Day 36: 12 Weeks

Japatul's Rebel Yell is 12 weeks old today!!

Or 3 months, or 84 days, as it were. 

More and more it is easy to compare a 12 week old puppy with say, a 2 year old human for a variety of reasons. 

1. He follows his "parents" around, everywhere, to see where they are going and what they are doing. If he needs attention while you are walking, he tugs on your pant legs. If you ignore him, he shouts (barks). 

2. He has an entire toy box, but he prefers plastic bottles, tupperware containers, boxes, and paper bags, and his favorite stuffed animal. 

Seriously, why do we buy kids toys at all?

3. He whines when he's bored (and will bark at Juno or us if he demands us to play with him), and he barks and whines to keep himself awake when he's overtired, because he doesn't want to go to sleep yet. And speaking of sleep:

4. You cannot put him to bed (Calen's bed) until he is unconscious on the floor. If he isn't in the unconscious state, and you prematurely carry him upstairs to bed, he will stand straight up and wag his tail and hop down, as if to say "I'M AWAKE!!! NO BEDTIME YET!!" Then, once he does go to bed, you have to pat his head a few times to make him fall asleep, and then slither out of the room ninja-style, as if you were putting to bed an unwilling toddler. 

All laughs aside, he's a great little toddler pup. He sits and looks, is about 70% potty trained, and loves to fetch and play and "walk himself" by holding part of the leash. He is such a great edition to our family and we are having so much fun with this little chocolate muffin. 

Day 35: Party Like You're 34

Today is my birthday!!

Not that birthdays are super exciting when you are turning 34. You can no longer say that you are in your early 30's, your metabolism is starting to enter catastrophic failure, and everyone goes "wow" when you tell them how old you are turning. 

Like, what does "wow" mean? 

My birthday this year was pretty great, even though I had to work this morning for a couple hours. It just so happened that my cousin (aka my "twin", who I grew up with inseparably and is 10 days younger than me) and his family are in the middle of their own military move from Alaska to Texas, and took a slight detour to Petaluma to be able to spend today with us. What a fantastic birthday wish!

Calen and cousin Nate playing cars

Me and my "twin"! He's being a turd

We spent the entire day together just hanging out at the house, visiting while the kids enjoyed playing with the race car track, building Legos and watching movies while Brad barbecued hamburgers for us. 

After they left, I celebrated with a freezer burnt single slice of cheesecake from my work. Because that's what 34 is. 16 is a new car, 18 is the freedom of adulthood, 21 you drink (legally), 25 your insurance goes down, and 34 is freezer burnt cheesecake from a convenience store. 

Good thing I'm easy to please. 

Just a super awesome day though, all jokes aside. So thankful. 

Day 34: Grounded

You know, when it's summer vacation, and your kids are grounded, the parents are the ones grounded. You can't send them outside, or toss them in front of the TV, or anything where they can be entertained without you. 

Ugh. Can't you behave so that I can be ungrounded??

The good news is, the toys inside the house have been played with more than they have in months. I imagine it's like when the toys in Toy Story 3 are finally played with again after a long hiatus. 

This morning, I saw them take off up the stairs with Monopoly Junior in their hands, so I snuck up into their room to see them playing (almost) nicely. 

Day 33: Objects In Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear

Rebel has become my little co-pilot in the car, wanting to sit on my lap and stick his head (slightly) out the window. At least for a few minutes, then he wants to lay down and take a road nap. 

I was in the passenger seat for this photo, don't panic or call animal services or the police or whatever. 

Day 32: The Things You Say

While walking through Target in the women's section today, Calen came across something new (to him. Definitely not "new"). 

Calen: "Hey Mom look, they actually made a shirt out of JEANS."
Me: "Yeah, they're called jean jackets."
Calen: "What a stupid idea. Making jackets OUT OF PANTS."

Calen clearly disapproves of the 80's fashion comeback. 

I mean, he isn't wrong. 

Day 31: The 4th of July and the Grand Marshall

It's the most American day of the year! It's parades! It's beer! It's blowing shit up while wearing bald eagle tank tops! Who doesn't love the 4th of July?!

We started the festivities of the day in Kenwood, a town just outside of Santa Rosa that was heavily affected by the wildfires last October. They were having a 4th of July parade, and Brad was heading it with the honor guard. And who doesn't love a good 4th of July parade?

