The Last Days of Deuce-co?

Ever since Edith could pull herself up and stand with the aid of a couch, she has enjoyed pulling at our dog's blanket or generally messing with him.  He has grown increasing unhappy about his.  At first he was just growling at her.  Then he would just get up and move.  Then he started growling and showing his teeth.  But a couple of times now he has actually lunged at her.  That sounds worse than it is.  I guess most people with dogs know that they have a whole variety of aggressive/don't fuck with me moves.  Some involve teeth.  Some don't.  This was more of a teethless lunge.  But it freaked us both out. 

Who knows what the future holds
for Deuce and the Kosterpeldings

So we spoke to our vet about it, and she shared our concern, but felt like the real troubling dynamic might just be that we let Deuce on the couch in the first place. She suggested that we stop letting him on the furniture, and see if that improves the dynamic.  We actually had already kind of figured that out for ourselves, but it was nice to have a vet tell us we were going down the right path.  I guess this would be a good place to note that when they are on the same level (both on the ground) he just licks the shit out of her.  No aggression at all. 

Starting on Wednesday Deuce lost his couch/chair privileges, and surprisingly that adjustment has been really easy.  He just finds a soft spot on the ground and sleeps there.  We have also kind of quarantined this area so Edith can't mess with him.  It still remains to be seen whether this will work.

If it doesn't we can either bring in a dog behaviorist or get rid of him.  I'm guessing we'll go with the latter, since I have a feeling neither Chelsey nor I are going to be any good at dog training while we're trying to keep Edith from killing herself as she learns to walk. 

So we may be saying goodbye to our dog.  Which makes me sad.  It makes me even sadder as I write this.  Deuce is a member of our family.  He's the one that continually embarrasses us, but makes up for it later by doing something funny while no one is around.  He's the perfect combinations of sweet and dick.  I hope we get to keep him. 

Welcome Back to Work!

Today is Edith's first day of childcare.  Likewise, I return to work from a 2 week sabatical, and Chelsey returns to full time employment for the first time since Edith showed up.  This is a sad day in the Kosterpelding house.  The kind of day that makes you reevaluate your life.

For instance, what sort of cost-cutting measures would allow one or both of us to stay at home?  We don't need our badass cable or our badass cell phones. There's $200 in savings right there.  And who says you need utilities?  That's another $100.  Anyway I add this up, it's not enough.

I have tried to talk Chelsey into going off the grid.  This seems easy enough.  Sell both our cars.  Take the money.  Go to Bolivia.  Disappear.  She points out that this plan is no good, as we don't have the title for either of our cars.  She is right.  The only option is to cash out our 401k's.  There's a good-sized chunk of money in there.  We don't have to worry about the taxes because of our new "off the grid" lifestyle.  This could work. 

In the meantime, I'm reading about how when Tom Waits had his first kid, he was in the process of taking over his management, and finding out he was broke.  He was also moving to New York, and completely changing his musical style to something that his label told him would not sell.  They ended up dropping him over it.  That album turned out to be Swordfishtrombones, which restarted his career, and turned him from lounge act to what he is today.  Of course he did all of this at the prodding of his wife, Kathleen Brennan.  Thank you Chuck, for the fine book.

The answer is clear.  I need to develop some sort of artistic and start to get paid handsomely for it.  Then Chelsey is going to have to come in and make it like twice as good.  Then we move to New York.

Spider Dream!

THE DREAM

I had a dream last night where I was in a house full of spiders. Really big ones. They kind of looked like the bugs from Starship Troopers, and I tried to kill one with my hand and it was really hard. I tried to squash it, but it just withstood the pressure. I had to hit at it several times. So I was kind of on red alert and then my mom showed up. And suprisingly when I told her about the spider issue, she was totally ok with it. We walked into this room that was full of spiders, and instantly a big tarantula climbed on her back. She didn't freak out or anything. Just instructed me calmly to get something to knock the spider off with. Which I did. I finally woke up a little freaked out.

