Two things

1. Eli has quite wisely started calling Leroy "dog" and Jack "cat."

2. He has also started stashing his food around the place -- careful to put it where the dogs can't reach.  He keeps goldfish in the desk drawer.  Yesterday he hid a bun on top of a window pane and came back for it hours later.  Kenny retrieved part of his bagel from a cabinet in our bedroom this morning.

No place I'd rather be

1. We've got 18ish inches of snow and it's still coming down.  Naturally, I am working from home today. I hope to use my lunch break to build a snow structure of some sort.

2.  I'm currently sitting in my PJs, drinking coffee and Kenny is making oatmeal.  Am cozy and happy.

3.  Eli is eating roughly 50% of his cheerios and giving 25% to Leroy and 25% to Jack.  That's only fair because...

4.  I took 4 pieces of dog food out of Eli's mouth this morning.  He somehow got Leroy to abandon his food and then kept putting another piece in after I got one out.  May not have been on my A game this morning.

5.  Eli is now standing and taking the cheerios out of his high chair seat to give to the puppies and eat himself.  

6.  How do people have babies without puppies?

7.  Life is very good. 

Big brothers

People often ask how our first borns are handling the new addition to the family. Jack has been a big brother for quite some time now. When Leroy came into his life, however, it didn't mean less cuddling time for him (since Leroy isn't much of an affection demander). Eli has been a huge impediment to his cuddling time. Jack has had to take drastic measures to make sure his needs are met.

Due

So today is my fabled due date. Mardi Gras. I am fairly certain there is to be no birthing for me today. I feel better about Thursday. The puppies don't think baby is coming today either. This is what they do while Kenny takes my weekly picture and they are waiting for their morning walk.

I think Leroy knows something is up. He's taken up being creepy and sleeping in his own bed at night. Either he knows something up, or he doesn't like sharing the bed with the whale who disrupts every creature in bed when she shifts positions.

Belly at 40 weeks. Also known as the time when pregnancy calendars stop. People are now disappointed to hear from me by phone or see me at work.

We had a lovely Valentine's Day. Baby cooperated in not coming on Valentine's Day as I had previously requested. We went to Outback. It was an outing we had planned for the day for several weeks. Sure we could have gone to some romantic-ish spot--perhaps a local restaurant we'd never been to--but we wanted to journey to the suburbs and go to Outback. Kenny consumed 2000 calories and 150 grams of fat.

For my Valentine's present, Kenny gave me a pedicure.

Apparently, much like learning to braid hair, learning to paint nails is something often overlooked for boys. Luckily, I can't get close enough to really see them and I think they look just spectacular from afar. For Kenny's Valentine's present I made him some waffles with berries and fresh whipped cream. Also I carried around his child for another day.

Some puppy for Friday

Jack from Kenton Kodner on Vimeo.

All kinds of busy

I would have posted earlier, but I've been busy spending lots of time sitting on couches. We went to Kansas City for Christmas. There were showers, there were Christmases and there was lots and lots of snow. There was a blizzard that kept us locked up in my mom's house for about 3 days.

Since we've been back the dogs have been doing an extraordinary amount of sleeping and cuddling. I think they miss Grandma's thermostat setting.

We had a pretty low key New Year's. We did toy with the idea of opening the is-the-baby-a-boy-or-girl envelope at midnight. Leroy is apparently all about surprises though because he came and stole it away from us.


While just now trying to find a position where baby's feet weren't directly kicking me in the ribs, I had the uncomfortable realization that baby will possibly double in size before this is all over. Kenny was feeling my tummy last night and finally moved his hand away because he said it was freaking him out how much it was kicking.

This is me at 32 weeks, snowed in at mama's house over Christmas.


And this is me the day after we got back at 33 weeks. Between weeks 27 and 31 I hadn't gained any weight. Luckily 4 Christmases of eating and about a week of sitting on my tush got me all caught up.

Mish mosh

I would like to be assembling furniture and hanging things up in the baby's room right now (or at least hovering over Kenny's shoulder while he does so), but I have been banished and told to go blog. So here I am. It's mostly Kenny's fault that I didn't get to write last week. I've become accustomed to him uploading the pictures and sending them to me, but he didn't do that this week. Apparently he was busy trying to find a job or something silly like that.

We spent most of Saturday at baby class. The class was just like they are on TV. We got to bring in pillows and blankets, we watched graphic videos, and we practiced saying "hee hee hee." My favorite part of the class was this one woman who kept asking questions about the placenta and how she could go about taking it home with her.

