Random Notes from Suburbia: Pi, 'Dogs in the City,' Overzealous Sports Mom & Being Tardy

Pi in the Sky

As part of a school math competition to see how many digits of pi students could accurately remember, The Girl was able to recall, hold onto your hats, 102 of them. Seriously. I have no idea how she did it. I have trouble remembering where I leave my car in the grocery store parking lot. I'm not all that far removed from being the lady who frantically hunts around everywhere for her glasses only to have someone point out that they're
perched atop her head.

This was a reason for celebration and parental pride, at least initially, that, with seeming ease, The Girl could rattle off all those numbers. She even fared well when her brothers asked her to name random digits like the 22nd or 47the digit and they checked her accuracy.

Then the situation took a sinister turn.

"Hey, I'll bet she could memorize your credit card numbers," The Eldest Boy said as he raised his eyebrows.

Uh oh.

'Dogs in the City:' My Summer Shame

I hate -- I mean hate, hate, hate, hate -- reality TV shows. Other than the first two seasons of Survivor which aired some 10+ years ago, I haven't been a regular viewer of any reality programs because I find them to be 1) contrived 2) encourage bad behavior to nab ratings and all the accouterments accompanying reality show success (i.e. -- Snooki on the best seller list) 3) are wildly manipulated by the shows' producers and are in no way "reality" and 4) take prime-time slots and jobs away from screenwriters and all the other professionals who put together scripted television shows.

That being said . . . before a Celtics game aired the other night (Go Green y'all), I was flipping through the stations and happened upon this new CBS show Dogs in the City. And, I'm ashamed to admit, I liked it, given that I'm so into all things canine these days. (For those of you wondering whether I've dropped the notion of getting a second dog to join Max our Havanese/Wheaten, I haven't, much to The Spouse's chagrin.)

Not only did I fall in love with the dogs on the silly show, but I learned a few things about pet training and was astonished by the idiocy of some of the dogs' owners. The woman who brought her dog to work with her after the dog had bitten a number of people and regularly lunged at her employees when they walked into her office? Really, that was a question, whether that dog belonged in an office setting?

Dogs in the City, I'm afraid to say, is destined to become my summer TV shame. Who can resist a skateboarding bulldog named Beefy who has separation anxiety?

Overzealous Sports Mom

Scene: An afternoon lacrosse game being played by boys, ages 10-12.

Featuring: A woman who was, I'm guessing, the mother or close female relative of the goalie for the opposing team. Or else she was a complete lunatic who happened to know the name of the goalie and felt perfectly comfortable screaming at him.

Some of the woman's best quotes, bellowed loudly from her comfortable perch on her folding chair on the sidelines, included:

"[NAME OMITTED]! Come on! Block that [NAME OMITTED]!"

"[NAME OMITTED]! Toughen up!"

"[NAME OMITTED]! Don't flinch at the ball! You're the goalie! That's what the pads are for!"

Going through my head: "Hey lady, why don't you go stand in the goal, wearing lacrosse pads, and let me hurl hard lacrosse balls at your head and see if you flinch! He's a kid for god's sake!"

I think this lady needs to watch the video below, about one high school athlete helping out another at a state championship meet to remind herself of why we have kids participate in sports: To build character, learn teamwork and create the good, healthy habits of staying physically active. It's not about berating and harassing from the cheap seats.

 

Unfortunately, I'm willing to bet that the woman who was yelling all of that garbage at the pediatric goalie wouldn't be at all impressed with how the high school runner helped out another, which is a sad, sad commentary of where youth sports parents are today.

Being Tardy

The Eldest Boy was participating in an event where the school band was going to be performing "The Star Spangled Banner," among other tunes, which was a very good thing, except that the band was performing at an event about 45 minutes or so away from our house. And we had to get there in rush hour traffic. And The Girl, The Youngest Boy and I had to wait for The Spouse to get home from work -- battling through rush hour traffic -- BEFORE jumping into the car to drive to The Eldest Boy's event.

