Things to know about the MP: Version 6.0

The Mud Puddle recently celebrated his sixth birthday and like the five that came before it we reminisced about the day he was born and the events leading up to it. He had a fun party with his friends (I am still writing the thank you notes from all the great gifts he received) and two cakes – like he needs to be anymore hyper.
So let’s check in and see what the current pulse of the MP 6.0 is shall we?

The older he gets the more creative he is in expressing himself – a phrase he uses (which I think is pretty much between him and I and quite frankly brings a tear to my eye and a lump to my throat when he says it) in describing his affection: “I love you past Pluto”. Holy cow that is a whole lot of love. To his way of thinking his love for me (and probably Ellie) is as infinite as the universe. I reciprocate whole-heartedly.

The first of what will undoubtedly be “Questions that Stump Mother” came up recently. He wanted to know what the biggest number is. So we talked about infinity (and the universe being infinite) and then I had to Google what the largest named number was so that we could talk about it some more. (a googolplex, by the way. Don’t say I never taught you anything useful).
We discussed numbers that are written as “times 10 to the power of” some other number and the numbers we use more often than the others. At the end of all of this I asked him if I was off the hook for awhile in having to answer hard questions: he told me I was.

Also on the smart fella front, he can read really well for a barely six year old. There are several books (including a couple that star a pigeon who likes busses and hot dogs) he can read all by himself and he manages to have the correct vocal inflections and drama while reading. There is nothing I love more than having him read me a story.

He has started calling me Mrs.
Not Mrs. G or Mrs. Mom, just Mrs.
And this cracks me up to no end, which makes him say it even more I am sure. It is usually delivered in a big booming voice. “HAVE A SEAT…..MRS!!!!”

One of his birthday presents from me was a vintage Cyberman t-shirt from Dr. Who. He and I love “Doctor Who” and have many chats about MY Doctor (Tom Baker) and HIS Doctor (the current version as played by David Tennant). He wanted a “Doctor Who” party for his birthday but we steered him toward something more main stream just in case some of his friends took it as an opportunity to pick on him for being different – different in this case meaning “way cooler than the kids who don’t yet have their British SciFi street cred” like my boy does.
So, I bought him the t-shirt and explained why the Cyberman looked slightly off. He had this tremendous look of understanding and appreciation on his face when he thanked me for it. I think he actually understood that this was kind of thoughtful and something between him and I. Or the cake and ice cream had kicked in and his eyes were just dilated from the sugar.

We also bought him a hermit crab for his birthday which brings the house menagerie to Four: Two dogs, a turtle that will live to be 35 and a hermit crab. We already had a drama with the hermit crab, he seemed dead. Like “rigor mortis had set in” dead. Both Scott and I went all CSI trying to figure out what the deal was and worked out a plan to buy a new one (yes, I am going to be that mother. Save your judgments, the MP had only had the stupid thing for a week when it went belly up).
So we put it back in its habitat and ignored it thinking the MP wouldn’t notice since it doesn’t really do anything on a regular day (except climb a plastic tree and knock it over – is our hermit crab mentally deranged or do they all do that and if so, why?). So I go in to check it later and it had moved. I asked Scott if he had moved it and he said no, so either it was only ‘kind of’ dead or it is a ghost crab. It apparently was not dead after all because when we went to put the MP to bed that night it was back in its tree. We have the strangest pets, I swear.

So to wrap up: He is loving, he is appreciative and he continues to keep me on my toes. And I love him past Pluto now and always.

What's that Smell?!?

Or alternatively

Skunkgate 08

The smell in the title would be Team Mud Puddle on Friday. As most of you know we have two dogs, Cooper and Cassidy.

Cooper (the white one) is a good boy who rarely gets in to trouble and when he does it is because he is “protecting” the rest of us from the likes of brooms and lawn mower tires.

Cassidy (the brindle or brown one) on the other hand is either a trouble magnet or addicted to drama. Think Joan Collins’ Alexis on Dynasty but in French Bulldog form (as opposed to the original British Cougar). The girl can’t help it whether it be eating all the dryer lint out of the waste basket or ripping open a bag of ant poison with her nubby, bare teeth (which was four feet off the ground and never opened previously) and proceeding to eat a belly-full, she finds trouble or it finds her depending on your outlook.

So last Friday we are dressed and ready to make our way to work and school with time to spare (this should have been the first red flag – any day we are running early or on time disaster looms large).
I have on my traditional pre Labor Day last wearing of the white pants and my new sneakers and the MP is rocking a cool organic cotton skull shirt that is new.

Now, when Cassidy gets into trouble I am usually made aware of it by Cooper. If you can remember the tv show or movie “Lassie” you will understand this: Cooper likes to do what I call his “Timmy fell down the well” act whenever Cassidy is in trouble. This act is usually when she has managed to escape the backyard and has taken off into the neighborhood.

So Friday I am actually sitting down to drink my coffee when Cooper starts barking at the door hopping from foot to foot.
If I had a dog to human translator I would have heard “She did it again! She did it again! Come quick Kris, she is in big trouble!”

