Picket Fence Post

Item #1: Meet Max

After nearly seven hours of driving to a dog shelter in New York State and back, the Picket Fence Post family now has a new member: A three-month-old wheaten terrier/Havanese puppy whom we named Max. (At least we think he’s a wheaten terrier/Havanese. That’s what we were told by the shelter folks, though his paperwork mentioned something about a Skye terrier. . . )

Max didn’t sleep well in his crate last night, even though I quasi-slept on the sofa near him. The scared little thing whined intermittently, reminding me of a baby awakening and crying during the night. After dusting off our baby gates and using caffeine this morning like a controlled substance, I feel as though I’m returning to my “new mom” days. A column on our search for Max is in the works.

Item #2: Papi Letdown

I was out on the road all day yesterday with the Picket Fence Post family getting Max, so I didn’t catch up on the heart-rending news regarding Big Papi until late yesterday and then read full coverage in the newspapers this morning. (Reading newspapers, on dead trees, how old school.) Hearing that David Ortiz in 2003 tested positive for performance enhancing drugs felt like someone had taken away Christmas, especially because of how it endangers the perspective on the special, glittering gem of a 2004 season. It’s a gut-level disappointment for someone like myself who hopes and wishes that seemingly good, decent guys like Ortiz wouldn’t and don’t mess around with such things. This, according to the Boston Globe’s Bob Ryan, makes me “terminally naive.” However I think it’s one thing for a show-off of a guy like Manny to test positive, quite another for the quiet, affable Papi.

Item #3: Pot-Dealing Mom on ‘Weeds’

Over on Mommy Track’d, I wrote about my recent Weeds-a-thon, where I OD’d (pardon the pun) on the Showtime comedy/drama about the widowed, pot-dealing soccer mom who used to peddle her wares to fellow suburbanites in order to provide for her kids. However after watching the Nancy Botwin character evolve over several seasons — in a recent episode she gave birth to the baby of a Mexican drug lord — I wasn’t thrilled by the transformation. Despite all this, the show continues to be riveting.

Item #4: Potter is the New Skywalker

In my latest GateHouse News Service column, I make the argument that, for kids today, the Harry Potter series is to them what the Star Wars series was to us in the days when Star Wars was merely a trilogy and not a six-pack. I also think that, as heroes go, Potter is better than Skywalker, writing, “. . . [U]nlike Luke Skywalker, who had the tendency to whine and be gratingly self-absorbed, Potter suffers and doesn’t whine, which sets my kids’ favorite childhood character several notches above the one I admired as a kid.”

Item #1: Acupressure

I took  The Girl to visit a medical acupuncturist today. Instead of using the acupuncture needles, he used acupressure — pressure applied to the acupuncture points sans a needle – and other techniques, like cupping . . . which was a good thing, given how apprehensive the 10-year-old was. I did the best that I could to calm her and soothe her worries. The staff put in a great effort to try to alleviate her fears by talking to her and affording her the chance to feel the hair-thin, flexible needle so she’d see that they weren’t some metal behemoths waiting to be jammed into her arms and legs. But every time a staff member left the room, The Girl’s eyes filled with tears and she told me she wanted to leave. NOW!

For those who’ve been following this saga, The Girl has had persistent ankle problems since January 2008 when she first twisted it during a basketball practice. Since then, she’s missed half of several seasons of soccer and hoop because of flare-ups. This spring we finally saw a youth sports specialist in Boston who recommended water therapy (which she’s been doing for a few weeks), TENS therapy (we just got the unit this week) and acupuncture.

The Girl had been dreading this acupuncture appointment ever since the orthopaedist first mentioned it. For weeks she’s told me there was no way that she was going to let anyone put the acupuncture needles into her, no matter how thin they were.

So, did the alternative techniques the doctor used today work? We’ll have to wait and see. (*fingers crossed*)

(more…)

Remember way back in December I wrote about how, less than 10 hours after The Spouse’s 18-year-old cat died just after we decorated our Christmas tree, that The Girl began inquiring when we’d be getting a dog, just like the Obama girls? The issue about which I also wrote a column?

Well now it’s been four months since we first broached the subject of getting a dog for our family. The Obamas got their dog a few weeks ago, and now The Girl is wondering where OUR dog is. I told her that we’re still in the deliberative/research phase of this whole canine thing. The first step was to figure out what kind of dog we’d like, I told her, so, when we were at the library over the weekend, I borrowed a photo-filled book of dogs for everyone’s browsing pleasure.

The Youngest Boy (7), for some reason, kept saying, “Let’s get a pit bull!” To which I replied, “Never. No way.” Then he modified his request, suggesting that we get a dog he could “ride,” To which I said, “Never. No way.”

Since I work from home and will likely spend more time with this dog than anyone else in the family, I’ve made the executive assertion that I get to set some of the ground rules such as: No huge or drooly dogs. “Small dogs make small poop,” I’ve joked with the kiddos (half joking . . . kind of), adding that I don’t want some princess-y pocketbook dog either.

With those loose criteria in mind, the kids started to place bookmarks in the dog book to indicate their favorites. The Youngest Boy put bookmarks next to pictures of Yorkshire terriers, Cairn terriers (like Toto from The Wizard of Oz), a West Highland terrier (sensing a theme here?), and a pit bull terrier (he just wouldn’t let that pit bull thing go). The Girl echoed her younger brother’s West Highland terrier choice (those dogs look just like the McDuff character in the Rosemary Wells books) and a miniature poodle (my parents have a black one named Kelly whom she loves). The Eldest Boy, who has repeatedly said he does not want a dog but is resigned to the fact that it’s going to happen whether he likes it or not, ironically identified big dogs, a golden retriever and a Labrador retriever.

I decided not to identify any type specific breed because I don’t want to overly influence others, except for eliminating pit bulls and giant, drooly dogs that a 7-year-old could ride like a pony.

However The Spouse has yet to put any bookmarks in the dog book . He’s not so much on this dog bandwagon. Me thinks he’s going to need a bit of a nudge.

That being said I’d love to hear from you dog owners who have dogs and young kids: What kind of dog do you think would work for a busy family of five (kids ages 7, 10 and 10), given that I don’t want a big, drooly dog that’s difficult to care, groom or train?

Image: This web site.