The Treadmill

Every night, we continue to go outside with Bob to tire him out to make bedtime easier. Plus, all the literature I read says that a child Bob's age needs at least one hour of physical activity a day. We usually exceed that by a lot. Bob likes to play "fetch" with the giant styrofoam airplanes we have. We also bought some foam planes that came with a launcher. Bob likes to launch the planes, then he runs after them to retrieve them. One of us has to re-load the launcher. I don't predict the launcher will last long, but it is fun for now. Grandma Mazie sent a huge frisbee-type thing with a picture of a pepperoni pizza on it. It is like a piece of cloth over a round wire. It is rarely flat, so when you throw it, it does all sorts on neat loop-tee-loops. Bob thinks it is great. He plays "fetch" with that as well, giggling the whole time. Today, however, he chose a styrofoam airplane to play with outside. That went well, until he broke the tail. Then it did not fly well. It did, however, crash well.

Our nightly walks take us by the fitness center. Bob enjoys the treadmill. We put it on its lowest setting - 1.5 miles per hour, and stand right next to Bob to catch him in case he falls (he hasn't - yet). We set it for five minutes (which is six minutes with the one minute cool down) and Bob goes to town. Today he wanted to go on it twice - 12 minutes total. There is a TV in the fitness center so we watched something on the learning channel while Bob was walking. He had a blast. Then, of course, when we left, he went right back to running around. Energy is wasted on the youth.

Last night, Bob stayed dry all night. He woke up with a dry pull-up. He used the potty right away and peed lots. He has gone on the potty five times today - a regained interest after over a week with him only using the potty only once a day. He has not pooped on the potty again since last Friday. Of course his renewed interest in the potty might have something to do with the tootsie rolls we bought. He goes on the potty, he gets a tootsie roll. (He makes poop, he gets another one of those train/DVD combos) Bob evidently loves tootsie rolls. I still have a collection of small cars on top of the fridge for prizes as well, but he can have a tootsie roll or a car. He chooses a tootsie roll every time.

And then there is Q. He got into Bob's pine cone collection on Monday night/Tuesday morning. He chewed up a pinecone. And that, in and of itself is not a bad thing. The fact that he ingested some of those pinecone pieces is a bad thing. I came home from work on Tuesday morning, and Q had puked everywhere. Saying that he puked everywhere is not much of an exaggeration. Three piles by the front door. Three piles by the dining room table. A pile by the couch. A pile on and around Jim's sneaker in the bedroom (right next to the bed - Jim apparently slept through Q puking). He did not puke in Bob's room or his bathroom because the gate is up at night so Bob cannot wander the house. He did not puke in the kitchen because that has a linoleum floor and that would be easy to clean up. He did not puke in the other bathroom because he is deathly afraid of water and there is water in the bathroom (His food bowl is in Bob's bathroom. When I feed him, I wash my hands after I put the bowl down for him - he will not enter the bathroom to eat until after I am done washing my hands). Q pretty much puked everywhere there was carpet. I wound up renting a Rug Doctor to clean it up. The Rug Doctor shampoo we bought with it was not strong enough for the stain. Jim added OxyClean to the mixture. Even with the OxyClean added, Jim had to make many passes with the machine. Anyone in the market for an annoying dog?