Since the recent birth of our first grand kid many old memories of when our kids were born came flooding back to me and over the years I have come to realize that as a parent I didn't have a clue about what I was doing. I am so thankful that Debbie's parents lived down the street a few blocks for helpful advice or I might have been hosing those little goobers down in the back yard with the water hose at bath time and duct taping them to the hood of my pickup to dry them off. Good thing duct tape doesn't stick well to little wet bodies. lol. Clueless would have been an understatement as far as my daddy skills went. The only thing of any real value that I knew about little kids was that they liked to be tossed straight up into the air and caught again. My dad, who was known as "Uncle Alvin" by all of my cousins (which were many), loved this activity. He used to grab them under the arms and basically launch them from a standing position high into the air with his brute strength and catch them on their way back to earth under their arms before they hit the ground. It was amazing to watch young children in perfectly good health leave the ground like a tomahawk missile, disappear into the blue sky then suddenly reappear as a blurred shadowy figure returning to earth. The cousins just loved this and all of them would stand in line for hours begging "Uncle Alvin" for more. I think dad enjoyed it as much as the kids. One important rule that had to be observed during this process was never launch them facing the sun for the obvious reasons. For some reason most mothers had trouble getting their minds wrapped around the thought of someone launching their little darlings into the stratosphere for fun but my cousins were convinced it was nothing less than Six Flags Over Hooterville. On a rare occasion a kid would slip through Uncle Alvin's grasp and have what NASA would call a "Hard Landing". But once the dust settled a cousin would get up and clean themselves off and hurry to get back in line (although some were slower than others because of their newly acquired limp). It became an unspoken rule that if you were involved in one of those "Hard Landings" there was no crying because once one of the Mommas heard their little darlings boohooing it was "Game Over". No one really ever took Dad to task over a "Hard Landing" because everyone accepted the fact that even the great Dallas Cowboy Bob Hayes dropped a pass once in a while. Although my dad taught me many wonderful things about life and how to be a good dad, the skill of launching young children into outer space with brute strength captured my attention the most. It wasn't helping my sweet wife clean house, give baths, warm bottles, wash clothes, change diapers or rocking babies to sleep. It was throwing those little goobers in the air and praying I didn't lose sight of them in the sun. Now that was a cool daddy skill to have.
So the only reason my children have turned out to be anywhere close to normal was because of my wonderful wife's strong parenting skills but weak upper arm strength. I can only recall one failed decision Debbie made with our first born and it was to use cloth diapers instead of disposables. I was perplexed by this because given the choice of throwing a poopy diaper in a trash can verses washing them out with your bare hands I would pick the trash can every time. But since my secret objective was to avoid those stinky baby chores, I agreed to see where this would lead.
Well after three days of rinsing poopy diapers out in the toilet
I noticed Debbie's resolve was waning. I came home from work on Day Three of cloth diaper use to find a pile of brown colored cloth diapers piled high in the toilet. The baby was crying, the bath room was stinky and I knew it was time for our family to start producing our very own "environmental footprint" because she was done with cloth diapers . So I made the thirty five mile drive to the grocery store and walked into the twenty first century by purchasing several boxes of disposables. The rest of the old cloth diapers became cleaning rags (minus the stinky pile I mentioned above) and parenting got a tad bit easier from that day forward. I will tell you that over the years when my kids wore disposable diapers, there were several times I considered suing all of those diaper companies for false advertisement. As you might remember, each box of diapers came marked with a weight limit on it such as "10 to 15 pounds" or "15 to 25 pounds" right? I must tell you that no matter which diaper brand or size we bought, none of them ever held that many pounds of poop between diaper changes and trust me I gave it the old college try. I decided it was all a big con by corporate America to make us dad's look bad. If your bottle of coke shows to contain 20 ounces of soda why shouldn't us dad's expect that those diapers should hold that many pounds of baby poo? I have yet to find a lawyer willing to take my case.
