Gibson Ate Santa

      If you don't receive any presents from Santa this year- it's probably Gibson's fault. The photo evidence is clear- Santa's hat in the mouth of  a puppy that chews everything.

       I'm pretty sure I saw a jolly happy fellow running for his life as Gibson chased down the reindeer.
    
        Yep, I doubt Santa will be delivering in my neighborhood ever again. Sorry children. It was the puppy.
    
        Gibson probably just wanted to be friends with the reindeer and he probably only wanted Santa to pet him and let him sit on his lap because no matter how big this dog grows, he literally thinks he's a lap dog and will smother you with affection. Or he's trying to prevent you from getting up, I'm not sure which yet.
     But I know for sure what Gibson wanted from Santa's sleigh....the toys. He loves toys. He chews them and tears them apart and sometimes when he eats too many of them he pukes them back up too.
   
     Today he has chewed and ate three jumbo crayons, the handle to my hairbrush, mini candy canes, and two gardening gloves- unfortunately not two gloves of the same pair, but two gloves from two different pairs, making both of them unusable.

   I saw this photo posted to Facebook and had to share it. My problem with dealing with Gibson is because I'm not thinking like a puppy. Like duh!
   

    So see, he wasn't trying to be mean to Santa. He was protecting us. Just like he barks at the squirrels that run around in the pine tree right above his leash and torment him. But if he stopped barking those murderous squirrels would surely descend from the trees, invade our house and eat us all alive. Gibson knows this.
    So he keeps barking...everyday...all the time...because he's saving us. 

    Wow, I should appreciate him more.

     Same reason he barks at the neighbors...they're obviously murderous. And the postman...and all of the girls' friends...

     But I have to say the puppy and Baby Blueberry work well together. The other night, I turn around and she's dipping a calculator in the Christmas tree water.
    Dip. Dunk. Dip. Shake it out. Dunk it some more...all of it.
    I sighed and shook my head. Who needs a calculator? 
    We left for a couple of hours and when we returned there was electronic parts scattered around the room.
   A circuit board. Rubber numbers. Wires.
   The front of the destroyed calculator.
   I had to laugh at that one. At least he had chewed apart something that had already been completely destroyed by the Baby just a few hours before.
   They're such a great team.

   So we finally got our tree decorated. It's only decorated from the top up. It's naked from the top down. We knew between the human baby and the canine baby we would lose ornaments by the dozen if we put them too close to small fingers and sharp teeth.

     I also set up the Nativity way up high and the rest of the house is sadly lacking any Christmas decorations. Why risk it, all that shiny stuff surely looks delicious! ---for Baby Blueberry and Gibson.

    We bought Gibson a huge ham bone and training treats for Christmas, but we had thought about getting him a new home.
       Gibson doesn't know it yet but he has New Years Resolutions. Like no chewing, no biting, no jumping, better listening, no chasing Santa, and oh, just behaving in general.
       
       Perhaps Santa will drop off a dog trainer!
   

Fifteen Years Later....

The Best Thing College Ever Gave Me...

    This is going to sound so fifty's housewife but I'm going to say it anyways...the best thing I got out of college was Hero Hottie.

     Hands down. Without a doubt.

     Sure, I got a whole lot of other things out of the experience.

     Biology rocked. Annoying the furniture man's son in biology lab because I was a girl and understood the material just a bit better...still makes me laugh every time I pass the furniture store.

    Hanging with friends. Learning stuff that I have never, ever used.- but don't tell my girls that.

    But meeting Hero Hottie...tops it all.

   It's our anniversary tomorrow. Fifteen years. I've spent almost my entire adult life with him.

   I didn't even know who I was. He didn't know who he was.

   After we married, we continued college. We had a little cottage house where we played house. And during lunch we would both come home and eat Ramen noodles and watch television. Or not...

   But it was fun and easy. Romantic and fairy taleish.

   Than life happened. And it wasn't easy. It wasn't fun. Not all of it. And we have had our moments of just being roommates and we have had our moments of just simply being parents.

    And we had our dark moments where we weren't on the same page. I'm not sure if we were even in the same book...

   But together...if you look at the entire story...not just chapters...we've done pretty good.

   So here's to the man who sometimes steals the covers without realizing it, who always gets me a coffee when I need it, who has encouraged me to write and write and write some more until I succeeded. (Like today, when my article, MY article was on the front page of the newspaper! Of course, my very first front page article would have to be about buffalo balls but that's the stuff good stories are made of.)

   Here's to the man who

                loves 

                                    me 

                                                for 

                                                      me.