WHAT I THINK IT MEANT

I think the spiders symbolized the many things I'm freaked out about with this kid on the way - which explains why my mom wasn't phased by them. Spiders were a good choice, as I am not necesarily afraid of them, but if I was in a room full of them I would certainly not be at ease. Also, I think the weird looking spiders at beginning represented the fact that there will be unexpected things that I don't see now that will unnerve me after Edith gets here.

Thanks brain. I was hoping for some reminders about how unprepared I am for parenthood.

30 Day Music Challenge - Day 7

Song That Reminds You of a Certain Event

Here's a song I listened to over and over when Chuck had his first brain surgery.  What fun!

And what a fine video this is...



Chelsey's Song. I remember that Christine Dougherty was the only one at the wedding who recongnized it.



Chuck's topical association with Kurt Cobain.



Wendy's pick.  They need to start making videos like this again.  Dammit.



Kent's song makes me think of Chuck's basketball team running out before their games to this song.

30 Day Music Challenge - Day 4

Song That Makes You Sad

I love sad songs.  Which means that finding a sad song that actually makes me sad is challenging.  They mostly make me happy.  My first thought is to pick the entire album "Hospice" by The Antlers, but it's hard to pick just one song from there.  But as a dad to be, this is the song that fills me with the most dread right now.  And I don't think there will be a dread category.



This song is about having a baby, and it not doing well right off the bat. And feeling all alone because you don't really have a relationship with God.  So it's just you and your desperation and whatever faith you have left.

Here is Chelsey's sad song. It's Metal Heart by Cat Power.



This is the song she always listens to when she is sad. It's from Cat Power's most recent covers album. But this is actually her own song, which which re-recorded. Which is a little weird, but the second version is definitely better.

Kent's song. This song was obviously a real hard hitter around Katrina.




And Wendy's song. This is a song I used to sing to a baby that I briefly babysat for... It was the only song I could think of. Little did I know someday I would marry a Chelsey. Now I sing it to her.



Chuck' song.  "You know it's time that we grow old and do some shit."

King Edith Further Update

So there's better news on the Edith front to report from our last baby doctor appointment.  For one, our doctor all but ruled out any of the nastier forms of spina bifida.  Which means we are most likely only going to be dealing with the occulta version - if at all.  Great news. 

So I asked her what to replace spina bifida with on my top 5 list of things to worry about.  She said her main concern woud be preeclampsia (or high blood pressure), which will present it's own list of issues, but most of them seem navigable.  Maybe bed rest or induction will be in order.  All of which are ok.  Not great, but ok.

Also, we are going to Minneapolis this weekend to buy baby shit from Ikea.  Very exciting.  We are also going to stop by Okaboji and see a Twins game.  It's our last vacation before King Edith comes along, so we are going to make sure to take lots of pictures. 

We have also been hitting the gargae sales pretty hard and heavy for baby shit.  That seems to be going well. 

King Edith Updates

Here's the latest on the baby front:

• We know we're having a girl.  Found out for sure when we visited our special baby doctor.  
• Our special baby doctor also told us that with Chelsey's genetic blood-clotting condition (MTHFR), combined with her blood work results put us at a 30% risk for spina bifida.  Hooray!  There is also the risk of us losing the baby late in her pregnancy, thanks to the MTHFR - so Chelsey will probably not go full term, to get little Edith out as soon as possible.  
• Nothing earth-shattering, but no one wants to hear they have a 70% chance of having a totally healthy kid.  
• We'll know more when we talk to our regular doctor this week.  
• In the meantime we are adopting the attitude of "fuck it."  There's a whole bunch to worry about with this stuff, but we can't do anything about it.  It's just there.  And we can fret about it, or we can just say fuck it, and continuing falling in love with our future daughter.  
• On the positive side, the room is painted, and we go to IKEA in a couple of weeks to get the crib.  Very exciting.  
• We're also still sold on the name Edith Pearl - which is great because of this future vacation spot.
• Now we just have to buy Chelsey some more maternity clothes, and get a doll so we can trick Deuce into being nice to the baby.

Speaking of Deuce.  Here is two minutes of him licking my hand.