this guy is going bye-bye

         Here's my crazy scoop for today: floors are finally done, dog has been scratching them up ever since we put them down. John says dog has to go. Neighbor said our dog had his dog down on her back with her neck in his mouth and he had to kick him as hard as he could to get him off. Then dumb dog went after next-door neighbor's dog and did the same thing. We told the boys we would have to give him away and it was the same week that Whitaker had the hour and a half MRI, a not-so-great doctor's appointment, and we determined an approximate date for surgery. Whitaker cried, said his life was falling apart, that every time we get an animal it either dies or we give it away, blah, blah, blah.

       So my dad escorted me kindly to Lowe's where we purchased an 8 foot long log chain to tie to his lead for him to drag. Not only does he not run as far, he doesn't go as fast either. This has helped with our outside problems, so I thought we were going to get to keep the dog. Until today. When John saw this absolutely gargantuan scratch the dog made right in the center of the family room. He said I have to think about where this dog is going, and then he slammed the door.

        I am also trying to grade a mountain of papers, pack up my entire classroom, complete an online training course for Preschool, earn three more hours for library media (even though I will probably never get a library job), and survive the last three days of school with seventh and eighth graders. Plus, we got the date for Whitaker's surgery and it is June 15, just three weeks from today. I am so stressed right now my chest hurts, but don't worry, I already have an appointment for heart tests on June 3. If I make until then, I am certain they will tell me there is nothing wrong with me. It is all in my head. I am just crazy.

         In addition to all of this, I am so fat that I am cramming myself into my fat clothes, which only constitute about 5% of my closet, so I have been wearing the same clothes for a whole semester now. I need a personal trainer fast. I hate my body. I don't think the timing is right at all to get rid of our dumb dog, even if that is the right thing to do. Now I gotta go watch baseball, and go eat with my in-laws. Our treat. :-)

        I am trying to think of an invention that we could put some sort of gel-caps or something on the dogs claws that would at least help with the scratching. I have finally decided to try to day-quil gel-caps, empty them out, slide them over the end of the dog's claws and fasten them with the little rubber bands they use for braces. It might not work, but it is a start. I love him and the boys REALLY love him, and I don't want him to go. Any ideas, please advise.

boys, baseball, and beautiful wood

Okay, so I haven't updated the blog in a while because we were busy doing this:

And then we went and did this:

and while we gone, my Tretter did this:

Yes, that is a nine-year-old, doing homework on a laptop, in a vehicle. Hello, 2010, where were you when I was in 3rd grade? Oh, yeah, it was 1980. 

So eventually, the floor progressed like this:

and finally, it looks kind of like this:

Only it is completely finished now in the downstairs and we have enough left over to do the hallway upstairs (yippee!) and then we will be done for a while. In all of that hullabaloo, we removed the wood floor from the dining room, ground off the nails, carried it upstairs, removed the carpet from the boys' room, laid the old dining room wood floor in the boys' room, and laid our new Acacia Brazilian Cherry floors in the dining room and family room. It's gorgeous if I do say so myself.

In the meantime, since that whole process took about 3 and a half weeks, we had baseball

If you have a magnifying glass you will see Whitaker on second base, Tretter up to bat, and John as the third base coach. If you don't have a magnifying glass, you'll just have to take my word for it.

We also had Mother's Day, and this is my present:

They cleaned, vacuumed, and washed my vehicle for me, which was adorable, and a very nice gift. It was much-needed and much-appreciated. Until they vacuumed up my charger-cover.....and John had to fish it out of the new shop-vac.

and I, of course, thought this was hilarious.

We also had a rainstorm that prompted large trash bags for a slip and slide,

and a triathlon at the boys' elementary school.

How cute is that? All those little healthy kids warming up!

Finally, we also had an MRI on Whitaker that lasted an hour and 15 minutes (followed by barbecue ribs at Outback Steakhouse) and met with the neurosurgeon again. His scans had not changed - no improvement, but no increase in severity either - in the four months that he has been taking growth hormone treatments, so it seems he will need to have his Chiari I Malformation surgically "repaired." That seems like quite a euphemism to me, but I am the mom. The surgeon told us all this other info too, that I will post later. maybe. if I feel like it.