We arrived just AFTER his band completed their musical performance. Oh yeah, I got your Parents of the Year right here buddy.

Image credits: This web site and Brian Friedman/CBS.

Max the Dog Looks Like a Fuzzy Caterpillar

Max really, really needed to have his haircut.

However our favorite dog groomer had left a message on her answering machine saying that she'd taken ill and wouldn't be tending to any canines for a while. We decided that her recovery was worth waiting for. We really like the way she groomed our little Wheaten Terrier/Havanese, plus she didn't make us feel like negligent dog owners.

The Spouse and I have endured some unsatisfactory experiences with other groomers during the past two years since we got Max. When we've asked groomers to please shape his hair and not just shave him (because it's way easier to shave him than shape his hair), they'd seem put off, give us attitude and later chastise us because they said we didn't regularly or adequately brush the little guy. (We do but his hair is prone to knots. We do the best we can.)

So we decided to cool our heels as we awaited word from our nice, patient and thorough regular groomer. We waited. And waited. But we never heard from her, despite leaving messages. Meanwhile, Max's hair grew longer still and mats began forming all over him with frightening regularity. We tried to keep up with his grooming but it was very difficult. We would brush him, remove the knots/mats if we couldn't brush them out. Inevitably though, within a few hours of being brushed, Max would get new knots and he'd soon look like an unkempt, homeless canine looking for a spot of food from a kind stranger.

Yesterday The Spouse finally gave up on the waiting and brought Max to yet another new groomer. I crossed my fingers that Max wouldn't be: a) Shaved, rendering him looking like a big-eyed rat and b) That the groomer didn't get all haughty about the fact that we'd waited so long in between haircuts.

And although the groomer was kind and did not shave our pooch -- she shaped his hair with scissors -- he emerged from his doggie "spa day" (if I were to name a living being in our house who needs a spa day, it wouldn't be him . . . but I digress) looking a tad like a fuzzy tan caterpillar, at least when he lays down and spreads out.

Is he still adorable? Yes!

Soft and fuzzy? Most definitely.

But Max no longer looks like my scruffy little dude. He looks like a different pup. But that's okay. Hair grows back.

Jonesing (Again!) for Another Cute Canine

It was the perfect storm with which to rekindle my dormant interest in adopting doggie number two, on Valentine's Day, of all days.

During Valentine's Day afternoon, I took The Girl to a local animal shelter as part of a service project she's working on for church. As part of the tour of the shelter, we got to see where all the animals who are available for adoption are kept and met the critters, big and small, young and old. It was then that I became interested in an absolutely adorable 7-year-old mutt of a thing and a three-month-old, energetic mutt puppy who would likely be a ton of work. I then had the powerful urge to do something completely out of character for me: Impulsively take one of those furry balls of love home.

Some context: The Spouse and I have prided ourselves on having a cooperative partnership. We almost always check in with one another and discuss -- ad nauseum sometimes -- big decisions, purchases, etc. Well, almost all of the time. There was one instance when The Spouse bought a flat screen TV for his home office/man cave without speaking with me beforehand. He just showed up at home with it. On another occasion, he placed a bid on an Orlando vacation rental at a charity auction (and won a week at the rental) without first sending me a quick text about his bid. But other than those two pricey examples, over the course of nearly 20 years, we've made the bulk of our decisions together.

As for this whole second dog thing, it's been an on-and-off discussion which I've spearheaded for some time, a subject upon which I get all hot and bothered for while, then something happens (like Max eating baking chocolate and almost dying) when I can't envision how hard it would be to have two dogs, plus two parents with careers and three kids with all their various and sundry activities and I'll drop the notion like a bad habit. But inevitably, the interest will build again and I'll say over dinner, "I think Max is lonely. He'd really like a friend." The Spouse typically humors me. He not-too-subtly ignores the listings for rescue dogs that I e-mail him on occasion as he waits for me to drop the matter.

