Busy Bodies and Doggie Eyeballs

I woke up on Friday with Baci's giant head on the pillow next to me. Sweet, sweet, boy. I started to pet him, and he rolled over onto his back, waving his paws in the air... and showing me his other eye. His crusty, moist-looking, eye. Which he promptly began rubbing with his paw.

Eeeeewwwww. I took one look, and my first thought was, 'if this was one of my kids, I'd say that was pink eye.'

It was. And Delilah had a touch of it, too. Yeehaw! I have been throwing out my back wrestling the dogs to the ground in an attempt to give them eyedrops not one, not two, but THREE TIMES a day since then. Do you know what it's like trying to give a ninty-pound dog an eyedrop that he *decidedly* does not want to get?! It's not pretty, I'll tell you that much. I get ten days of this joy, if I make it that long. I know, I know, you're supposed to finish antibiotics, but really, it's probably not gonna happen. Half of them probably aren't making it into his eyes, anyway. Delilah tries to bite me with her baby teeth when I do it to her. Oh, the joy.

In more fun news, Josie and went to a local beading store (which is really more like a polished-stone palace, since it sells everything from ceramic decorative to glass to stone beads in all shapes and sizes) to take an intro to jewelry making class. What you do it, grab a soft board that has grooves and pits in it to hold beads, and then wander through the huge store, looking at wall sections, tables with multiple drawers, and various other stations that are stocked with strands, bowls, and cups filled with beads. It's a beautiful place, with wood plank floors, vaulted ceilings covered in white decorative tin, and loft where the classes are held that looks down over the entire rest of the store. There are also stations in the beading area where you can stand and make jewelry if you're not taking a class.

We had so much fun! Originally, we were supposed to go with a friend of mine and her daughter, who is a friend of Josie's, but they had to back out at the last minute, so it turned into a special mother-daughter experience. It took us about a half hour to pick out our materials, and then we went upstairs and sat at a round table with the other mom and daughter, who were older than Josie and I, and made our stuff. The teacher was wonderful, and showed us what to do, and then let us do everything outselves. What we ended up with, for the cost of the class and the materials for us both (altogether about $70), was this:



The top things are mine, and the pink ones are Josies. She did a great job.

Then, today was a strange one. Dh had the day off, because he works over an hour south of here, and they got a lot of snow there so his place of employment was closed, but we really got about nothing here, so after a delayed opening, the kids went to school and DH and I were alone together at the house. We hung out doing various things for awhile, and then went out to Panera and to run various errands. We ended up at AC Moore, to get funky beads for Patrick's new behavior incentive (he gets two beads a day to put on a necklace - one for good behavior at school and one if he's good at home - and 10 beads=having a friend over plus also a cool necklace that he will eventually have created himself full of animal beads and funky painted-pottery looking ones and silver ones that look like pirate booty), and we found in their new inexpensive section up front these wooden kits that make 3-D things like boats, animals and helicopters. We got a pirate ship for Patrick and DH to do together, and a tiger for Josie and I.



The directions were written by a monkey left a lot to be desired, since they comprised of tiny numbered sketches of the pieces (which were NOT numbered) and words that said, I shit you not, sort the pieces into groups and put the project together. Yeah, thanks for that, Bueller. Anyway, the ship was too hard for Patrick to do himself, so DH did the assembly, and Patrick colored finished sections, while Josie and I split the construction on ours pretty evenly. It was pretty fun, but next time we'll definitely get Patrick one of the smaller, easier kits, or return to getting him the foam ones. Still, we all sat at the table and did something together, and there was no screaming or fighting or crying. That, my friends, is a success in my book.