When we got home Kenny knew something was up when he spotted a wrapper for a dog treat on the floor. You see, we keep a bunch of treats in a jar on the window sill in the kitchen. The lid to said jar was on the floor in the kitchen. The jar itself? Was in the living room, empty, sitting on the couch.

This means that not only had Leroy gotten the lid off the jar, he had also carried it somewhere else more comfortable to gorge himself. He'd eaten about 20 days worth of treats in one afternoon. His belly was huge. After careful questioning and examining of the stomach, it was determined that Jack played no part in the heist and refused to partake in devouring the spoils.

When we were little my brother and I used to put up the Christmas tree on November 1 (as that was safely after Halloween and we never had Thanksgiving decorations). Since sharing a home with somebody not quite so into Christmas, I now hold off all the way until after Thanksgiving. My tree is about 4 feet tall. Putting the lights on required a moving squatting position. After I tried and fell over twice, Kenny kindly took over. For a Jewish boy, he's amazingly good at decorating a tree.


And, as always, the belly picture. This is me at 29 weeks in what must be an embiggening shirt. I frightened many people the day I wore it.

5-point Friday

Laziness has gotten the better of me this week. For that reason, you get a hastily written 5 point post.

1) Jack turned 5 years old on Sunday. To celebrate, Kenny gave him a Leroy portion of food and we got a new sweater for him out of the dollar bin at Target. People can tell me that dogs don’t need clothes all they want, but my little guy gets cold and appreciates a little something. He shivers and helps put his legs through arm holes like a pro.

2) Leroy got an expensive yet clean bill of health on Tuesday. A week before he was diagnosed with an intestinal infection--the kind of infection you get when you treat the neighborhood sidewalks like a buffet table.

3) On Wednesday, Kenny and I celebrated 3 years of wedded bliss. He gave me coupons for 10 minute back massages, dog walkings, and clean ____. I've given these to people before and they haven't used them. That will not be me. I will use every coupon and I will probably use them too quickly and then be sad I didn't spread them out.

4) I am 27 weeks as of Tuesday and this picture. According to 2 out of 4 sites I looked at, I am now in my third trimester. Ahhh! I finally got my hair cut but have not figured out how to style it yet.




5) My mother and stepfather, Jack, arrived for a visit last night. This is to be a visit-Kenny-and-Emo-and-help-nest visit more than a site seeing visit. By the end of the weekend we shall have a disturbingly green nursery with an assembled crib and everything. We've pretty much decided to not look at the contents of The Envelope and are thus committed to a gender neutral room. Do you think there's anything wrong with putting bright pink stars in what might be a boy's room? I, more than most people, think pink can go either way. For some reason, I really feel like some big pink stars will tie the room together though. We'll see.

18 Weeks

The famous 3-point post in which I discuss 3 separate items without having to transition between them or have an overarching theme.

1. My belly looks considerably bigger today than it did yesterday. I credit the Chinese food we ate last night. I need new clothes

2. We are heading out to DC this weekend. We are trying to pack in lots of traveling now because I understand it can be more difficult to travel with babies once their on the outside. Leroy is going to camp where he is allowed to chase and be chased by other dogs for a good 10-12 hours a day. Jack is going to stay with cats where he will finally be understood. We took Jack for a trial meeting the other day since I seem to remember that cats and dogs are not supposed to get along. Jack occasionally whimpered when he felt like one of the cats was looking at him too harshly. Other than that, they mostly sat in similar poses and were equally entertained by the magical moving laser dot.

3. Next week is the big ultrasound. The one where we hopefully see a fetus who looks rather baby-like. Also, the one where we might have the opportunity to find out the sex. We change our minds every day on whether or not we want to find out. There are just so many options. Please vote* in the comments section.
-We find out at the ultrasound and tell everybody. This option seems to involve lots of pink and blue.
-We find out at the ultrasound and don’t tell anybody else because we are mean, mean people.
-We don’t find out and also don’t tell anybody since we don’t know. We are all surprised but also have a hard time thinking of Fetus as anything other than a little fishy or froggy or it.
-We have the technician write it down and put it in a sealed envelope to open over a dinner date days later thus spreading out the excitement.
-We have the technician write it down on a piece of paper and plan to never look at it but do because we can’t handle it just being there and not knowing.

*Note: The vote will have no bearing on the actual outcome :-).

17 weeks

This week's picture feature's my bathroom as a backdrop as Kenny thought he'd catch the belly as I was brushing my teeth.

You might recognize the back of Jack's head from such other pictures as the one above from our journey to Chicago.

Increasingly Green Dog

If only I meant green in the environmentally friendly way.

