To the mountains

This time the dog came with. For 4 days of sniffing and walking and hanging out in the mountains, near St. Moritz. And friends came with, with their kids who helped A have a great time. I ate a lot more hiking food than actually hiking (I meant to hike, really I did), but just being away was nice. The cows in their summer pastures with their bells clinking, the pretty buildings with the corners all embellished, fondue and hot cocoa and Father's Day French Toast made with a pulverized cookie coating. It was all good.

We stayed in Celerina, about a mile away from St. Moritz, much smaller, quainter, quieter, no Chanel or Jimmy Choo shops.

Ok, almost all was good. It seems the Alps open this coming (not last) weekend. All but one chairlift/gondola was closed, as were all the restaurants on the hikes. So leaving that bag of sandwiches on the dining table when we each thought someone else would bring them? Bad idea. Luckily the carrot sticks, apples, chocolate croissants, nuts and raisins made it, and we survived quite happily.

Now we're home again, and this is one of those uninspired, but I really need to start writing again, blog posts. My work life is picking up quite strongly, mostly with meetings with people which beats trying to stay awake working at my computer at home. I'm also looking for a decent (well, it is my first try), aesthetically pleasing RSS feed reader to consolidate all those blogs I stop by at each morning, so it is more like reading the morning paper than like desperately trying to find one more thing to read before being productive. Seems like Reeder for the Mac gets god reviews, and looks much nicer than the Google reader. We'll see.

Me and the dog, out for a walk

Sometimes, all the cat and cow poo she eats, the barking she does at non-existent cats, and the needing to lick herself (extremely loudly) in the middle of the night, all falls away, because she also brings me for walks into the wet, cool forest on days like this, and it is beautiful there.

Pass the Kleenex

I probably shouldn't be writing this right now. I'm sick, just a spring head cold, but my ears are plugged, my head is plugged, and doing anything more intellectually challenging than drinking from a cup is a struggle. But, I'm one of those women who feels like she isn't holding her own when she isn't actively doing something. I've written about this before, the not feeling like "enough," but it continues to amaze me how primal that urge is, to gain worth by what I do.

The dog has been napping with me all day, and apart from having free reign of the balcony, she has only gotten to go to the corner potty spot. I'll sit with her there for a while, let her smell the sights, but going up any hills is just not in the cards for me today.

And the babysitter picked up baby A from daycare and is with her now.

I've got a cup of tea in hopes that a theraflu drink with an English Breakfast chaser will help me at least get something done. Because I have to, right? Otherwise, my stock starts dropping. So I've made myself send a form to finish up to M, and I made some rhubarb, apple, pear, raisin, prune compote for the baby for her afternoon snack (actually, came out sweet enough with no added sugar), and watched her try to stuff both hands full of it into her mouth at once. And I'm back in bed, resting my slightly spinning head.

I'm not so sick that I couldn't do most daily things, but it would take it out of me. And right now my husband's job is enough. And all the other days I do a lot. So why does this make me so nervous?

Oh, and I've managed to lose my phone again. This time, I really hope, in the house. But the batteries are drained so even the "find my iPhone" app has let me down. I guess it is okay, because I can't spend so much time lamenting that I don't have the energy to go take a photo of all the shoes we came back from the US with and write something riveting about shoes and feet and all of that.

There is one thing that has made me feel like today's rest and extra help is okay. The babysitter relayed the message from the daycare that they think baby A might be into what they call the terrible three's stage. Well, I may be just able to keep a kid and dog alive and clean by myself right now, but a full blown tantrum from the little one today would have ended in her in a crib, the dog (and perhaps me, too) in a crate, and a lot of rocking back and forth until M came home. Thankfully, we have our babysitter, and that scene didn't have to play out today.