The reason I bring up the subject of diapers is that at age fifty Debbie and I had no clue we would be forced to start buying diapers again and it wasn't for our new granddaughter Zerah or her fifty three year old grandpa!!! It was for Red Dog's pesky little sister Rosie. Yes, Rosie our 10 month old ridgeback. Since some of my readers are youngsters and I don't want to go into great detail about the birds and the bee's (even if most of them already know more about that subject most of us old toads) I will just say that Rosie came into her "special time" so she could have puppies some day. (Note to readers: Please pause at this time so that the youngster can explain to you in more detail what "special time" means lol). With three women living in my house most of my married life I have unfortunately become way too familiar with "special time" over the years and I thought these days were long gone but I was "WRONG". "Great", now Rosie has to have her "special time" and we have never had indoor dogs to deal with "special time" so I'm flat clueless (which is not uncommon for me about females) as to how to take care of this blessed event. My first thought was to banish her to the back of the property until the "special event" was over but then I thought what if some gentleman caller finds his way under the fence and we end up with a gaggle of puppies because it would be just my luck to be stuck delivering those little goobers and I don't recall being trained in puppy birthing during my medical education. So what do we do? Well it just so happened that my oldest daughter and husband were in town and she had the answer for the situation. Baby diapers and little girl panties! That answer wasn't even in my top 100 of solutions. Diapers and panties.....hmmm! Now folks you have to remember I am not necessarily anatomy ignorant and have been in medicine in one fashion or another for almost 30 years so how do we fit two legged equipment on a four legged problem with a tail? And the answer is........(ding)....scissors! Ok, now we have baby diapers, little girl panties and a pair of scissors but we still have a dog, four legs and tail. If we are going to cut off a couple of legs and a tail I have power tools that would do a much faster and easier job than scissors and I think teaching Ms. Rosie to walk on two hind legs will be way too difficult especially given the fact she will have just lost two front legs and a tail. Well my daughter quickly remarked (while rolling her eyes at me) that there would be no need for any type of amputations today. So off to the Dollar General Store went the girls. For those of you who have never heard of a "Dollar General Store", it's the Hooterville version of WalMart (I am now expecting an advertisement check from both companies for mentioning their names on my blog in my dreams of course!) and for those of you who are too young to know where "Hooterville" is, well that's what "Google" is for (there's another advertising check right there, I wish!) so grab your tech gadget and look it up. When they get back from DGS they have baby diapers and little girl pink panties with multiple Tinkerbell characters on them. My daughter eye balls Rosie's rear end then takes the scissors and cuts an x in the center of the panties and diaper. She then grabs Rosie, plops her on her back and slaps the diaper on then tapes it around her middle. She then grabs the pink little girl panties with Tinkerbelle on them and shoves Rosie's two hind legs through the legs holes and we now have a doggie diaper safe and secure. I bet by now your asking what did she do with the tail, well that's where the x came in on the diapers and panties and it wasn't quick and easy to tackle. First trying to poke a wagging tail through the cut in a diaper and panties was like trying to poke a wet noodle through the eye of a needle. It took several tries to hit the bulls eye. What was even more difficult was when poor little Rosie realized that the object of the game was to grab her tail and poke it through a hole she went into immediate tail tuck. I mean that tail of hers was locked down so tight between her legs it nearly took a lift jack to put it into threading position but finally Ms. Rosie caught on as to what we here trying to do and relaxed. So now we have the blood line of a great lion hunter in diapers and panties, how proud her ancestors would have been. But to Rosie's credit she stood up and started prancing through the house with her new homemade pink diaper panties then went outside to sun bathe to show off her new drawers to the world.
I am not quite sure what the take home message is about Rosie and her new "Doggie Diapers". I guess it could be whether you are man or beast wear your diapers with your head held high and keep on enjoying life. But mostly I just find it really strange to see a dog, especially one who's heritage is to track down and kill lions, walking through my house with a diaper and Tinkerbell panties strapped to her rear end. But I guess that's just how we roll at the Howard house these day. Until the next adventure, God bless you all.
Six months seems like a long time but now that I am back writing about Red Dog so let me tell you about this latest little adventure. "Warning" if you have a vivid imagination be prepared to hit the delete button in your brain because this one might be a little gross but sometimes life gets a little smelly.
The story starts with my wife and I becoming brand new first time grand parents to the prettiest baby girl in all of Texas. She is an absolute blessing and we are proud to be this little girl's Gigi and PAC. In case you are wondering what PAC means it's the acronym for Physician Assistant Certified. A title I worked my tail off to obtain several years ago. Besides there are plenty of Pa's, Papa's, Poppies, Grandpa's, etc. I know one guy who's grandkids call him Doc since he is a veterinarian. I even have an old marine corps aviator friend who's last name is Bandy and his grandkids use "Moe" as his grandpa name because that was his call sign as a fighter pilot. How cool is that! I know that PAC doesn't sound very cool and it may even border on dumb but it's unique and I kind of like unique. Besides PAC is a much better choice than the first grandpa name my wife and kids wanted to use. When we first found out we were to be grand parents my wife decided she wanted to be a Gigi and she suggested I needed to be Pee Pee!!! Yes a Pee Pee!!! So when she told the kids of that brilliant idea they thought it would be great (especially after laughing about it for five minutes) and that's when I knew I better come up with something else or I would forever be known as Pee Pee to all of my grand kids. "Heck No". So PAC it is. lol.