Yesterday, we went to the vet for Jack’s annual shots and well puppy check-up. We decided to bring Leroy with us since he’d been so horribly treated all day. On the way there, I noticed he had some green stuff in his eye. It complimented his collar and tail, but also had that pending-increasingly-expensive-vet-bill look to it. My sweet Jackie boy had to be muzzled per his usual vet behavior, but he was parasite and disease free. As the vet was leaving the room I asked him if it was like, a bad thing, to be a puppy with green stuff in your eye. He said that yes, that was in fact a bad thing. He started to go look at Jack again, afraid he missed something. We said, no, the wily one on the floor over here. He took a quick look and said that Leroy’s eye looked terrible and how could we miss such a thing? We must be the kind of puppy parents who crate and zap their puppy and let him play with paint. Seriously though, he asked about the green tail and did not seem amused by our explanation. What are we supposed to do? Shave his tail?

Oh, and I learned a few truths:
1) Jack=angel outside of vet, demon at vet
2) Leroy=demon outside of vet, angel at vet
3) Sick puppy=expensive
4) Healthy puppy=more than twice as expensive

Side note: Yes, posts 2 days in a row! Yes, another one about my dogs.

Older than I used to be

Of course that's true at any given moment. I did, however, recently have a birthday. It's way old news but I think worth documenting.



It was a pizzzzzzaaaa party! We may have gone a bit overboard. I believe we made eight pizzas.




About an hour or so into the party, some people arrived. I looked at one of the new arrivals for a moment and couldn't figure out why one of them looked so much like my friend Megan who lives in Kansas City.




Turns out, it was Megan. I couldn't understand how she was in Chicago when--afterall--she was supposed to be in Kansas City. It was just like Christmas.

Leroy enjoyed his first party and behaved for the most part. Note: That is not his beer.




My uber allergic friend Lisa found out a few weeks ago that she was, in fact, not allergic to dogs. She came to the party and had her first puppy experience.




Jack was happy to help out with that. She was in awe. Then at some point Melissa and Amy turned into cats.




Eventually even puppies couldn't keep their eyes open and we knew the party had been a success.

Important Matters

Leroy is going to go to school to learn how to be a good boy. He is a good dog at the moment in that I have no doubt he would survive in the wild and keep himself well fed. We’re going to start him in a class where we give him treats in exchange for not being so dog-ish and also not so mountain goatish. We keep finding him sitting on top of things like his cage, his food container, our countertops.

Last night Kenny forgot that we have two dogs. Jack is comparatively quiet and hard to see. You’re usually all—hey, where’s Jack? Only to realize he is directly behind you or next to you. Last night I heard Jack crying and thought perhaps his collar had gotten stuck to a blanket or something. As I was already in bed and thus unable to move, I asked Kenny to find out what was wrong with Jack. He said, “Oh he’s fine. He’s sitting on the couch.” I called Jack. Leroy came. Jack continued to cry. It was then that Kenny realized the crying was coming from the hallway outside our apartment. Apparently Jack did not make it back through the door after Kenny had taken the boys out about ten minutes prior. He must have sat there for at least five minutes without making a sound—patiently waiting for his father to remember him.

Man I talk about my dogs a lot. Sorry about that. I will think of something not dog related for next time.

What? I have a blog?

I think this whole remembering to blog thing will be on my New Year's resolution list. I have several important things to tell both of you.

1. It is very cold in this Chicago place. Also, Kenny and I are brilliant. We decided to wait until yesterday to dig our car out of considerable ice and snow. It was 4 degrees below zero while we did this.
   
2. Leroy expressed his undying love for Jack today. He gave Jack a thorough bath. Licked the inside of both ears thoroughly and then moved onto the nether regions. Jack seemed to either not mind it or enjoy it. Either way, it's a victory in Jack-Leroy relations.
3. In other news and evidence of our high intelligence--it did not snow today or yesterday. We are opting to drive to St. Louis tomorrow night during the snow and ice storm.
4. Happy Hannukah or Hanukkah or Chanukkah. The burning candles are among the few items keeping us not completely frozen. If only it were not merely the second night.
5. Kenny has both of the puppies right now. This is in clear violation of the rules attached to the thermostat agreement the cheap bastard drew up a few weeks ago. I still love him.
6. Monday night football is a crappy way to squeeze more unwanted football into my life.
   
7. I really don't mind cleaning up puppy feces as much as I feel like I should.
   
8. I might have to go see two movies on Christmas day in allegiance to both Brad and Jen.
9. Numbers are an excuse to not have to come up with cohesive thoughts or segues.
   

