Farley the Wonderdog - The old dog and his stupid new trick

This is my bird dog. As you can see he's ruthless when he picks up on a bird's scent. And by the way, the bird flew away about a full minute before Farley began his mosey over to this plant. It took him that long to get there.

Ricardo and I pride ourselves on getting our kids to bed at a decent hour. The incentive would be all that chocolate cake the kids don't know about. But it's summer, and I haven't been able to eat my chocolate cake without interruption for weeks.
The kids have been stalling lately with:

• I forgot to give you a hug.


• I forgot to give you a kiss.


• I'm cold.


• My finger stings.


• I poked my own eye.


• I had to poop.


• I had to check on Lucy because she pooped.


• I left my DS at the neighbors house.


• Fireworks are waking me up.


• Lucy's bothering me.


• Max is bothering me.

Atleast 3 of these excuses are used each night. And I'm pretty sure one night, they were all used in a single-file manner. Our responses (with cake harboring in our mouths) usually are:

• You should have thought to hug us earlier. Kidding. But they really do skip hugs and kisses so that they can bring that one back. And it's usually separately. So, if each kid comes down for a hug and then a kiss, that's 4 interruptions to my chocolate cake. I'm just sayin.


• We give hugs.


• Get under your blanket. Or for the house streaker: Uh, put some clothes on.


• Put a bandaid on it.


• Sorry you poked your own eye, you wouldn't have done that had you been asleep. Close your eyes.


• Well, everyone has to poop.


• Now, that's ridiculous go to bed.


• You'll have to get your DS tomorrow.


• It really does sound like war here from July 25th-July8th. So, we just tell the to listen to music.


• Lucy stop bothering Max.


• Max stop bothering Lucy.

As you can see, these are all stellar defensive tactics. And the kids have caught on that their stalling isn't working.

So, Max took it to a whole new level the other night.

The latest go to sleep stall tactic is: in his sweetest most concerned voice "Mom, I'm worried about Farley - I think he's dead."
"He's not dead sweetie why do you think that?'
"Well look at him - he's not moving"
"That's because he's sleeping - he does it like all the time."
"Well, I pulled his eyelid open, and it slammed shut."
Nice. This goes on until I get off my computer and assess the situation with Max and/or Lucy. Because, yes, it's happened more than once.

So, I get up and go sit with Max and/or Lucy and show them how to watch his belly to see the air fill his lungs and prove that he's indeed, breathing. But his belly doesn't rise. Oh no! For what seems like a lifetime (probably 3 seconds) I pet him, try to push a little bit to see if he'll move. Then I move on to tickling his face which usually he flinches at a bit. But nothing. And then finally, his belly rises and he blows it all out with a big sigh. And then I swear to you, that damned dog grinned at me with his eyes still closed.

Nice new trick, Farley. You jerk. Then he got up and barked at us. "FOOLED YA! STUPID HUMANS! Now tell those kids to go to bed!"

"Did you hear that, Max? Farley says to go to bed."

"Okay." And then he bolted upstairs and went to sleep. Just like that. Dang dog.

That's how I roll.
Song of the day: Poker Face - Lady Gaga