The weekend after Zerah Grace was born our oldest kids came to see their new niece and brought their Ridgeback Mattie with them. You remember Mattie, she was the first Howard family Ridgeback and we were so impressed with her manners that we got a couple ourselves. Mattie comes to visit every time the kids come to town so when we get three large Rhodesian Ridgeback roaming around the house it gets a little crowded. It's a Ridgeback here, a Ridgeback there, every where a Ridgeback. Walking across the room with the three of them lounging around the house is like trying to roller skate through a buffalo herd to coin a phrase from back in the day. They just love to be rubbed and scratched on but there is apparently a fear running through the pack that one dog
might get a tad more attention than the other two so they all dart your direction trying to grab all the petting they can get their paws on. I can see a hip fracture in my future as they all bolt my direction and knock me to the floor. It is highly probable that these mutts are spoiled and get their way to often.
These three, who's ancesters were rugged tough lion hunters living on the arid African plains now live a life of "swimming pools and movie stars" as far as dogs are concerned. It's a dog version of "Life Styles Of The Rich And Famous". They all have a special bed to sleep in, get their own personal eating bowl, and have their own private concierge medical practitioner who many times is me ( I'm apparently a very diverse practitioner caring for people and now Ridgebacks). Mattie is the real city girl with a special prescription diet, lives in an high rise apartment and is well acquainted with the lights of the big city. Red Dog and Rosie live in a small rural town in Texas but have a well groomed yard in which to poop in, a 17 foot long back yard water feature in which to swim in, an enclosed high fenced 3 acre compound in which to roam in (it also makes for great protection from the larger intruders in the area like cougars, coyotes, feral hogs, bobcats, and the occasional crazed gray squirrel) and last but not least is central air conditioning and heating for that year round pleasurable climate controlled living experience but they still have to endure the occasional inconvenience of outdoor living (like real dogs) I know, I know. The humanity of it all.
After a wonderful weekend of drooling over our new grand baby our oldest kids realized they had no one to dog sit Mattie before their trip to the comfort of the high mountains of New Mexico over their upcoming holiday so Debbie and I agreed to let Mattie stay the week with us while the kids were traveling. Now we have the blessing of three pony sized Ridgebacks leaving the dream in this climate controlled Doggie Oasis for the next 10 days. How did we get so lucky? What's next, Bob Barker jumping out of the closet saying "IT'S A BRAND NEW CAR"!!!!! I sure hope so. Well anyway here we are me, the wife and 3 red Clydesdale's trying to occupy the same living space. "IT'S GREAT".
I think I mentioned earlier that one of these spoiled mutts has a special doctor prescribed diet? Well today we found out why Ms. Mattie has this "special diet" and will get to that in a few minutes.
When I was a kid I had the blessing of having an old Heinz 57 mutt wander into my life. He was named Lion Dog. He got this name because my sister and I thought he looked like a lion. Well old Lion Dog just showed up on our front porch one day and never left. He took to us like ticks on a hound dog and would play with my sister and I for hours on end. He was the best but he never got to live indoors like the Ridgebacks. Lion Dog slept outside come rain or shine heat wave or blizzard. I do remember once dad relented to let him stay in the garage during a blizzard because the snow had drifted over the top of our house and he didn't want Lion Dog to suffocate or freeze to death. Don't get me wrong my dad loved dogs and growing up he had a loyal companion named Laddie for many years but dad was raised on the farm and that meant all critters lived outside. It also meant that the dogs ate left overs from grandma's cooking or they went out to catch their own supper. Lion Dog didn't have it quite that tough. His meals consisted of our left overs and co-op dog food because it was the cheapest priced dog food in town . No special diets for those guys so I guess that's why it seems weird that Mattie needs one. She's a dog and should eat regular dog food not prescription dog food in my way of thinking. Brother, was I wrong about that one.
