We decided that it was far past time to take our water-loving dogs to see the ocean. We had talked about it forever, but somehow life had gotten in the way and it had never happened. While taking two huge dogs to the beach was difficult enough, we were now faced with the prospect of bringing two huge dogs and two small children to the beach. We figured it was never going to get any easier, so we loaded everyone into the Outback and trucked on down the shore. (more…)
Category: Daisy
Cozy Tales: 40. Daisy’s Bloody Nose
Cozy Tales: 36. Colleen
3:00 a.m. Lauren woke up to go to the bathroom. Being very pregnant, this was not unusual, but this time she told me that she thought her water had broken, but she wasn’t really sure. When Meghan was born there was no question when the water broke as it was an event unto itself. Being tired and unsure Lauren went back to bed while thinking that she was having mild contractions. I went back to sleep thankful that nothing was expected of me except more sleep.
5:00 a.m. I got a nudge from Lauren asking, “Where is the stopwatch?” (more…)
Cozy Tales: 34. The Canoe
Cozy’s favorite pasttime was saving sticks thrown into the water. The ones that were lost were quickly forgotten like last year’s iPhone, causing me to wonder at the veracity of all those stories of Newfs saving people. (more…)
Cozy Tales: 32. Graviditas Redux
I also remember sitting on the couch with Lauren some time later reading an alphabet book to Meghan. We were the picture of family togetherness. Meghan would stare lovingly as I’d turn the page and read the words with happy Daddy abandon. (more…)
Cozy Tales: 31. The Trash
Thanks to our obsessive research regarding all things dog, we knew that cooked chicken is dangerous for dogs if it contains bones. While a raw chicken wouldn’t bother them, the bones get brittle when cooked and cooked chicken bones, when chewed by a dog, can splinter making shards that can cut them up internally. This was a situation that we calmly categorized as not good. (more…)
Cozy Tales: 30. The Spoon
Young children are naturally very good at some things. Banging pots with a wooden spoon is one of them. Making poopy diapers is another, and let me tell you, when it came to this particular skill, the kid was a pro. Noticing that the pro had scored again, Lauren scooped Meghan up and headed inside to clean her up. The dogs evidently decided that they’d sniffed enough diapers for one day and remained contentedly in the sun. If a loaded diaper wasn’t reason enough to disrupt a snooze of this caliber, nothing was. Or so we thought. (more…)
Cozy Tales: 29. Newf Net
An Internet mailing list allowed one person to send email to “the list” by sending to a single email address. The email address was a server which then resent the email to everyone that had subscribed to the list. Forums were still in their infancy, and blogs did not yet exist because this was the still the dark ages of the late 90’s when people used dial-up modems. Back then, email lists were still a pretty common means of information sharing for on-line communities. (more…)
Cozy Tales: 28. Meghan
In Lauren’s ninth month of pregnancy we went in for one of the many ultrasounds to check the baby’s health. Lauren’s OBGyn was very smart, very type-A, and very young. We had long ago nick-named him Doogie after Doogie Howser from the TV show of the same name. Doogie took one look at Lauren and told her that he wanted to induce her. Lauren flat-out refused, insisting that nature should take its course and that nothing should impede the beauty of the process or some damn thing. (more…)
Cozy Tales: 27. The Table Incident
One night while watching television, Lauren was lying on the long couch perpendicular to the TV while I sat on the love seat. Cozy sat on the floor near me and Daisy had mashed herself in the space between Lauren’s couch and the coffee table. The dogs loved to be in this space that seemed too small for them which we figured had something to do with their den instinct. Regardless of why they liked those spots, they were always there making it difficult for people to get off and on the couch. Lauren, eight months pregnant with Meghan, had an even tougher time when the dogs chose to lie there, which was all the damn time.
For reasons that escape me now, I decided to sit on the coffee table so I could get closer to Lauren. Maybe we were talking, or maybe I felt the need to give her some smooches. Whatever the reason, it was overshadowed by the events that were about to unfold. (more…)