I really didn't want to drop it yesterday though. I wanted to go rogue as I looked at those two dogs and imagined one of them playing with good old Maxie boy, whose hair is still way too shaggy. (Mental note: Book a groomer's appointment ASAP.) But I didn't act impulsively. I restrained myself and simply thanked the woman who ran the shelter and headed home with The Girl.

However that night -- after enjoying a candlelit dinner with the family, comprised mostly of stuff I'd just picked up at the grocery store -- I couldn't find anything in the vein of a romantic comedy or a plain old romance (because it was Valentine's Day) on TV, and happened upon the Westminster Dog Show. And when that Purina ad (see above) was aired repeatedly throughout the broadcast, I got all sappy, cuddled my non-show mutt of a dog and entertained some more rogue thoughts about going back to that shelter.

Living a Dog’s Life & Other Observations

I was awakened at 3:45 this morning by our dog Max, who was scratching and whining at our bedroom door because he wanted to go to outside. Again. (The Spouse had already gotten up earlier to do the same thing. It's a bad habit of Max's that is becoming more frequent.)

I didn’t crawl back into bed until 4:15 following several failed attempts to coax Max back in 15 and then 20 minutes into his middle-of-the-night exploits. There’s only so much quiet, hushed "yelling" you can do outside in a residential neighborhood at 4 in the morning without causing a ruckus. Even the promise of giving him a generous helping of doggie treats couldn’t top his interest in whatever he was messing around with under our deck under cover of darkness.

This can’t be good . . . except for the coffee farmers whose business I’ve been enthusiastically supporting in the hours after Max decides to play outside at 4 in the morning.

***

The Youngest Boy was moving his hand up and down in the breeze while we were driving around this weekend when something occurred to him. He leaned his head of the window and opened his mouth as wide as it would go and faced the wind. “Why do dogs do this?” he shouted.

After 10 seconds or so, he found the answer. “Hey, it’s actually kind of cool.”

When we got home, his curly hair had been blown back away from his forehead as though he’d just emerged from a wind tunnel. “Don’t I look like Elvis?” he asked.

***

At an autumn town event this weekend, The Spouse and I gave the kids some cash and let them run around patronizing the various booths and buying lunch with their friends. While in the company of his posse, The Youngest Boy decided to stop at this one booth where, while other kids bought trading cards, he bought a plastic machine gun with blinking lights and a plastic bayonet at the end. It makes noise too. Bully for us.


As he handed me the box covered by the photo of the gun, I couldn’t help but wonder what the other parents at the fair thought as they spotted that little gem under my arm. Perhaps something along the lines of, “Peace out Mother of the Year?”

***

The Girl is slated to attend a bat mitzvah this weekend. That means . . . *cue the sinister Jaws music* . . . we’ve got to go buy her a dress. A real dress, not a cotton skirt to be worn with her “nice” hoodie and knock-off Uggs.

Needless to say, my sporty gal and her ubiquitous ponytail is none too pleased about the upcoming shopping excursion where, instead of warm-up jackets and sports shorts, we’ll be looking at items with hemlines. With her seeing this upcoming trip as just a tiny notch above doing a “poop check” in our backyard to pick up Max’s deposit’s, I’m bringing low expectations with me before we step into any stores.

My question: Should I bribe her with a big sundae before or after we get a dress?

Max the Dog Broke the 'Cone of Shame'

Because things were apparently too dull around the Picket Fence Post household for Max the dog, he had to go and start biting at his tail area so hard and so often that he cleared off a pink spot, giving himself an angry rash.

I brought him to the vet and, after the vet discovered the root cause of his itching (something that was easily, albeit grossly, remedied), she suggested that I put the “cone of shame” back on him to stop him from hurting himself. We still had the transparent, plastic cone from last year’s chocolate incident (when Max nearly died after he busted into our pantry and ate a whole lot of concentrated cooking chocolate and had to go to the doggy ICU . . . twice).

So I put the cone around his furry little neck on Wednesday as soon as we got home. And damn was he ticked off. The moment he saw the cone, his shoulders literally fell and he started to book out of the room.

Then there were the battles I had with the kiddos who thought it cruel to put that thing around his head.

