Tracilee014

Wanted to share this story Monday but honestly I was just too exhausted to sit long enough to do it.

So let me start by saying I had a great, extremely productive weekend with my guys. Hubby, son and one of his friends spent the weekend helping me to clean the yard, cut up wood, make repairs to my deck and cull chickens for the freezer. After taking my new medication for nerve pain for a few weeks, I was able to get out into the yard and push myself harder than I've been able to for the past 17 months. I also knew that it was going to rain all day Monday and as a result, I would have lots of down time to recoup from my physical activities over the weekend. Ha! My plan for Monday was to spend it lazing around, doing some light laundry and baking, but this wasn't to be.

Over the last week, the weather has been dry and cool enough for us to be able to leave both dog doors open, (bedroom and backyard) at night while we sleep. See, we have one dog who refuses to hold it still and has been having accidents while we sleep. Vet checks him out as being perfectly healthy so we figured allowing access to the yard at night would help and it did. However, hubby didn't even think about it raining when he left for work Monday morning and he left the doors open.

About 40 minutes after hubby leaves for work, our Blaze comes into the bedroom and insists I get up. I mean she is relentless so I figure she's just used to me being up already and wants me up now! Oh we'll, I console myself, I can always take a nap later if I want to as the boy is off school for the next two weeks for fall break and I have a babysitter Ha! again I say.

So I get my sore, tired old body out of the bed, put on my robe, locate my house shoes cause you know they are irresistible to the little elves that come in the night to take them away to be re-cobbled, and wander out to the kitchen. I turn on the light above to stove as the rain has kept it dark outside and get my coffee going. Next, I rummage through the kitchen looking to make sure I have all the ingredients I need to make blueberry muffins for the boy. He worked hard over the weekend and I want to thank him with homemade yummies for breakfast. All the while I'm doing this, Blaze is fast on my heals and won't give me space. She's doing her best imitation of Chewbacca and so I figure its breakfast time for the pack right? Ha!

So I finish gathering my ingredients for the muffins, turn on the light in the downstairs living room so I don't trip on toys on my way through and there it is. The masterpiece my puppy pack has been working on since I don't know when. Could have started the night before as hubby didn't think about the rain and left the dog doors open. He has no reason to go into the living room area in the mornings so we aren't sure when they started working.

The entire living room from about 3 feet on the walls down, including every piece of furniture, including the coffee and end tables have been redecorated with muddy puppy finger painting. I can clearly see where someone was dancing on my tables! Gasp! Now as I'm about to faint, I feel something brush my leg, and there's Blaze looking at me with those eyes that say "that's what I've been trying to tell you mom."

My initial instinct is anger BUT, these are only puppies and its not really their fault. I also know now why daddy dog Patch INSISTED on being in the bed sometime in the night while we slept. He didn't want to be accused of this I'm sure. Of course, since my pups are so big, and mud has a tendency to squish out and make prints appear larger, I might have been inclined to think momma and daddy had a hand (paw) in this otherwise. However, he was relentless in the night and just absolutely refused to get off my legs.

Anyhow, after my shock subsided, I began making a mental list of how I was going to tackle this mess and it began with yanking my son out of the bed early on his vacation and making him babysit the pups upstairs while I cleaned downstairs. Needless to say, he wasn't happy about this but honestly neither was I. I was in pain from my weekend yard work and all I really wanted to do was sit in my chair, drink my coffee and read while I waited for the Gabapentin and my pain meds to begin working so I could move. Ha!

First things first and since my downstairs area was already trashed, I had the boy give each pup a bath in the downstairs bathroom so we didn't spread the mess further. Once, when I checked in on him to see how he was doing while bathing Button who's afraid of the noise of the running water, I noticed that the water in the tub was dark brown and there was a dark muddy ring around the tub from previous baths. /shudder.

Baths done and all the dogs upstairs, I began stripping the cushion covers that actually came off but only my couch has those. So I'm left with 2 large beige recliners and the rest of the couch which is also beige to scrub by hand along with all the tables that need a good scrubbing, the walls and the new laminate flooring. Oh yes, also, the kitchen floor and sigh, into the bedroom through the dog door onto the only carpet left in my house which is white. I didn't notice all the foot prints in the bedroom or hallway when I first got up because the room was dark and I was still half asleep. Oh did I mention that they also got into the basket of folded towels and blankets that I'd pulled off the line the night before but didn't get put away? Yes, they pulled over half the items out of that basket and laid on the fresh blankets with their muddy little bodies.

