Who Let the Dogs Out?

This past week I was convinced a mischievous ghost was haunting my house.

Weird things were happening. It was subtle at first; so much so that I hardly noticed it at first but one morning, at around 6 am, I realized something was out of place when I opened my eyes.

I woke up and the first thing I saw wasn't this:

There was no giant dog with his head on my bed, breathing moist warm dog breath right into my face in an effort to wake me up. In fact, there was no giant dog anywhere in my bedroom.

I called Abbott's name a few times and waiting to hear the familiar clicking of his paws across our floor but the only thing I heard was the chirping of the birds from outside my bedroom window and the soft whirr of our ceiling fan.

Worried, I got up to look for Abbott, hoping one of the kids had locked him in their bedrooms with him over night and that he hadn't been dog napped in the dead of the night when I noticed something out on our deck.

I looked outside the front door and saw this staring back at me:

"Let me in Mommy!"

Weird. I didn't recall waking up and letting my dog out in the middle of the night but maybe one of the kids did. I didn't give it any more thought as I crawled back into bed with my big puppy.

Except the same thing happened the next morning.

And then the next morning. 

And the morning after that. 

I kept waking up to realize my dog is not in my face and finding him outside on the deck. The kids claimed they weren't letting him out and I know I certainly wasn't, so WHO LET THE DOG OUT?

*Who let the dogs out?*

*woof woof woof woof*

(Sorry. That song is the worst earworm ever.)

After a week of waking up and finding my dog randomly outside on my front deck, I was starting to freak out. The idea of someone opening up my front door, luring my giant dog outside and then rooting through my underwear drawer (I have no evidence of that actually happening, but my imagination is ACTIVE) I was starting to lose sleep. 

Every morning as I let the dog back into the house in the wee hours of the dawn, I'd peer around nervously looking for the ghost/goblin/creeper who was messing with my dog and I and Abbott would just look at me like this:

It was the look of a guilty hound if I ever saw one. He knew what was going on, but the damn dog just wasn't going to tell me.

I thought about setting up a sting, to bust the intruder but that seemed like a lot of not sleeping and well, that seemed like work.

I thought about asking the kids to set up a sting but they're already talking about having me committed to an institution of some sort and well, why give them more reason?

I thought about having an exorcism performed but when I mentioned it to my husband he just laughed and told me to stop watching scary movies.

I went to bed that night determined to catch the criminal/ghost who was messing with my dog. The next morning I woke up to Abbott breathing in my face and pressing his nose into mine.

He was in the house! 

For the next few days, all was right with my world. Abbott was exactly where he was supposed to be in the mornings. Everything was back to normal.

Until I started seeing my dog outside in the middle of the day, when he was supposed to be inside, with me.

The only people who are home in the days are Knox and myself and neither of us is letting the dog out.

So who is letting the dog out?

*Who let the dogs out?*

*woof woof woof woof*

(Sorry. I can't help myself.)

And then last night, I saw this:

My front door was wide open. Immediately, I looked around for the dog. He was on his dog bed, his ears cocked, and he was looking at me with an "I don't know" look.

"Damn gremlins," I mumbled as I shut the door.

I walked into the kitchen, wondering if I really was losing my mind and busied myself with unloading the dishwasher.

That's when I heard it. 

A click. The click my door handle makes when it's opened.

I ran to the front door and I saw this:

I stood there for a few seconds and worried about ghosts when it dawned on me. 

My dog is taller than the door handle. 

Abbott is the ghost/gremlin/creeper.

Abbott learned how to open the front door.

I needed proof though, so I put the dog back in the house and then I stood on the deck, calling his name.

And just like that, my dog was using his paw to open the front door, like it was no big deal. All those mornings I found him on the front deck with the door closed? His big arse must have pushed the door shut. He can open it from inside the house, but he can't pull the door open from the outside. It's one way only dog magic up here.

I'm spending the day baby proofing my front door today because my dog is an escape artist.

I guess I should be grateful I'm not insane. At least not yet. Between the dog and the teens, surely I'm well on my way.

Don't worry Mom. I'll get you there yet. #crazytown

*Psst: Have you commented on this post? Go save a life and help the Shot At Life campaign succeed. Go be someone's superhero today. 

Sixteen and Saving The World

When my daughter was four years old she stood in front of my husband and me and declared she was going to save the world.

We had been watching a lot of super hero movies and I was envisioning her wearing a cape and spandex tights when I asked her just how she planned on saving the planet.

Ken looked thoughtful for a moment and muttered something nonsensical and then ran off to her bedroom. I laughed at her antics as I adjusted my hugely pregnant body on the small couch I was resting on and made a joke to my husband that she must be looking for a pillow case to wrap around her shoulders as a cape.

Moments later, Ken emerged from her bedroom but she wasn't wearing a pillow case cape and she wasn't pretending to be a superhero.