“But Mom, he won’t bite his tail. I’ll watch him,” The Girl promised yesterday, pleading with me as she was working on her homework. Within minutes, after The Girl got distracted by something else, I heard the sounds of chomping. I poked my head out of my office. “He’s biting his tail!” I shouted. Realizing that being the tail monitor is a terrible job, she promptly put the cone back on him.

Her brothers also had their moments of pleading, followed by the realization that they too didn’t want to spend the rest of the afternoon watching him and preventing him from irritating his tail more than he already had.

This afternoon, Max took matters into his own paws by busting the cone. (I swear his face looked brighter and happier when I discovered that he’d detached the plastic cone from the part that goes around his neck.) So, for now, he’s coneless (see photo above where he's anxiously looking out the front door waiting for the kids to come home from school). Whether I have to run out to the pet store and buy another cone is entirely up to him.

Quick Hits from a Nutty Homefront: Midnight Hound, Orthodontist X 2, 'Hunger Games,' Room of One's Own, B'Day Mania

Midnight Hound

Max the dog has developed a very bad habit of getting up in the middle of the night and demanding to go outside. I don’t know what he does when he's out there under the moonlight -- and neither does The Spouse who, to be fair, is doing the most of the letting the dog out – but Max stays out there for up to 15 minutes while we yawn and rub our eyes waiting for him.

Now we are fortunate enough to have AC in the house, so it’s not as though Max is overheated at night. And he hasn’t been ill, so we don’t know what to make of these middle-of-the-night rousings. But I do know that we don’t like it. Not one bit.

Paging the Orthodontist, Times TWO

Yes, I realized that when I had twins I’d be buying twice as many diapers, twice as much baby food, twice as many clothes (as the twins are comprised of one boy and one girl), pay two pre-school tuitions and later, two college tuitions simultaneously. What I temporarily blotted out of my mind was the possibility of paying for two kids to get braces at the same time, something I’d been putting off.

But after our recent family trip to the dentist, I realized I can put it off no longer. The Spouse and I were told that both The Eldest Boy and The Girl need to see the orthodontist. Oh goody. Let the braces games begin.

Hunger Games, Here I Come

So as to keep current with all that’s beast (i.e. – cool) with the young adult set, I’m planning on reading The Hunger Games three-book series by Suzanne Collins. While its premise is a dreary one – teens have to participate in a kill-or-be-killed televised competition – I’ve been told by The Girl and The Eldest Boy that I’ll really like it. We shall see . . . I'm still busy mourning the loss of new installments in the Harry Potter series.

A Room of One’s Own

When my parents took my brother and me to summer vacations on Cape Cod when we were kids, they rented a tiny cottage within a five minute walk to the ocean. It was a very rustic cottage, meaning there was one bathroom, no dishwasher, no cable TV (there was a TV with a VCR that didn’t get any channels), no AC and two bedrooms, one for my parents and one for the kids. Sharing a bedroom with my younger brother – who I nicknamed “Scum’s Rash” because he didn't like to bathe – wasn’t exactly fun, but hey, we were at the beach on vacation. We got to swim, build sandcastles, go mini-golfing, eat ice cream and maybe go to the drive-in movie theater depending on what was playing. It was all good.

Flash-forward 30 years and you can understand why I have a hard time sympathizing with The Youngest Boy when he squawks about the fact that when the Picket Fence Post family goes on vacation to Cape Cod -- to a rented house with AC, cable TV, wireless internet and three bedrooms – he’ll have to share a room with his brother while his sister gets her own room. Cry me a river kid.

Birthday Coma

In the days leading up to The Youngest Boy’s 10th birthday, the kid worked himself up into such a frenzy that he could no longer take the anticipation. And, frankly, he’d become supremely over-excited. So he said he wanted to be placed in a coma until his birthday . . . not that the child was building up his birthday to such heights that anything short of a parade, a fireworks display and the arrival of the Stanley Cup accompanied by the entire Boston Bruins team would be a disappointment . . .

