Oh Katie...

You guys, seriously. This dog is so BAD. I have been giving her Melatonin, and for the first day, it totally seemed to help. But not anymore. Today we came home to Katie having peed and pooped ALL over the basement. Especially on Justin's rug. She pees on Justin's rug almost every day, even though I put three peepee pads around the house for her. She pees on one of those, but then still goes on the rug. I've been reading up on how to deal with this kind of behavior, but it seems like the overwhelming consensus is that beagles suffer from separation anxiety much more than other breeds, and that they basically just need companionship. It's getting to be more and more stressful to come home to a mess, and we just aren't sure what to do to help her. We know the tips about "wearing her out" before we leave, but we simply don't have time. Getting two adults and a toddler out of the door in the morning is a nightmare. Especially because we have to leave super early because we carpool. We drop Justin at the Marta station and then go to work from there. In a perfect world, Katie would live on a farm with lots of other doggies and lots of room to roam. That's when she's happiest. But I can't even imagine giving her up, so I'm just going to keep trying to figure out new solutions and pretend like Justin doesn't keep threatening to either take her to the humane society or drive her into the country and set her free (that last part is not a real threat, FYI). Poor Katie. She's nuts. And making us nuts. At least BooBoo the cat is still wonderful. Even though we had planned to let her be an "indoor/outdoor" kitty, she hasn't tried to get out once. And for the record, we were only going to let her go outside so that we could avoid having a litter box and because of Justin's allergies, but so far, neither has been a big problem.

In other news, Roxanne's poop issues are getting much much better. The last two days have involved a LOT of pooping (sorry for too much information, but I know some of you are secretly interested). This afternoon marks the first time that she has sat on the potty and actually pushed her poops out on her own, which she has done roughly 872 times. I guess she has a lot of catching up to do... Regardless, I'm thinking it will make potty training much much easier. But it comes with some new "issues" that we've never had to worry about. Like tonight, when she had 3 baths. She pooped in the first one, peed in the second one before jumping up to tell me she had to get out and poop, and then the third one, which was clean, but short, since she had to get out again to go to the bathroom. And of course, between each one, I had to scrub and sanitize the tub. But I didn't want to punish her and not let her take a bath (she LOVES baths) since all of this is new and she's been a real trooper.

Enough about poop... Just in case I hadn't mentioned it (because I can't remember if I have) we are probably going to have our first filming experience on March 30. We're pretty sure that's when they will film us meeting with the designer and seeing what his plans are for the house. Then on May 17, they will start filming at our house. We had to sign all of the releases and read the rules. Everything looks fine, but it says we have to provide "offsite" care for our animals and our child during filming. We think we'll have Roxanne covered, but I'm sure after reading that first paragraph, all of you will be knocking down the door to watch Katie for us during the 2 to 3 weeks that filming will take. Sigh. We'll figure it out. I also would love to find a way to drop about 50 pounds before filming, so if anyone has any tips, or can hook me up with reduced cost plastic surgery, send me an e-mail. I'm all ears. I'm trying to use our new elliptical as much as possible, and stick to my Weight Watchers, but I've definitely been struggling. Especially since weaning. Apparently that extra 500 calories a day that nursing burns really was helping me. Oh well. At least Justin likes me the way that I am. Genetics are not in my favor in that arena. Let's hope Roxanne gets Justin's metabolism. Although we are trying very hard to raise her to be active and eat well.

One of her favorite things to say is "get up! move your body!" and make us all dance together. She knows where the iPod lives on the credenza, and goes to it and asks to dance. When we have dance parties, EVERYONE has to join in. If you sit down or leave the room, she throws a fit. She even tries to get Katie in on it. Sometimes Katie will let her hold her front paws and sway a little. Other times she pretends she is sleeping. But I know Katie secretly likes it. Roxanne's favorite music to dance to is her Yo Gabba Gabba CD, but she likes almost everything that we play. She really likes Lilly Allen, and some dancy indie rock bands that Justin put on the iPod. I won't mention names because it will just make me sound silly and snobby. But they are good, and it's good that she likes them. She also likes Roy Orbison and Bonnie Prince Billy, but definitely prefers fast dancing to the more mellow slow songs. Her dances are SO good. Lots of silly movements and shaking. It's positively lovely to watch. I'll try and video tape it soon. I think the evenings are the times when I'm most glad we don't have a TV. She mainly watches it in the morning sometimes (on our laptop) or on the weekends in the early morning when I'm trying to get a little extra rest. Weekday evenings are not TV times for her. Just me. :)

Alright. I'll post photos soon, I promise. But we've got friends coming for dinner tomorrow and every dish in the house is in our sink right now. We should have the new dishwasher running this weekend. Yay! Both of us are really sick of not having one. Thanks to Dad and Colleen for giving us their old one! It puts the rest of our kitchen to shame...