Monday 31 March 2008

Gravity's a bitch

Yep, I'm not afraid to say it out loud.

A nudgy-pushy-destructive-heavyweight bitch. Who lives to eat.

I'm talking about my mother-in-laws old springer spaniel whom we're babysitting while her family is traveling, of course. What did you think?

Why is she called Gravity? Well, according to the Ultimate Other Half she used to fall a lot when she was a pup. From the bed, off the stairs and so on. So he called her Gravity.

Which, looking at her now is a highly appropriate name since there is rarely a dog seen so religiously taking care that even in case of slightly reduced gravity there would be no chance of loosing a ground. Maybe all the time she spent fizzing through the air in her stormy youth has made her paranoid of floating away altogether.

To put it simply - she is humongous. She looks like an ironing table on short furry legs. She used to have a double chin, I kid you not!

That was before she had to seek a refuge in our house four weeks ago.
Grunting with effort she rolled herself out of the car, into the front door and then to kitchen to check out if there's any food in Mutt The Mad's bowl. There wasn't. So she snapped grumpily at Mutt ("Hey, cool, nice to see ya, hey, cool, let's play, hey...") and plonked into the dog bed where she remained, slightly panting with all the effort.

The bed was only very briefly abandoned for extremely short trips to kitchen or garden.

In the evening I discovered that the reason she so patiently stays downstairs when everybody else is upstairs was not an admirable case of doggie-zen. She just couldn't get up the stairs.

There was not a single shudder of horror and compassion in my little cold heart when I put her on a diet.

First results were showing when Gravity actually found enough energy to go hunting-gathering. That, in spoilt pooch world, means "Follow the toddler and hoover up all the bits of dried bananas, raisins, fruit leather, apple, toast etc. he might drop or hand to you. Be persistent and annoying. Make it very clear you WANT the food he's eating. Hover around his high chair when he's having dinner. Beat Mutt The Mad to all the morsels on the floor."

Mutt The Mad learned very quickly that if he wanted to keep the food in his own bowl he'd better a) be fast, b) be prepared to fight for it.

By the beginning of week 3 Gravity was occasionally following me up and down the stairs. Week later she is whizzing around the house, having play fights with Mutt and destroying even more toys (both Mutts and Sprouts, she doesn't discriminate) than usual. I think we now have only one set of wooden puzzles with all the pieces intact and that's the one I took out of wrapper yesterday. Blocks off Sprouts train set have become a sawdust. Most of Mutts soft animals have lost all their stuffing and squeaky ones their squeak.

In a word, Gravity is now hell of a lot happier dog. She is still fat, of course, but the double chin is gone and there is a faint hint around her middle section that someplace there, a long time ago, must have been a waist. One more month and the aforementioned waist would be definitely THERE.

The trouble is Gravity's family is returning from their travels in a week. Back she will go to the land of cookies, chips, fatty bits off cooking, always-full bowls and treats from every person who walks into the door. To the obese dog heaven.

At least we tried.

Saturday 29 March 2008

Toddlers can be surprisingly placid...

...while sporting temperatures approaching the top end of your regular thermometer.

This appears to be a sturdy, brave fever stubbornly resisting every medication known to mankind (OK, Foreigner, her Mom and village pharmacist).

A true champion. A fever of all fevers.

I guess I should be proud.

Anybody up for night shift in our house? No?

Thought so.

Friday 28 March 2008

Neglect and ruin

I have been shamefully neglecting this blog (and rest of the blog-world).
Why?

Well, I have been busy doing following things:

1) Sleeping. I can proudly say I can do it now at any time of the day or night and pretty much in every thinkable place or position except maybe standing up - but I'm working on it. On the couch. In the armchair. In the toilet. In the car. Wherever. Yawn.

2) Being queasy. I've really excelled at that. The trick is never (or almost never) to really get sick. Just deeply, naggingly, annoyingly, blindingly nauseous. All the time. Except when you sleep or when you're

3) Eating. Yeah. Food. Mmmmm.
Well, certain foods. Research has shown that carrots, for example, can make you sick. Or smoked mackerel. Or any meat - for a while. And then parsnips. Then skimmed milk.
Fruit has proved to be a trusty staple. A lot of it. Scary amounts, in fact.

4) Sitting at my desk at work all queasy while trying to not fall asleep. That's one of my favorites. You should really try it. Lovely exercise for wilting willpower.

5) Visiting medical institutions. In all the fairness I haven't been doing THAT much of it but I still consider it worth a mention. Euggghh. The day will come and I'll write up a very helpful guide of finding veins on Foreigners chubby arms, with map and all. Including the amount of needles and tut-tutting needed for the job.

6) Driving the Ultimate Other Half mental. However crap one feels, one has got to do her duty.

7) Making feeble stabs at toddler taming. I won't even enter the score here as it might draw some very unwelcome interest from social services. But let me assure you that Sir Sprout is winning hands down.

I'm sure there has been something else as well but I haven't exactly kept a diary so there.

Good news is I seem to start perking up a bit lately.

I've had fairly aware-of-surroundings morning. No nausea. Yesterday I saw a carrot in the fridge and didn't burst into tears, neither did I attempt to vacate my inner regions from consumed nutrient carriers orally.

OK, I did kinda snooze off after 9 but even the strongest among us can be severely traumatized by weekly groceries hunt performed on Thursday night. That's just life. Deeply unfair but merciless.

I still wouldn't go and volunteer to actually EAT the aforementioned carrot though.
Yuk!

Tummy Bug seems to be thriving, thanks for asking!

 
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