Image credits: Meredith O'Brien, Amazon.

Notes from the Grade 4 Invention Convention

We here at the Picket Fence Post household thought we'd be able to breathe easier when the fourth grade Invention Convention concluded (although the hockey season is still ongoing, but that's another matter). And at first we did.

The Youngest Boy did well this afternoon explaining to the parents who attended the Invention Convention how his creation, the "Dog-O-Feeder," works: You train your dog (in this case our dog Max) to press on the wooden lever, which will lift the clear plastic square in front of the hole in the plastic container filled with food allowing the dry kibble to tumble out.

That Dog-O-Feeder represents a whole lot of sweat and a mess o'drama, mostly experienced by The Spouse, whom The Youngest Boy preferred to help him with the school project.

But alas, just when I thought all was well with the world and the stress levels were dropping, the Dog-O-Feeder broke: When The Youngest Boy took his invention out of the car seconds after we got home, the paper bag into which I'd placed it, which was wet from the rain, broke and part of the plastic on the invention snapped off. More drama.

Feeling guilty that the bag broke, I tried to immediately smooth things over by cravenly passing the buck and promising that The Spouse would repair it when he gets home from work, even though I'm sure he thought he was all done with using his power tools until the next school project.

Notes from the Picket Fence Post Homestead: Pet Grooming, School Projects, Shorts Obsession & 'Wimpy Kid' 2

Max Gets Groomed

Our dog Max was in dire need of a haircut. His hair had grown so long that when I was out walking him in our neighborhood recently, a woman remarked that he looked like a really short sheep on a leash. And she was right.

However bringing a dog with extremely thick hair like our Havanese/Wheaten Terrier to the groomer’s can be tricky because no matter how many times you try to make sure that you’ve combed through your dog’s hair (with a comb) with some degree of regularity, there’s inevitably a knot or a mat (or several) somewhere on his fuzzy body. And when the groomer finds it later she'll make you feel like a negligent pet owner for not attending to it.

I knew for a fact when Max was dropped off at the groomer's that he had some tangles near his hindquarters. When I'd attempted to comb them out, he’d growled and physically resisted, so I’d wound up giving up or enlisted someone's help to remove the mats with scissors because it was easier and quicker.

Well Max got his much needed grooming this week and the groomer was kind, though she did mention, as she raised her eyebrows slightly, that he had some mats and that “someone” had obviously been cutting them out, making his hair uneven. At least she didn’t shame me as much as other groomers have in the past.

School Projects from Hell

All three of the Picket Fence Post kids are in the midst of working on school projects. And, frankly, I'm starting to feel a bit stressed out about all of it as I’m dreading the inevitable melodrama that has accompanied these sorts of things in the past.

The Girl just completed a series of trials to determine in which liquid a Tylenol capsule would dissolve the quickest: Orange juice, grapefruit juice or lemonade. She collected all her data and is putting them into a spreadsheet as I write this blog entry. And she’s still got a long way to go in completing her tri-fold display board. The whole project is due Tuesday. What’s the over/under on whether she’ll get it finished without parental harassment and/or drama?

Meanwhile, her twin brother has also been running trials to see whether the temperature of the water inside a water balloon will affect whether and at what height from the ground it breaks. (He was channeling his inner Calvin & Hobbes when he devised this project.) He has already completed his data spreadsheet but has yet to start his tri-fold display board. When I suggested to him this morning (after he slept until 11!!) that he start working on it, he replied, “Later.” I predict major drama in the near future given that his project is also due Tuesday.

As for The Youngest Boy, he is supposed to invent something that uses a "simple machine." His big idea is to create a dog food feeder that he wants to teach our dog Max how to use in time for his school's Invention Convention, for which the item and a tri-fold display board are supposed to be completed. However he’s hit several snags. His original prototype was completely unrealistic (it involved taping a shoebox to a table, before it was filled with dog food). Then, at my urging, he revised it and concocted a more workable design but The Spouse refuses to get the supplies the kid says he needs until the kid comes up with a physical prototype. However The Youngest Boy says he needs supplies to make a prototype. Meanwhile, I’m going to go buy ear plugs so I don’t have to listen to the two of them continue to bicker about which should come first.

