Charlie

Olivia got sick first. She had a hoarse throat for a full 24 hours before the others kicked in. Last night I rubbed her down with my homemade vapor rub. Tonight Elijah and Julius got in on the vapor rub excitement. Elijah has a minor sore throat. I don't think Jules is sick at all. But Gabe... poor baby Gabe is coughing and he has the strong smell of infection. Poor Baby.

We got a puppy.This is Charlie. He's a real puppy, as in yours truly (with help) will be housebreaking. But I have read the advice of Cesar so I have no fear. Actually it's honestly going fine so far. Lee has wanted a real puppy for a very long time. We are working on mving out to the country so this will help him be motivated. And he picked a beagle specially because they are good kid dogs. The dog loves Lee the best but plays with everybody. Pippen (the spelling is official now) is wary but not violent, so that's good. I'm making sure his royal highness gets lots of love. All in all, things are going well in the clan. We are now a dog-cat-bird-child family and that's what we've always wanted to be. I didn't expect it all to happen so fast but it is fun that way. That's the craziness of living with the Chief.

On another positive note, I think Charlie will be just the thing to get me out of bed in the morning. I don't want to fall into the trap of sleeping in late with the Chief, because I have no goal of staying up until 3am like he will be doing. Instead, I would like to be up earlyish to do school with the kids. Charlie needs to be walked first thing -the consequence being a mess for me to pick up and an established bad habit for the little guy. Once I am out of bed to walk him, I won't want to go back down. So that will work just nicely.