Kiss kiss.

Bad Bad Leroy Brown

Two Saturdays ago we picked out a little doggie named Spike at the animal control shelter. We were excited when we found out that he would have surgery (get neutered) the next morning and that we could pick him up later that day. We went straight to PetSmart and Target to buy him a bed, collar and of course clothes. You can't have a dog without clothes, right? I began rolling up and storing away all of our carpets. Sunday morning we got a call from the shelter saying that Spike could not be adopted because he had a cough. Kenny was getting ready to watch a football game with some boys and I was getting ready to go shopping with my friend Amy. We were both devastated. I was horrible company for Amy and spent most of the shopping trip mopey. The phone call had been sort of cryptic and we were half-way worried that they were just going to not treat him and euthanize him or something. I had asked what was going to happen to him, and she just told me it was complicated and we should pick out another dog. We barely slept that night. The next night I picked up Kenny after work, and we went back to the shelter so that we could figure out what was going on. By then Spike had been diagnosed with kennel cough and was in isolation and receiving treatment. For some reason they couldn’t just call us when he was better. A nice man who worked there gave us his cell phone number and said we could call him every three days to check on Spike’s condition. Finally when Kenny talked to him this Tuesday we got good news. He said we could pick him up between five and six on Wednesday.

Spike’s new name is Leroy as he is from the South Side of Chicago, stands about six foot four, and is meaner than a junkyard dog. Kenny took off work early to go pick him up. We were told and assumed he’d be groggy from having had his balls cut off earlier that day. This was not the case. They think he is part beagle part Jack Russel.

He'd been home for about a whole half hour before I had to put clothes on him. In all fairness though, we keep the house barely above freezing.


Jack is of course a little mad about the whole situation. He has moved from anger to tolerance. Leroy keeps trying to teach Jack about playing. Many have tried this. None have succeeded. The picture below features the backsides of the THREE boys with whom I now live.



We're going to have to work on this whole "sleeping" thing. Leroy tried to sit on my head at 2 am, 4 am, and 6 am this morning. Also, there was a scuffle at some point that resulted in Jack being ejected from his spot next to my legs and being replaced by Mr. Brown. The excellent news is that so far there have been zero accidents in the house.

Click here for more pictures.

Birthday Boy

Jackson turns 4 years old today. To celebrate we are giving him the wet version of his regular food. Funny how that is a reward for a puppy. He has received two birthday presents. The lovely jaunty sweater pictured above and below was made by his friend Whitney. Patrick and Amy got him the lobster costume featured in the Halloween post. They gave it to him early for obvious reasons. In lieu of a birthday party, Jack has requested that we spend a few hours on the couch taking turns rubbing his belly.

Let's try that again

Hmm. Funny how I can fail to post for a week or so but feel the absolute need to post in the midst of my party and several martinis. As you can see and as I might have mentioned, Jack played the part of a lobster and was decidedly the most sober guest.

Jack humiliates himself for your viewing pleasure.

Jack balances a coaster on his head. Seeks beer to put on coaster. Thinks he could totally go as Chuck for Halloween.

Nothing to see here

So I've been doing this whole professional organizer thing since the beginning of the month. I've been enjoying it and the accompanying lifestyle quite a bit. I get to help people and I get a good workout. It's nice to have a legitimate outlet for this need to organize. When I temped I always had to fight the urge to "fix" peoples' desks and really too often I would lose that fight. As of today, however, I have had too many days off in a row (haven't had a job since Monday morning) and I'm getting a little stir crazy. It's 3:00 in the afternoon and I'm in PJs. I got a library card yesterday. That was my big errand for the day. It's getting so bad that I am actually giving serious thought to joining a gym and also going to the gym.

I continue to feel the need to reorganize my home. Following last week's job I absolutely had to reorganize my kitchen. I must say it is now so much better. I'm really close to running out of things to clean out around here. Jack and I are going to have to go on an adventure tomorrow or something so that I'll have something interesting to write about. For now, he unashamedly wants to let you know what he's been up to:


There used to be a very cute stuffed hamburger filled with all that white fluff.

Does this mean I'm gonna have to help do the laundry?

Every morning I remove about five pillows from the top of Kenny's head so that I can find his face and kiss him good bye. If Jack has relocated himself to the couch, I pick him up and put him back in bed with Kenny.

When I get off the train coming home from work on most days I find Kenny and an excited little black puppy waiting for me on the corner. I really look forward to that part of my day.

I guess we'll have to come up with a new routine since yesterday somebody decided to hire that husband of mine.