Crying it out

When we first got the Pupper from the Human Society, we signed her (and, more importantly, us) for an 8 week training class. The head trainer was amazing, equally patient with dogs and their humans. The other trainers helping him liked dogs, but often got short with us humans. And really, the class was meant to train the humans to carry out commanding correctly. This class was a no yelling, no punishment class. All positive reinforcement. The basic principle was very simple and applied to every command:

1. Say (or hand motion) the command;

2. If the dog does nothing, you do nothing;

3. If the dog does what you wanted (perhaps coming by a gentle pull of the leash toward you those first few times), say "Yes!" all excited and happy as soon as the command has been executed and give a cookie.

A few years later, at a dog park in Tucson, the I saw the power of positive reinforcement used for a horrible purpose. A "trainer" was working with a man and his dog just outside the fence of the dog park, having the man yank the dog's choke chain harder and harder each time the dog misunderstood a command to heel while walking. Harder, harder, until I was close to an anxiety attack for the poor animal and the beautiful German Shepherd was cowering and whimpering. It was grotesque. And the "trainer" seemed to be having fun, calling out "yank! yes! yes! harder! good! good job!"

It was the first time I'd had the nerve to say something to someone else about their behavior and I managed some wavering "if you don't want to hurt your dog while training, the Human Society has great classes. This isn't training, this is abuse" the former directed at owner, the latter at "trainer." Of course the "trainer" got pretty upset with me, and I don't know if I got through to the owner. I was shaking, heart pounding.

Only later did I realize the irony of the situation - the dog had learned nothing through punishment and pain. The real results came from the positive reinforcement. The trainer was getting the owner to be more and more violent with his dog by applying the same principles our dog class teacher had - praise and encouragement. You can bet that owner would have walked away had the "trainer" said something like "you idiot, can't you even hold your dog right?" I wish I had realized that at the time.

Just as before, the dark side of positive reinforcement hit me this morning as I was reading a moms' forum about using the Cry It Out method, applied to kids who just kept crying and getting sick with despair. I've mentioned before the one incident where Baby A smacked her mouth on the crib and started bleeding which convinced me that Cry It Out just wasn't going to work for us - it went past my limit. I'd rather have a kid that wakes up more often than a bloody kid. And just like with that dog, I don't think Cry It Out works on all kids, and that it is harmful to keep using it no-matter-what. That can just land certain parents and kids in a traumatic place.

But these books, be they about Crying It Out or other parenting techniques that encourage us parents to do things that make our kids cry, bleed, throw up, get so upset...they are doing the same damn thing. Using positive reinforcement on us the readers, the parents ("Keep at it! Nothing comes easily! It's okay for kids to cry! You're a better parent for doing this!") to get us to do things to our kids that may not be where we wanted to be. That put our relationship with our kids in conflict. That encourage us to stop listening to them, in lieu of listening to some author who does not live in our house with our child.

I know, sometimes we have to say "No" and kids will cry. A lot. But I'm realizing that I want to be a whole lot more skeptical about books and blogs and "experts" who prey on my desire to be a good parent to encourage me to do things that make me uncomfortable.

Or maybe the dog shouldn't come with...

Poor pupper. She gets a lot of flack from us at mealtimes. She has started cruising not only the dining room table but also the kitchen counters. We used to never give her food that we ate, apart from a piece of bread here and there. And once in a while, she would get her claws into a loaf (or, on miraculous days, the butter next to the bread). But she very rarely went for the high surfaces.

But not anymore. She is a fully, two-legged creature when it comes to relieving our tables and counter tops of their edible offerings. It drives me up the wall. I yell and clap at her. I don't like baby A seeing that behavior from me, but she is part instigator - it is her food that the dog has started to get access to. By accidental drop on the floor followed by our lack of energy to clean it up before the dog gets it. Also on purpose, when the roaming eater that is our child meets the roaming eater that is our dog.

This has also led to our dog gaining some kilos.

Tonight the dog was away during dinner and bedtime, and it was so much calmer. Now I just have to figure out a way to translate that to when the dog is home. She already has to "go to bed" (i.e. her crate) when the food is on the table. But afterward is it one long inhale, as her nose travels the floor. Food goes in, fluff goes in, who knows what else makes it in there.