The funny thing was, no one in town seemed to care as much about the parade as they did our little chunky hunk of a puppy. After all though, who could resist a 2 month old chocolate lab with a bow tie?? He probably met 300 humans squealing and oozing over his cute fluffiness. He was so popular, in fact, that even once the parade was starting, people were still stopping at us to meet Rebel. 

Rebel should have been the grand marshall of the parade. 

Actually, it was great socialization for him. He was exposed to new people, dogs, loud antique cars, bands and being completely and totally touched out. It was good for him. 

The best part of it was that Calen had his treat pouch on him, and even though the parade was marching by, if Calen happened to say "Look" (Rebel's command to sit and....well...LOOK), Rebel would stop, sit and look at Calen, continuously, ignoring the sounds and the horns and music, until Calen would remember to give him a treat...sometimes 3 or 4 minutes later. 

He's going to be a good doggo. 

Later that afternoon, we barbecued with friends in the backyard, and then packed up as many explosives as we could find and headed out to Petaluma to a big shopping center's parking lot that faces the Petaluma Speedway, where they shoot off a big fireworks show every year. We set up a card table and chairs and even pulled the 3rd row bench out of the Yukon to make a sofa out of it and made camp for a few hours until it got dark. We played card games, football and made paper airplanes, until the big show started and the kids all climbed on top of the Yukon to watch. 

Poppers coming at me!

Our annual "watch the fireworks show from the top of the SUV" tradition

After the big fireworks show, it's time for our own show. After all, 70 thousand cars are trying to leave that parking lot at the same time, so we could either a) sit in our car and wait in line for two hours, or b) stay where we were and blow shit up. 

And who doesn't want to blow shit up. 

So we set off sparklers and fountains and big sparkly popping stuff and had a great old redneck time sitting on our car sofa watching Brad light fireworks and run away. And by the time we were done blowing ours up, the parking lot was empty and we could just cruise home. 

What a great holiday. 

Day 30: Hard Labor

When your kids are grounded for the week, it's basically like you the parent are grounded as well. In fact, dare I say, grounding the kids is worse for the parents than the kids. They can't watch TV, or go outside and play with their friends, and thus are stuck in the house with you bored out of their minds expecting you to entertain them. 

Ugh. It's going to be a long week. 

Thankfully when they came to me today announcing they were bored, I had just the activity for them to do. 

Detail the SUV, boys!

On second thought, maybe them being grounded isn't so bad. 

Day 29: Lazy Bones

You know, having a puppy is like having a toddler. 

No matter how hard you try to put the damn thing to bed, if he doesn't want to go to bed, he WON'T go to bed. They stay up all night cooing and crawling around and chewing on your plastic water bottles. And then it's 1 in the morning, and they literally fall unconscious on the floor and you carefully, VERY carefully scrape them off the floor and pray to all that is holy that they don't wake up as you carry them upstairs into bed. And they don't, and they're finally sleeping, and you finally get to sleep. 

Until 5am, when they wake up after a 4 hour overnight nap, bright eyed and bushy tailed, ready to take on the day. 

Puppies are hard.

Juno and I are tired. 

Day 28: Infiltrating The 2nd of July

The 4th of July may be two days away, but that doesn't mean we can't celebrate early! Celebrating a holiday on the actual day is SO last century. 

Actually, we are also celebrating on the 4th, because we are proposing a new "First Week of July" holiday. You know, to spread the joy, like Christmas in July. 

Anyways, there was a fireworks show at Bodega Bay this evening, which just so happens to be across the water from a small boat Coast Guard station that many of our neighbors and friends are attached to. Our friends were throwing big get together at the station, and even though we aren't attached to the station OR the cutter docked there, we were invited to the party anyways because we are awesome people or something like that. 

And so, we infiltrated the station and became part of the Sockeye crew for a day, shared a meal, played some backyard baseball, lit some sparklers and watched some fireworks with friends. We even hung off the side of the dock and caught crabs, because nothing says America like snatching crabs out of the water with your bare hands. 

Happy July 2nd, America!

Day 27: A Boy, His Dog, and Shark Socks

Calen came bounding downstairs today dressed like this. Shark shirt and shark socks. This kid is the best. 

Nothing happened today. Seriously. This is the excitement we had. Puppies. Shark socks. The end.