Dog Mom

 Although I longed for the day that I would be a mom since I was in elementary school, I never aspired to be a "dog mom." I grew up with cats and frankly the best word to describe my attitude toward dogs for most of my life was that I was fear. My friend, Tab, used to have a longhaired dachshund. Ruby really helped me to see that I could enjoy a dog because she sat in my lap like our cats had when I was growing up. Paul had grown up with dogs so I figured that we would get one someday, but I figured that would be whenever he was home more. If I had stuck with that plan, we wouldn't have gotten a dog until the fall of 2023, but we got one in 2020 to try and bring a bright spot amidst all things that were cancelled and impossible to do that year. I never would have dreamt that Milo would pick ME out of the five members of our family to be his "person." We are dog sitting Cooper for three weeks. He's been at our house for one week so far. Cooper has picked Paul and I as his two favorite people in our family. Instead of having ONE shadow follow me around the house, now I have two shadows. Having two dogs has been good in some ways. I'm not a fan of having TWO dogs bark at the same time because there's a dog or a jogger on our street, and it's a challenge to keep their leashes from getting tangled up when I walk them, but Milo definitely enjoys having a buddy. He gets up VERY willingly in the morning whereas other times he'd rather stay in bed with Nadia or Ian when I come to get him at 7:00 am. Also, sometimes when it's just him we accuse him of "going on strike" because he doesn't want to walk. That doesn't happen when Cooper is with us. This does not mean that I want to get a second dog! One is enough for me, but I'm happy that we can trade dog sitting duties with another family. It's much better for the dogs and saves us hundreds of dollars. 

On Sunday afternoon Paul picked up the 1/4 of a cow that we had agreed to purchase from someone in our church. We've never bought that much meat at one time before or paid that much for food in one month before. I used some yesterday to make beef stew, and I'm planning to make a roast on Saturday as we have friends coming over for dinner that night. We'll definitely be eating more steak than usual this year as typically I might buy steak one time in the year, but now we have a lot of steak in our freezer. 

Monday morning began with the piano tuner spending about two hours at our house. Pianos are expensive to own, but I love hearing Ian practicing every day! It was a hectic day as I also took Ian to his piano lesson and to the doctor for his annual physical. The kids' babysitting job for that evening was cancelled, but they still had a two-hour Seussical rehearsal in the afternoon. At Ian's physical I mentioned that over the years several people (including Paul and Drayton) have mentioned that it sounds like Ian has sleep apnea. When I mentioned it to the pediatrician years ago, he said Ian was too young to be concerned about it. This time I was told we should have it investigated. We're starting the process to have a sleep study done on him in the spring. Since we have become self-pay patients, we've been paying $50 per visit at our PCP. On Monday they told me that the cost for a well-child check has gone up to $100 because of the vision/hearing screening are a separate $50 charge. I wasn't thrilled with the change, but I know their prices are still far less than what other doctors charge self-pay customers around here. Over the past year Ian grew three inches and gained at least fourteen pounds! His BMI last year was only 3%, which put him in the underweight category. This week they weighed him while he was wearing his winter coat and sneakers, which wasn't the case last year. With those on, they said he gained seventeen pounds, which put him at the 12th percentile for his BMI. I had him step on our scale once he came home to see what he weighed without his coat and shoes, and his weight dropped by three pounds. If our scale is accurate, then he weighs 90 pounds and is 5 ft. 2.5 inches tall. His height is at the 24th percentile (compared to 26th percentile last year). If he does weigh 90 pounds, then his BMI is at the 6th percentile, which still means he's not in the underweight category, and his weight would be at the 10th percentile (compared to 6th percentile last year). With his coat and shoes on, he weighed 93 pounds, which put him at the 14th percentile for weight. Either way he's growing taller and gaining weight! He slathers on a lot of peanut butter on his apple slices at lunch every day. I think this helped him gain weight! 

I haven't been doing well at taking pictures lately. I plan to take some on Friday evening while the kids are participating in the history fair, and I'll take a video on Sunday of Ian's performance at the piano recital. We'll be on vacation for two weeks in February, which should give me opportunities to take a lot of pictures!