A few mornings ago Debbie and I learned a valuable lesson about the importance of Mattie's specialty prescription diet. Have you every heard the one about the older gentleman that woke up in bed early one morning and thought his water bed had sprung a leak overnight and as he laid there wiping the sleep from his eyes he suddenly realized he did not own a water bed! Well this particular morning I woke up and as I laid there in my comfortable California king sized pillow topped perfect sleeping man sized bed I noticed a not so alluring fragrance filling the room and as I wiped the sleep away from my eyes I thought to myself "Wow supper really gassed me up during the night". The longer I laid there I tried to think which foods created this extraordinary aroma? As I was mentally going down my culinary check list it dawned on me that I only saw Red Dog and Rosie go out the back door when I let them out around 5:00 am. As I continued lying there in the warmth of my toasty sleeping spot with my beautiful bride snoring (LOUDLY) beside me I started thinking about how much trouble I was going to be in when she woke up to a stinky bedroom. So I began to formulate a plan to keep out of trouble. I first thought that playing possum would be a good idea and when she woke up I would plead my innocence or ignorance which ever worked. That's when it hit me. "Bam" as Uncle Si would say. Mattie was still in the house and she normally goes out to potty around 6:00 when my son in law comes home from fighting crime for the police department and it was now 7:05. I yelled out a very loud "OH NOOOOOO" and jumped to my feet. Well that "OH NOOOOOO" was very effective in waking up my sleeping bride and her ultra sensitive nose which immediately knew what had happened. She jumped out of bed and starting yelling at me as she ran across the room to turn on the lights as the room was still dark. At this point I'm a little confused because I'm not exactly sure who is she is upset with, me or the dog so I began to yell out Mattie's name just to be sure I wasn't going to get the blame. When the lights came on there it was or should I say there "THEY" were. Ms. Mattie not only left a smelly gift that was the size of a small log home but added a couple dozen stinky mud pies on the carpet as big as the dots in the Milton Bradley kids' game "Twister" minus the bright colors of course. Oh My Lord. How could one dog produce this much poop in one hour. It had to be some kind of a record! I just stood there in shock. I couldn't believe my eyes (which were burning by the way). The carpet at the foot of the bed looked like the Keebler Elves broke into the house and used it as a baking sheet to make some Jolly Green Giant sized cookies. What a "Ginormous" mess. I just stood there staring at the mess then I looked over at Debbie and then looked back at the mess then looked over at Debbie again. After doing this about 5 times Debbie looked over at me I and said "WHAT"! I replied, how in the world did you run all the way across this room and maneuver through that stinky mess and not once step on one of those lovely little gifts? And in the dark none the less! I don't know if I was amazed or in shock that she made a clean pass (no pun intended) through the disaster zone as I watched her carefully inspect her feet. No melt down meant no mud pies between her toes. Luckily for me I was running late for work by this time so I did what any hard working man would do. I cautiously tip toed through the tulips and made a mad dash for the shower then out the door like an Olympic sprinter. Well to spare you too many more gross details, a six pack of Charmin, three pack of Brawny and barrel of hand sanitizer later the poo was gone but the stains remained. On my drive home from work that evening I decided to prepare a small sermon to speak over Mattie's grave as I knew my kids would have wanted her to have a Christian funeral. I arrived home expecting to see a HazMat team in my front yard with yellow tape wrapped around our house and the neighborhood under full quarantine but to my surprise there wasn't even a sign of a cleaning company in sight. I was shocked when I walked into the house and saw that the carpet was spotless. My loving wife put her mad computer skills to work and Googled up a recipe of Dawn dish washing soap and white vinegar that cleaned the spots right up. DEBBIE'S THE BOMB!!! I think she deserves a special smooch from me, that is if she's speaking to me after abandoning ship earlier in the day.
As I sit here trying to think of what the life lessons are about this story, here is what I came up with.
1. Dogs who are the size of Clydesdale's should live outside for the obvious reasons no matter how much you loved them.
2. Marry a wife who has crazy foot working skills. But maybe put her through some type of NFL workout with tires and ropes before you propose so you know her skill set.
3. Always pay close attention to the words "Special Prescribed Diet" whether its your dog or a family member because you don't want to clean up after either of them.
4. Always have an exit strategy in case your pet blows up the house over night. You are not Mike Rowe and don't want to get stuck with the "Dirty Job".
5. Have a good internet provider because you need Google in case there's an emergency.
6. It's last but far from being least and I've not mentioned it since the opening of this story. Go out and get yourself some grand kids, "THEIR GREAT". But what ever you do never agree to dog sit when your on a "grandpa high" because bad things can happen and that "bad thing" probably isn't coming from the new grandbaby if you own a herd of Ridgebacks!
Until the next adventure, God bless you.