So, before my coffee, before my shower, before breakfast, I got dressed in scrubby sweats, got in my car with bed head and drove to the only store open in our area at that time in the morning and spent a ton of money on furniture cleaners carpet cleaners etc. while I'm at the store ( I was shopping slowly in order to postpone the task I knew was in front of me) the boy calls me and informs me that we need more paper towels. I ask him why as I'd just bought a few rolls on Friday and he informs me that he's been picking up puppy piddles since I left! Grrrrrr! I inform him the best way to handle that is to actually pay attention to the pups and take them outside each time we get a lull in the rain. He went through a roll and a half of paper towels in the short time I was gone.

After paying an outrageous price for all the items I need to get the job done, I go home and begin my task of cleaning this up. It's almost 8am by the time I begin and I've still not had my medication because I can't drive after taking it so I'm in pain and completely overwhelmed by what lay in front of me. As I begin, I look to the stair landing because I hear Blaze doing her Chewbacca again and there stacked up on the stair landing are my entire pack, sleeping peacefully. I'm ok with this as they aren't in my way but I wonder if the boy knows where they are and what they are doing.

As I'm working, I occasionally hear a pup go up the stairs, across the floor to the other living room, and then return to the bottom of the stairs a few minutes later. An hour has passed, I know where my dogs are but the boy has yet to come and check on them. I personally know that all the doors upstairs are closed and there isn't much for them to get into but I know he hasn't thought of that. I call him on the phone and ask him how the dogs are doing. He reports to me that they are all fine and everything is ok. I ask him what the dogs are doing and he says he isn't sure, they come into the living room and whine and then leave. I tell him that since his task today is babysitting them, he should know where they are and what they are doing. I hang up with him and a moment later I hear him enter the upstairs kitchen area then a loud ugh! Lol.

He stepped out of the living room and into a puppy piddle with his socks on. then I hear him exclaim Oh My God! Tehe. He was so engrossed in whatever he was watching on t.v. that he failed to pay attention to the pups when they came to him and asked to go outside. Now he has puppy piddles and diddles to clean up from one end of the house to the other upstairs as there isn't a dog door up there. He comes to the top of the stairs and hollers down, "Mom, I need help up here". Not! I inform him that it was his responsibility to pay attention to the pups and hence his mess to clean up. To add insult to injury, I told him that if he wasn't up to the task, I could always pay our neighbors boy to come babysit them. He cleaned it all up on his own, even mopped the entire upstairs and then asked if it would be ok to close the door between the living room and kitchen so he could keep a closer eye on the pups. Lol again. Of course I told him, just pay attention to them when they ask to go potty. It took him long enough to realize what he had to do to keep them from going in the house and after the last mess he'd had to clean up, he wasn't about to make that mistake again. For the rest of the day, I could hear him upstairs calling the pups to the door every time the rain let up

Well, I finally finished cleaning every piece of furniture, the walls and the floor around 3pm, just as hubby was getting off work. He called and I informed him of the days events and also that I would not be cooking dinner that night and he needed to pick something up or cook dinner himself. Either way I was done for the day! My pain tolerance was maxed out and I didn't even have the strength to put the furniture back where it belonged. I finally took my medications around 3ish, ate Taco Bell when hubby got home, then crashed for the night at around 5pm. I thought I'd sleep through the night but that wasn't to be as the pain pushed me out of the bed the following morning around 1:40am.

Determined to get some of the things done that I'd planned to do Monday, I began working on laundry which had pulled high over the day due to all the mess the pack had made plus all the blankets that were used to keep the furniture safe from pups and allow the guys a place to sit while it was still drying. It was, and actually still is a huge pile. However, I still have my list of things to do for Tuesday so as soon as the sun rose, I woke the boy, told him he had to babysit again while I went to town as shopping was on my list.

I told him to pay attention to the dogs as I didn't want the dog door opened, the ground was still wet and some areas were muddy. You'd think the "pay attention" part would be fresh in his mind after yesterday's mess that he had to clean up wouldn't you? Did he do as I asked? No he didn't and I returned home after being gone 2 hours to find my new floor which I'd painstaking cleaned the day before covered in muddy dog tracks, muddy dog tracks on the blankets covering the furniture and he'd gone through another I don't know how many paper towels but my new pack was already half gone. Wow! Teenagers, I swear! Sigh!