There are times I wish we had a yard. Very few, given the amount of work it takes to maintain even a simple one, but this is one of them.

The pupper needs an iPhone

Angry Birds is a very addictive game for the iPhone. It probably comes with a version for any smartphone and beyond. Uses real physics principles for catapulting variously talented (they split into 3, they drop egg bombs, they explode) birds at creatively protected pigs. In the game, the meanie pigs have stolen the birds' eggs, so they have it coming. And when you don't blow them all up using all the birds you've been allotted, they smile smugly at you. At this point, your heart rate goes up, you vow to show those pigs a lesson, and as soon as the screen asks you "try again?" your finger slams the "ok" (or as I experience it "hell yes!") key.

One of the most anxious moments in Angry Birds comes when you've knocked a wooden or stone beam out of place and it is just barely hanging in place, just above a soon-to-be-mocking-you pig. You tilt the phone in hopes the beam will fall. Maybe you blow at the screen. And about half the time, after a few seconds of wobbling, it falls! Score!

Anyway, even though our dog doesn't play Angry Birds and has never had a physics class, even she gets the point about precariously balanced objects. We gave this one a wide clearance.

The practice baby

We call baby A “monkey,” but technically, the nickname is Monkey #2. That is because the pupper, our beloved Heeler mix, who we have had for 5 ½ years is the original “monkey,” now Monkey #1.

We used to call Monkey #1 our “practice baby,” but I was a bit hesitant to say that around parents when we still didn’t have kids. I thought that they might get offended at us comparing a dog to a baby. I figured I’d stop doing it once we had a child because I would realize that the two are so different, and the relationship between us and a dog was nothing like that between us and baby A.

But that isn’t true. The pupper was totally a practice baby in some really great ways. When we first moved to Switzerland, we already had to limit going out a bit since we don’t leave the dog in the crate for more than 4-5 hours. That is just our rule, that if we want to have a dog we want to not just put her away more often than not. If we are to have a dog, our lives can change, and some things can get a bit harder in accommodating her because she makes other things in our lives so much better. We laugh more with her antics, we definitely see the outdoors more and spend more time walking with her. All of this is good. And when one of us has gone away for the night, the other one had a snuggle buddy if we needed one.

We also learned to use positive reinforcement, like time outs, to discipline her, and that having a “well-behaved” dog was more about consistency with rules than about punishment. Time-outs for the dog, a quick “uh-oh!” and 15-30 seconds in the crate, followed by a try-again, are a common tool in our house.

So when baby A arrived, some things were already familiar to us. Less going out – already been there. Being okay with a new member of the family changing some of what we can do – not so new. Knowing that some things are just due to temperament, be it a dog that wants to destroy all cats or a baby who forcefully protests what she does not like. And how I feel leaving Baby A at her new daycare – not too different from how I felt the first time the Pupper walked away led by her daycare person on her leash. I know to look for smiles and tail wags to help me know that they are both ok with other people.

And every day, we realize how lucky we are to have such a great dog. She is still herself, even after so many months of being a bit ignored while Baby A cried and didn’t sleep. She still rolls on her back and makes happy growling sounds, she still tries to make off with a plastic baby toy once in a while, she still goes to her crate for our dinnertime. But she is also amazingly patient with Baby A. She has never once growled or nipped at her. She has never given her an “I’m going to eat your face while you sleep” look. She lets her come and pinch her fur, and will even put up with a few grabs of her paw. And then, when she has had enough, she gets up, usually from the comfort of a dog bed, and just goes somewhere else in the apartment. And Baby A, now that she has realized we actually have a dog (which happened around month 5), is enamored. She loves watching the dog come in from a walk or daycare. She laughs when the dog goes through our legs to get some extra petting time. And now she tries to do that, too - instead of going over my knees if they are bent, she goes under.

They are going to be friends. It’s great.