The ultimate motivator.

Kids will do a lot for a piece of candy corn.

 

As it turns out, dogs will, too.

S is for sharing.

And E is for "ew...please don't put that in your mouth!" Which, when it comes to these two, is kind of a waste of breath.

Up to something.

I have a feeling these two are going to be quite the pair.

My buddy and me.

A lot of people have asked me how Mattie has been with Calvin.

The first few days she was terrified of him. The first few weeks she was mildly irritated by his crying, but intrigued by his toys. Within the first month she began showing signs of concern when he cried, and discovered that his hands, feet and head are very lickable. And during the second month she started laying next to him on his play mat, watching over him while he sat in his bouncy seat, and looking visibly worried when he was upset.

Now, in the third month, she's figured out that he might be kind of fun.

In fact, the other day she brought both of her balls to Calvin and dropped one in his bouncy seat and one on the ground...and then waited for him to throw them.

It was so cute.

They are going to be such good friends.

Matilda and the Blue Pen.

Kind of reminds me of Harold and the Purple Crayon. Except I found that story far more amusing.

After months and months of me whining about how we need a new living room rug, we finally got one. Saturday morning we marched into Pottery Barn, took a quick look at the two rugs we'd found in the catalog, made our decision, and purchased it. Took about four minutes.

I love the rug: it's happy and fun. My only concern about getting a new one was Mattie chewing on it. When she was a baby she chewed up one corner of our previous rug, which we chalked up to teething. And she really didn't chew on anything else for a long time (except the wall trim when she couldn't get to her ball behind the tv stand). But over the last few months she's gotten into some trouble — once we caught her chewing on the couch cushions (both of the loveseat cushions now have bite marks on the corners) and another time she attacked the same corner of the old rug. So I was convinced she would smell the new rug smell and decide she needed to give it a good chomp.

I came home from work yesterday expecting to find a slightly chewed rug corner (but really hoped I was wrong).

Well, I was wrong.

What I found, instead, was a series of bright blue stains on my rug...the kind of stains you'd get after drawing on the rug with a blue marker.

Matilda, in all her curious wisdom, somehow located a blue gel pen, settled into a corner of the rug, and chowed down. She chewed the end off the pen, which meant all the ink leaked out onto my rug. And also onto her head. If she was hoping to plead innocent to the rug destruction, she really should have checked out a mirror before I came home.

I spent about 25 minutes on my hands and knees with our trusty can of Resolve — usually reserved for other dog-related messes, such as puke. Luckily most of the ink came out, and rest is conveniently disguised by a big red flower. I really wish she'd decided to chew the pen on one of the blue flowers...but I guess that's my fault. Nate and I haven't worked on colors with her yet.

Though she did manage to match the ink on her face to her new collar...so maybe I'm not giving her enough credit.

One more.

Just because I finally have a camera again, and Mattie is so darned cute.

Granted, this is probably right before she chewed on the couch cushion, or threw up on the rug.

Here we go...

I love my dog.

Love, love, love her. I look at Mattie's cute little face, and I get all melty inside. I love when she climbs on my lap to chomp on her bone, and I really love when she gets in our bed and wiggles her way under the blanket to curl up next to me. I love when she prances around with two toys in her mouth (she is a very talented puppy), and when she plays "soccer" — batting a ball around with her little white paws, always with another toy in her mouth. I love how excited she gets when I come home from work, and how she leaps and spins around in delighted circles while waiting for me to feed her dinner. I love how she gives me the stare-down with those big brown eyes whenever I'm eating anything — she's smart, and I'm an easy target.

Mattie has brought so much happiness to our home — Nate and I both adore her, and neither of us can imagine our life without her. She's badly behaved (they could have easily called the book "Mattie and Me" instead of "Marley and Me") and she's spoiled rotten, but she's ours. We are madly in love with her.

Which is why I'm a little concerned about how much we are both going to freak out come May 24, the anticipated arrival of baby Breyer.

If I love my dog that much — a dog who has chewed on our woodwork, eaten my underwear, barfed chocolate cupcakes all over the interior of my car, left hair on every surface of my house, dug holes in our yard, chewed up two pairs of my shoes and cost us many dollars in unnecessary vet visits — how much am I going to love my child?

This scares me.

I didn't even like dogs a year and a half ago. And now I sob every time I see that Sarah McLachlan save the dogs infomercial.

We are in for it, big time. That little baby is going to turn us both into huge piles of mush and I am going to become sappy and overprotective and annoying.

I'll be a mom.

And I can't wait.

Tuff plush?

There's no such thing, as far as I'm concerned.

Our puppy is what we like to call an "aggressive chewer." This is the affectionate term used for dogs like ours by pet owners like us. It means "Our dog is crazy and rips everything apart. But oh - isn't she cute? We love her so much."

Mattie loves to put things in her mouth. Anything, really. But she is partial to a few items in particular: underwear, paper towels, ponytail holders, small pieces of plastic and paper, grass, leaves and plants, and anything that squeaks loudly. But socks are the real issue - we are constantly chasing her around the house trying to salvage our footwear. She snatches our socks and takes off running before we even know she has them, which usually means what we get back is nothing more than a limp piece of fabric with holes in both ends. (We're glad it's getting warmer, because sandal season should be a bit easier.)

While I'm sure there's nothing tastier than our smelly old socks, I think Mattie is really just trying to recapture the joy she felt when she was allowed to have plush toys.

When she was a baby, we had all kinds of squeaky stuffed animals laying around. She loved them. Particularly the ones twice as big as her head - she'd prance around with them, holding her head back like a seal balancing a ball on its nose. But soon we began noticing these animals were missing fringe, tails, limbs, etc. And every time she pulled off an appendage, we'd have to throw it away (lest she eat all of the stuffing). Nate quickly realized that soft toys were not the way to go, so he began purchasing tennis balls and rubber squeaky toys. Most of which are still around today.

I, however, always felt like there had to be a soft toy that could withstand our dog's exuberant chomping. And I tried. I bought different shapes and textures, but she tore each one apart with glee. The time it took for her to destroy these toys became less and less. So I gave up, even though I knew how much she loved having a big, fluffy toy in her mouth. We resorted back to rubber.

Until yesterday. I decided to hit up Petco for a new rawhide, and wandered past a display with "Tuff Plush" toys (which are THREE TIMES stronger than regular toys). I picked out the toy with the least amount of stuff to pull off and inspected every inch. It looked pretty durable. I pulled on it, checked the seams, made sure there weren't any red flags...and bought it.

The minute I came through the door, Mattie started dancing around. (She totally knew.) So I pulled it out of the package, cut off the tags, and handed it over. And she pranced right past me, happy as can be. She happily began squeaking it -- and everything looked secure -- so I went to check my email.

Two minutes later a leg was missing and there was a pile of stuffing on the floor.

Never one to give up easily, I remembered a trick my friend Nikki taught me: take out the stuffing and leave the carcass. So I got out a pair of kitchen tongs and pulled all the stuffing out until it was just a tube with a head. Then I cut the other legs off so she wouldn't eat them.

Less than two minutes later, she'd eaten half the body. I buried it in the trash under a bag filled with its own innards and gave her the rawhide instead.

Lesson learned. We'll stick with socks.

Mattie with a few of her plush toys (may they rest in peace):