So now it's Wednesday morning, I'm behind in my tasks by two days, I have an appointment at the VA which is an hour drive from home AND my doctors office just called and are haranguing me to get another MRI done on my neck as I'm having pain in a new area and the last MRI showed my C4 was weakening. They suspect the fusion I had done last winter has caused the disk between C4 and C5 to herniate which will probably lead to another surgery.

So, lol, long story told, I'm a bit overwhelmed and frustrated with my medical issues, my teenagers lack of attention and my hubby's ability to just let it all roll off his back like nothing is going on. People say being a home maker is easy and they wish they could stay at home and just take care of the house, the pets, the kids, the shopping, the cooking, the laundry, the bills, the ailing family members who need round the clock care, the yard and garden, the honey-do lists etc. To those ppl I say, I'll gladly trade places with you!

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Georgiapeach

OMG - I would have LOST it! You're a better woman than I, that's for sure! I'm so sorry you had to go through this!!

Maybe your boy child grew up just a little bit after being forced to deal with this - there's always hope, right?

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dalenica2

I'm running out of breath just reading what you've gone through! Next time, and this is the important part, don't forget to take pictures of your furbabies' masterpieces!

Mom2Titan

First of all I thoroughly enjoyed your story telling; I giggled out loud a few times as I can certainly relate to your experiences but on a slightly smaller scale. I felt badly for you as I know your health issues put you in a different category when it comes to doing normal things; you have to manage your pain and take your meds. I bet 'the boy' sees you in a different light now! Go ahead and take the rest of the day off today - you derserve a break

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Cindy - Mom to Titan & Kailer, Boxer, docked & floppy
Mom to Rocky & Brody-Ragdoll boyz

MomtoMason

All I can say is WOW.......

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Mom to Mason, 4 kids and 2 cats, grandma to a cute yorkie
Kim

WholeLottaBoxers

WHERE are the pictures?!? If there's no documentation, it never happened. LOL

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Cait, Mom to:
Max (11), Tucker (5), Sam (9), Cinnamon (13),
Titan (8 ), Honey (9), Piper (3) & Virgil (10)
Jake ~1/1/98-10/31/08~ ♥
Saba ~???-7/28/11~ ♥
Baby ~1998-11/25/11~ ♥
Lillie ~3/10/05-1/17/12~ ♥
Sadie ~2001-2/14/12~ ♥
Chief ~1998-2/20/12~ ♥
Barkley ~2000-2/28/13~ ♥
Maggie ~1999-4/22/13~ ♥

"Adapt yourself to the things among which your lot has been cast and love sincerely the fellow creatures with whom destiny has ordained that you shall live." ~ Marcus Aurelius

Tracilee014

Ohhhhh I can assure you it happened lol. I'm still trying to recoup sigh. Im still contemplating taking the blankets off my furniture and putting the cushion covers back on my couch. I don't wanna :cry I guess when you're faced with a mess like this, if the insurance doesn't cover it, pics are sorta the last thing on your mind, well, they were the last thing on my mind at least

I know one of my pics shows my couch and couch cover at least, let me show you what my couch looks like atm:


My couch never looks like this... It's sad but I don't have the heart to put it back together and uncover it lol.

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Tracilee014

Oh here are better ones of what my couch looks like normally at least:


I've already posted this pic showing the dogs but the focus here is how my couch usually looks with its cover. The way it looks now, well, I guess it looks like I own a lot of dogs lol.


Right hand side of couch normally.


Left hand side of couch, kinda frumpled from daddy dog laying on it.

Sorry, I cannot recreate the muddy paw prints everywhere nor do I wish to

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Jill T.

Wow!!! What a week you've had!!! Loved hearing your story, though. Thanks for sharing. And I agree, whoever thinks SAHMs don't work can come spend a day with me. I homeschool our 2 young boys & have a 4 1/2 month old boxer AND a few old Cockers so I'm sure they'd have LOADS of fun!!! Tee-hee.

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Jill,
Home of Epic Cocker Spaniels (& a boxer )

Mom2Jax&Bay

OMG!!! And the boy and pups are all still alive??? A much better woman then me. I will admit I kind of chuckled a moment or two as well. Sorry.

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Owned by Jaxon- Flashy Fawn docked and natural 11/21/09 and Baylee- Fawn docked and cropped (kind of) 4/07/09 Rescue

Lone Star Boxer Rescue volunteer since 2010