In The Dog House

Over the past couple days our dog, Murphy, and I have had a few issues. Actually I dare say it is really only me taking issue with his behavior and a few mishaps along the way. Please also keep in mind that my patience is running pretty close to the floor boards given that my daughter has decided for one reason or another keep me up on average a total one and a half hours accumulated at various points in the night. (I figured this out while I was sandwiching my face between two pillows while she continually wailed this morning at 4:30am.)

Since my husband has been working increasingly more hours I am tasked with all the nighttime routines. This includes unloading my 40+ bags from the car, opening the door to the basement to watch our lab tear past me in a streak of white, changing my clothes in a fury hoping the baby doesn't get fussy, feeding the baby (meanwhile keeping a line of treats at my leg so the dog stays close), feeding the baby solid food (while heating this up I dash downstairs to fill up the dog's food bowl), bathing the baby (I give the dog a rawhide so again he won't get naughty), changing the baby into nighttime clothes, and dancing around in front of the baby so she can still be awake to see Daddy before she has to go to bed. It is all exhausting.

Which is why when I stepped out of the shower yesterday morning and discovered that Murphy had drank too much water and as a result puked on our bed, I freaked. He was laying on the blanket I set out for him so our bed wouldn't be hair ridden while a big pile of vomit lay just beyond on the duvet. He laid there like it didn't even exist! I mean seriously!! After letting out my frustrated, slept deprived wail, I stripped the bed at an alarming rate and discovered things were much worse than I anticipated. The puke had soaked through the comforter, sheets, and almost through the featherbed! I ripped off the duvet and sheets and muscled the comforter and featherbed downstairs to take to the dry cleaner. Now for any of you who have featherbeds you will know this was no small feat! That thing literally weighs 40 lbs! I jammed it into my car only to find out that the dry cleaner charges $80!!! to clean the damn featherbed. I was forced to then wrestle this so-called luxury item that had now turned more into a scene from Weekend At Bernies, back into my car.

Last night after I got home and unloaded the bags and the kid, (who was sleeping in her carseat) I went back out to the car to wrestle Bernie into the house. Mind you it was still wet... so I spread it out on our living room floor to let it dry with a plan to work on the spot with some fabric cleaner. I carried on my insane nightly routine and was at the step where I was feeding my my daughter her cereal when I heard this scratching sound in the next room. I delayed her next bite, much to her dismay, and went in to see what the heck was going on! The dog was quickly moving his front paws together in rapid succession to meet his back paws in an effort to get a little more fluff into his new found queen sized down bed. Once he noticed me standing there he did a quick circle and plopped down with satisfaction, as if to say "Look what I found Mom! How nice of you to buy me a new bed!" Given his track record with stealing things when he doesn't get enough attention I thought that hell I would just vacuum it later since I was going to clean it anyway and let him lay.

Shortly after this however he decided he didn't want to be alone any longer and wandered down into the family room to see what we were doing. Apparently we did not exhibit enough enthusiasm to him for gracing us with is presence because the next thing I knew he had my sunglasses in his mouth and was chewing them like a bag of potato chips! A lot of crunching and popping. Needless to say, he sat and stayed for the next twenty minutes until Daddy arrived to save him.

Later that night as I was walking around the edge of the bed to unfold his actual bed, since I had banned him from getting up on our bed due to earlier events, I felt a snap followed by searing pain. My foot automatically drew up to meet my hands and I was left hopping around on one foot until I was able to get close to the bed to fall back and inspect the damage. Somehow beyond all reasonable logic my middle toe had caught itself on the corner of the bed. I mean why the middle toe? How does that ever happen? The funny thing is that it happens to everyone. Like one day your foot decides that each toe is going to fan out to see what they can catch. All last night my poor middle toe throbbed with pain.

Finally to top it off, this morning I was finishing up pumping and had set my cereal bowl down next to me on the couch. Well obviously Murphy thought this was an invitation as he advanced on the bowl and proceeded to splash milk all over my newly dry cleaned pants (that I picked up while dropping off the damn comforter!) In an effort to correct his sloppiness he decided it would be nice to help me clean up my leg as well. I left the house with soaking wet pants and flats. God only knows what tonight will bring.