Furry Pain in the Neck

After filling our postage-stamp-sized house with 4 little girls, we thought it would be brilliant to get a dog.

Yeah, brilliant.

For some reason my will to keep us dog free was waning. I had never had a dog growing up and secretly always wanted one. So I started looking around online for free dogs. I did this for weeks before I even told my husband. The moment I told him, he was on board and looking, too. I got on the site one day and there she was. Begging me with her big chocolate brown eyes to come save her.

"Help me, Mindi Jeppson, you're my only hope!"

I knew she was mine. She was my kind of dog. Apparently "my kind of dog" is one with ADHD that sheds so much fur, I could make a blanket. For a giant who isn't worried about allergies. If we could read her mind, all we'd hear is, "Play?! PLAY?! HEY!! I'M GONNA SNIFF THAT DOG'S BUTT AND THEN TRY TO LICK YOUR FACE! PLAY?!"

I have discovered that she loves to run. She gets going so fast that she can't stop herself and knocks you over. I've been knocked on my butt and my 6 year old caught some serious air when she plowed into her.

That mutt be crazy!

In an attempt to burn off some of that crazy energy, I started to be dragged down the street by her taking her running with me. It takes about 15-20 minutes before she calms down enough for me to put my shoulder back into socket, catch a breath and stop yelling, "WHOA!WHOA!!WHOA!!!NO!NO!NOOO!!" That's usually when I stop seeing spots and can actually focus on not tripping.

It's good times.

For a little while I was going early in the morning. I swear she could here my alarm better than I could. I'd try to sneak into the bathroom to get ready and she'd immediately start whining and jumping in her kennel! If she sees me in anything that looks remotely like workout clothes, she immediately starts jumping all over me and running up and down the stairs, knocking small people over. She sees the leash? Watch. Out.

"Where we go?! Go fast?! CATS!!"

 My friends and I were headed out for a run the other day and there she was in her spazzy glory while we just all laughed at her "hopped up on tasty cats full of catnip" craziness. I started doing my best impression of her (It's epic, I tell you) when I felt a sudden pain in my neck. I figured it would let up as I went but it just got worse. By the time I got home, I could barely move my head and I could feel my shoulders tensing up. I was down for a freaking week with a pinched nerve in my neck.

Because I mocked my spaz of a dog.

I finally got relief a week later when I dragged myself to the Dr where he gave me a couple shots in my neck. Shots in my freaking neck.

Because of my freaking spaz of a dog.

Okay, because of a spazzy old lady mocking her freaking spaz dog.

My 2 two-year-olds. One of them is house trained and it ain't the one in undies.

So, if you see us running down the street, one of us with our tongue flapping in the wind and the other screaming with arms flailing, just know that I may be running to my death.

That just happened

You know when you were young and had no children and you knew everything about parenting and knew you'd rock it as a parent?

Fast forward 13 years and 4 kids later and you find yourself in the corner of a dark closet with unwashed hair and still in jammies just hoping the little angels won't find you and ask you a question you know you don't have an answer to.

Or so I've heard.

I totally rock the heck out of parenting. I'm sure they are planning the monument dedicated to me as we speak. I'm sure it'll be a disheveled woman with glassy, unfocused eyes, a shirt with stains on it, slippers that I like to call 'shoes' and a Diet Coke in hand. Probably a Super Big Gulp.

Anyhoodle, I digress.

We've all had those times when we think we are doing the perfect thing in the moment for our kid(s). Like the time you were swinging a little one around making him giggle only to slam his head into a wall/door/tree or playing catch in the backyard and you clock her in the eye with the ball. Or how about the time you let your toddler snuggle a baby cougar.

It happens to the best of us. And the okayest of us.

Yesterday I had one of these moments. I have a child that I tend to butt heads with, to put it mildly. It seems as though anytime we are interacting one or both of us is yelling and/or crying or I am nagging her about something she needs to do. So any chance we actually have a quiet moment together, I try to remember to say loving things or hug her or laugh with her. So here she is standing in front of me telling me about something that happened at school and I am admiring her beautiful eyes, her cute and squishable cheeks, her sweet voice(since it wasn't in scream mode) and I was, once again, surprised how much she has grown. When she was done with her story I started telling her how cute she is as I grabbed her and threw her on my lap. As I was hugging and tickling her I said, "When did you get too big to sit on my lap?! Where did my baby go?! You'll always be my baby!" All while I was imagining her big smile on her cute face.

But there was no smile.

She started bawling!

"I don't like it *sob* when you say that because it *sniff* reminds me that one day *sob* I'll die and I don't want to think about that *sob*!!"

Apparently, instead of showing her my love for her I merely reminded her of her mortality!

Bravo, mom. Bravo.

So back into the dark corner of the closet I go...Where's my Super Big Gulp?