I don't know about you but many of us grew up with a siblings who for some reason or another got a great deal of pleasure out of tormenting us in our younger years and mine just happened to be my little sister Cindy. She was a tough fiery red head that was without a doubt no girly girl. We were the only children in the family and hung out together all the time. She played football with my dad and I, all the time and was a natural athlete. She could punt a football further than any of my buddies and was twice as tough. She was always my first pick when we had pickup games in the front yard because she wasn't scared to put a hit on anyone. My dad told me a story later in life about how one day, while playing football in the house,one of my buddies went to ask him to make Cindy stop tackling so hard. This request put a big ole proud poppa grin on His face and still does today when we talk about it. In 5th grade one of her male classmates would regularly pick on her during recess. One day she finally got enough of him and tackled the boy to the ground like NFL Hall of Fame linebacker Dick Butkus. She then began beating him about the face and chest until the play ground teacher came and pulled her off of him. That same boy years later thanked her in the senior yearbook for beating the poo out of him when he was being such a brat, lol. She even wanted to try out for the Jr. High football team in seventh grade but was told no by the school. Later that same year she told my dad that she wanted a football and a bra for Christmas which was the first time in her life that any of us saw a sign of her turning into a young lady. My mother was thrilled with this news and my buddies were hoping that the gift request was a sign she was retiring from the game of football soon. To say that my red headed sister is tough was an under statement. Not only was my sister tough but for some reason unknown to me she got great pleasure out of tormenting me on a regular bases. She would do things like lock me out of the house after school and taunt me through the windows just to watch me have a nuclear melt down on the front porch. She always knew how to push my hot button and would even sometimes invite her girl friends over to watch me explode like a cheap Fourth of July fireworks display, just for the grins and giggles of it. It was apparently pretty entertaining and she spent a lot of time dreaming up new ways to get under my skin.....And she did! I would give more details about many of her devious plans but I don't have the time to go back to therapy these days, lol.
Since I am on the subject of little sister let me tell you a little story about Red Dogs little sister Rosie. When Rosie moved in with us I fully expected Red Dog would teach her the ways of the Howard household like where to eat, where to poop, where to sleep and where to play. Red Dog would be the Master and Rosie would be the Pupil. Well after two months of training that turned out "NOT" to be the case. Rosie is a Rhodesian Ridge Back and comes from the same brave line of lion hunters as Red Dog. She is a fiery red headed female who is as tough as nails and full of spit and vinegar just like another red head I know. She is stuborn and does things her own way (again like someone else I know). Over these past few months I was under the impression that Red Dog was doing a good job of keeping her in line which I should have know was impossible. Who ever heard of some guy being able to keep any female from doing what ever she wanted, Ridge Back or otherwise. Day after day I would hear a yelp or two coming from the next room and thought Red Dog was on top of his game as Sergeant Major of the Howard Home Defense System by teaching Rosie all of the do's and don'ts of her new home but come to find out he was just another innocent victim of the "Evil Sisters Society". Those subtle "yelps" I had been hearing from the other room were coming from Red Dog. "WHAT" yelps from the Mighty Red Dog. Has the king of the lion hunters been brought to his knees by the likes of his little red headed vixen sister. Say it ain't so, Joe say it ain't so but in the immortal words of Paul Harvey "It's True"!!! That cute little fur ball is in reality a wolf in sheep's clothing.
The other day after hearing multiple yelps from the bed room I decided to go see what all the racket was about and when I walk into the room all I saw was Rosie chewing on Red Dogs legs, tail, nose, mouth and ears like a rawhide chew bone. He just laying there and painfully allowed her climbing all over him digging those sharp little milk teeth in every square inch of his body. Wow that looked so painful. No wonder I was hearing little yelps coming from the other room. Red Dog even got up to walk across the room and there's Rosie with her jaws locked down his right ear like a bear trap while Red Dog drags her over the floor. I even saw Rosie bite down on the side of his neck and watched her stretch his skin out like she was in a world champion taffy pulling contest...Ouch!!!! That looked like it hurt somuch I started having sympathy pains for him but Red Dog stood there and took it like a champ. He's a really patient big brother and Tough!!! After seeing all ofthis it made me think about how many time my little sister pestered me when we were younger and I wished I would have had half the of the tolerance he had. lol. Good job Red Dog. You are one tough hombre.
I guess the take home message today is that when life starts to wear you down and people start chewing on your tail, nose, ears, legs etc. Be calm, stay collected, and don't lose your cool. Some people are just waiting to watch some fireworks for their own personal entertainment. And by the way I love my little sister with all my heart and I would not have wanted her be any other way because there might have been an occasion when I might have crawled into her bedroom on my hands and knees under the cover of darkness and I might have slid quietly up against the side of her bed and I might have thrown my left arm over her forehead to pin her head against her pillow as she fell asleep just to hear her scream. But I'm getting old and my memory isn't as good as it once was...He He He...Until the next adventure God bless you.
