I was right about Chase wanting to lick Caleb to death (he understands he shouldn’t now) but I was wrong about Teddy being mother hen. Chase is mother hen and Teddy is my moral support. Whenever Caleb is screaming, she keeps me company and looks at me like “I don’t know what to do either!” (Luckily we haven’t had too many shared experiences like that!)
This is Caleb talking to his friend the orange pig. If you notice, in every picture of him in this toy, he is looking at the orange pig on the side.
Here’s Caleb and I reading the paper together. It makes me wonder if he’ll ever read a newspaper like we do. I only read one about once a month or so as I usually read all the news online through RSS feeds.
Here’s Teddy girl trying to cuddle with the baby. Or is she trying to cuddle with me despite the baby?
I expect Teddy will be the mother hen dog always letting us know when the baby is crying and later, when he’s bigger, when he’s getting into something he shouldn’t.
Chase, on the other hand, will just lick the baby to death if we aren’t careful!
Here’s Chase after his surgery to fix his herniated diaphragm. He’s doing well now after three days at the vet clinic. Seeing him well made us realize how much didn’t look right before – his abdomen was too thin, his ears were back, his fur wasn’t shiney, … he’s looking much better now! Even without any fur on his belly!
He snapped at the vet and vet technicians the first day (which has to be the only time Chase has ever snapped at anybody) but he made up with lots of cuddling the next two days.
The vet said another day and he probably would have lost his small intestine. I’m not sure what that would have meant as far as his chances of making it so I’m glad it didn’t happen!
Orange shirt with red shorts. I know if it’s clean, he’s going to come out wearing it. I’ve even had to make sure it goes from the dirty clothes basket in his room to the laundry room or else it gets worn again and again …
I heard a great quote today:
people only change when the pain of the present outweighs the fear of the future
That’s so true. And it explains why people stay in jobs they don’t like, meetings that have gone on too long (the fear of future is the reprecussion that leaving would have), etc.
I think hawks, and hunting with hawks, is fascinating. I don’t know if it’s because of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s book which was my first introduction to hawking, Hawkmistress, or if it’s a combination of how much I enjoy animals, how fascinated I am with how they can work with and be trained by people or if it’s a form of Frank’s favorite hobby (hunting) that appeals to me.
However, after looking a lot more into hawking, I decided that it’s not something I can pursue right now. (You have to have a large enclosure built just for them outside. If you hunt with them you have to weigh them everyday to keep them within 1-2 ounces of an ideal weight, and if you leave town another licensed hawker has to take care of them. Unless I change careers or talk Frank into doing this with me, the last one is definitely a showstopper!) But what I can do is watch hawks. It seems like we have more and more everyday. This morning we saw NINE hawks on our way to work!
Scientists have found that making simple choices (like what
kind of dessert to have) are best done in the traditional "analyze the
pros/cons" approach. However, for complex decisions like which job
to take or which house to buy, you are better off gathering the data and then
letting your unconscious mind make the decision. You can either
"sleep on it" or, as they did in the study, you can occupy your conscious
mind with other things. An important point is that in order for your
unconscious mind to do a good job, you need to know you have a decision to make.
New Scientist Breaking News – ‘Sleeping on it’ best for complex decisions.