She was dressed as a doctor, and she held a stethoscope to my swollen stomach to listen to 'her' baby.

"I'm gonna be a doctor and save all the babies," she proudly declared.

At age four, Ken was precocious and curious and everything a four year old should be. I didn't know where her sudden interest in the medical field had come from and I certainly didn't take her seriously, but I played along and let her 'doctor' me until she had to go to bed.

That night I went into labour with my third son, her brother, who was born medically fragile and extremely disabled. He needed all the doctoring he could get and then some.

It was like my daughter knew what none of us even expected.

Ken, the night her brother was born.

Ken isn't four anymore. She is now sixteen years old and every bit as precocious and curious as she was all those years ago. 

At the age of 16, she is a mixture of the child she still is and the adult she is growing into. As she straddles the fence between childhood and adulthood, I marvel every day at the person she is rapidly becoming.

She still loves superheroes and she sleeps in a bed filled with teddy bears but her baby teeth have all fallen out and her wisdom teeth are starting to grow in. Instead of driving toy cars around in the sandbox with her brother, she drives her brother around in her car. She steals my shoes when she thinks I'm not paying attention and she puts on her makeup with a finer touch than I have ever mastered. 

And yet, one thing hasn't changed since she was four years old.

She still wants to save the world. 

She no longer has a plastic stethoscope and she doesn't pretend to vaccinate my belly with her plastic syringe every chance she gets. Instead, she studies hard and interns at the local hospital in the pediatric unit.

She knows the importance of vaccinations and how immunizations save lives. 

Our entire family does. My grandmother had Polio and lived in an iron lung for more than six months when my mom was just a baby. We all grew up witnessing first hand the ravages of Polio on one of our favourite people in the world. 

At 16 years old, my daughter knows the importance of medical care, and how a simple vaccine can save a life. I no longer wonder where her interest in medicine comes from. And when she tells me she wants to save the world and become a doctor, I take her seriously.

At 16 years old, I see my daughter's future ahead of her, filled with promise and hope, and I see the person I know she is destined to become. 

I believe she can help save the world because she has already saved mine, with every hug and kiss she's given me.

This post is inspired by Shot@Life, an initiative of the United Nations Foundation that educates, connects and empowers the championing of vaccines as one of the most cost effective ways to save the lives of children in the world’s hardest to reach places.

During Shot@Life’s Blogust, 31 bloggers, one each day in August, are writing about moments that matter. For every comment on this post and the 30 other posts, Walgreens will donate a vaccine (up to 50,000 vaccines). A child dies every 20 seconds from a vaccine-preventable disease. We can change this reality and help save kids’ lives!

Sign up here for a daily email so you can quickly and easily comment and share every day during Blogust! Stay connected with Shot@Life at www.shotatlife.org, join the campaign on Facebook and follow them on Twitter.

Every last comment on this counts -- even just a 'hello' or 'thanks!' -- so help us spread the word, and help stop the spread of vaccine-preventable diseases.

THANK YOU SO MUCH EVERYONE. Y'ALL ROCK. 

Rules of the Road

"Hey Nash, I'm going to the store. Do you want to come?" I asked him as I walked past him while he was shooting hoops and opened the car door to buckle Knox into his seat.

That's when he said the three words I've come to dread.

"Can I drive?"

It's a special time in a parents' life, those months when their kid is gearing up to take their driver's test and are scrounging for as much practice time as possible. And by special I mean 'slightly hellish.' 

Nothing bonds a parent with anxiety issues to their teenaged child more than being trapped inside a metal box with wheels, as your child hurtles you both closer to insanity or death all while trying to remember the rules of the road.

I become less of a parent and more of a screechy adult, clinging to the dash board, the seat, the roof, to anything, all while trying to keep from hyperventilating and bursting into tears.

I pulled Knox's straps tight and sighed heavily.

"Just get in the car kid."

******

"Your foot must be a little heavy today. You're speeding."

"That's a yield sign!"

"Oncoming traffic! Watch out for the oncoming traffic!!"

"Traffic laws aren't suggestions meant to be ignored!"

"Watch for that dog! Don't run over him! The dog! THAT DOG!!"

"A rolling stop isn't a full stop!"

"You can't stop in the middle of a cross walk! You're supposed to stop before it!!"

"You're taking the corner too fast!!"

"That yellow metal thing is commonly referred to as a fire hydrant. You aren't supposed to park in front of it."

"Um, angle parking means park at an angle. You're taking up two stalls."

******

The car lurched to a stop just outside the grocery store. I leaned my head back against my seat, closed my eyes and took a deep breath before looking over at my son.

I love my children, I love my children, I repeat over and over in my head.

"It's not helpful with all the back seat driving."

"I'm just calling it like I see it Mom. You should have let me drive."

Ya. Teaching your children how to drive is the BEST thing ever. From now on, I'm just strapping him to the roof until he gets his own car.