As it was I assumed Cassidy had escaped the backyard and so I head out front to start looking for her. The usual first locations are the next door neighbors’ garage and across the street to harass the neighbor dog (who is a German Shepherd and could eat her on a cracker – but like all little dogs and boys after a case of beer she thinks she is 10 feet tall and bullet proof and is itching for a fight with the bigger dog).

When my cursory search yields no Cass I head back in to try and round up the MP so we can head around the neighborhood to go look for her in the car.

I get back in the house and there she is along with a smell that could (in the words of my beloved grandfather) “Gag a maggot”. Or a Mud Puddle as the case may be.
The MP is on the couch with his shirt over his mouth, tears streaming down his face choking out ‘What is that SMELL?”

Cassidy meanwhile is licking her chops and breathing heavy and rather bloodshot about the eyes. I do a quick look around the house to make sure she hasn’t killed some kind of rodent and left it with its entrails and fear induced poop laying on the floor somewhere. No animal carcasses (or carci what is the plural of carcass and how often do you have to figure that one out?)
I head out on the deck where the smell is even worse. The dogs follow and I finally bend over to give Cassidy a direct whiff.

OH MY GOD.

It was the most disgusting, putrid, vile puke worthy smell I have ever come in contact with. I gag and nearly barf but hold it in and tell the MP to get back in the house.

I call Scott to apprise him of the situation and what I believe has happened: Cassidy has made contact with a skunk and the skunk won. Her face was yellow where she must have taken the spray right between the eyes. I imagine she thought it was a slow moving cat (#2 after squirrels on her list of other animals to attack) and that it was her chance to take a piece out of its backside. Little did she know (and I am sure she didn’t learn her lesson) that this cat bit with its butt. I now think that the chop licking and bloodshot eyes were symptoms of a direct hit.

I decide the best way to handle this is to get the MP to daycare and head to the vet’s to buy special shampoo to try and rid Cassidy of the offensive odor.
You know what is funny about skunk stink? It can be stuck to you and you don’t even know it. Other people do though.

I get the MP to daycare and we head back to his room. I ask his teacher if we smell (we have that kind of relationship, thank goodness) and at first she says “just a little bit” and then she catches wind of me and she starts gagging and says “YOU SMELL YOU SMELL” Needless to say, we were kicked out of daycare for being the stinky kids.

On to Plan B

So we hit the vet’s office to get the shampoo , trying to keep our distance so they don’t have to smell us (at this point work is on the back burner as I try to deal with Stinky Jr and her odoriferous posse which consists of me, the MP, Cooper and the house).

We get home with the shampoo and I have made some key decisions in my bid to rid our lives of the skunk smell:
The clothes we are both wearing are going to be thrown out. They may be salvageable by someone more domestic than I but I am no Alice the Housekeeper or even a Mrs. Mike Brady so in the trash they go (except the shoes, both the MP and I are wearing shoes we really like so we try and de-stink those).
The cleaning will take place outside. Like Fresh Meat at the State Penn. (at least in the limited amount of prison movies I have watched) Miss Cassidy will be hosed down until she is less repulsive to the nasal palette. She never smells like roses so I am hoping to get her to regular dog as opposed to Skunk Dog.

Now, had the daycare run been a success this could have been an easy, one mom operation. As it was, it was a one mom/ one rather peeved MP operation. He said on several occasions that we should kick Cassidy out of the family.

There is no loved lost between the MP and the dogs on a good day (there is a sign that hangs on the bathroom door that says “No Dogs” one of the first things he ever wrote on his own. Awww… but that should give you an accurate slice of the MP/dog relationship. In his eyes a good dog is a dog far away).

So we have to stop the de-skunking process to have a little heart to heart about how we don’t throw anyone out of the family especially when they are in trouble or need our help. We don’t throw him out of the family when he acts like a brat or I want to rip my hair out with frustration when he will not listen.

He begrudgingly accepts that we can’t throw her out of the family and I proceed to wash her twice with the shampoo while Cooper stands in the door watching the goings on. The MP stands on the far corner of the driveway without a shirt on (he threw it in the garbage but decided to leave his pants on until we get back in the house). What the Neighbors Must Think Take 307.

Next up, wash the MP and then myself (I let us use the shower as we are less stinky and we would have stayed away from the skunk) and try and figure out how to de-skunk the house. In the end it took some strategically placed fans and an entire bottle of Febreeze.

We washed her a third time later on in the day (I made Scott do it and left him with this: “Someone owes me for this. I don’t know who and I don’t know when, but somebody needs to pay up for this little adventure”).

I still catch a little whiff of skunk when she walks by but it is much better now. The whole incident was funny during and after, I was able to keep my sense of humor even while wrestling a wet, stinky dog who hates water while trying to hose her neck and face lightly to remove the stink but not give her a water logged ear.

There are days that it is just easier to laugh then get upset so in addition to not crying over spilt milk I have also learned there is no need to waste tears on a dog/skunk run in. The good news is (like so much else in life) I now have no less than three “remedies” to getting that smell out of a dog, next time we will be prepared. I can almost guarantee a next time given the dog in question.