it doesn't sound like much but that sort of stuff can tip a person over the edge.
Not that I think you are over the edge...:)

Willow said...

Hmm....about $40 in aluminum? Anyone know where I can get me a three wheeled cart....?

Good luck with the Nick retraining - sorry, that should be Pete! And with the beds, sounds like hard work. And no, not quite over the edge - just balancing on tippytoes like the rest of us ;-)