What is It With Kids & Shorts?

Every day this week . . . I repeat, every day this week, either The Spouse or I have gotten embroiled in a gigantic argument with The Youngest Boy over the fact that he insists upon wearing shorts to school like everyone else.

Now keep in mind that during the past week, it snowed twice and the temps were largely stuck in the 30s and 40s, yet the kid still harangued us for being power-mad parents who made him wear long pants. (*insert sinister cackle here*) Every day, multiple times a day, it's, "Why can't I wear shorts?"

This morning when it was in the 30s, I allowed The Youngest to don shorts (along with a short sleeve shirt and a jacket) when he went to play outside. (It was a moment of weakness because I was working on a column that was already past my deadline and I didn’t want to hear him whine any longer about the damned shorts.) He came inside some 20 minutes later, freezing cold, telling me his hands were so chilled that he felt like they were “burning.” He wanted me to help him warm up, but just his hands though, he assured me, as he said his legs (which were ice cold to the touch) were just fine, thank you very much.

About two hours later, The Spouse and The Youngest Boy were arguing about the exact outside temperature after I’d told The Youngest Boy that I wouldn’t let him go outside again in those shorts. It was 42 degrees.

Since The Youngest Boy claims other kids are going to school wearing shorts, and I've seen some of them when I've dropped him off at school, I ask you, are you having the same issue with your kid(s) regarding wearing shorts when it's snowing outside?

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules



The Picket Fence Post kids are all jazzed up about seeing the second installment of the Wimpy Kid series, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules.

The first movie was okay, they were sufficiently entertained, but they agreed that it didn’t hold a candle to the actual book which was much, much funnier. After the original movie, we all decided that our favorite character is Rowley, not the self-absorbed and morally ambiguous Greg who seems much crueler in the movie than he did in the book.

Wonder if the second film will be even a fraction as amusing as its original source material which had me laughing out loud when I read it with The Eldest Son?

Notes from a Snow Day: Ice Rink, Movie Surprise, Chicken Stir Fry & Max in the Snow

Hey, What's This? Could It Be . . . an Actual Skating Rink? In Our Yard? YES!!!

I present to you . . . the ice rink as the foot-and-a-half of snow that fell from the sky since early this morning was being shoveled off of it.

The rink is brought to us by many, many hours of hard work and loving maintenance by The Spouse for his three children.

This week, I've added "buy skates" (for me and The Eldest Boy) to my "To Do" list this week.

The Spouse, who broke his wrist last year while skating on a public rink, is still shying away from skating, in spite of this great effort.

Eat, Pray . . . Whoa!!!

While the males in the family were snuggled up in front of the fireplace this weekend watching NFL playoff games, The Girl and I retreated to my room to watch the PG-13 rated film Eat Pray Love on DVD.

I'd read the book, so I figured that there might be one questionable scene near the last third of the film when the main character Liz is in Bali, which might require fast-forwarding or for me to mute the TV while The Girl averts her eyes. While I waited for Liz's relationship with Felipe, the man who would become her spouse, to commence, I totally did not expect a twentysomething male to drag Liz down to the waterfront and suddenly strip naked as he was trying to entice Liz to go skinny dipping.

Both The Girl and I shrieked as his butt was in the center of the screen and I hit, "Stop." The irony is that when Felipe and Liz were about to physically commence their love affair I suggested that The Girl go fetch a snack from the kitchen, only there was nothing she couldn't have seen, no nudity, no sex.

'Delicious' Chicken Stir Fries

More irony . . .

Whenever I pull out my wok, the Picket Fence Post kids roll their eyes. They're not fans of anything I might create inside of that thing. I've tried making them sweet stir fries, garlicky ones and even plain, soy sauce-based ones. But no matter how I prepared a stir fry, the kiddos usually take one bite, wrinkle their noses and wind up having cereal for dinner while The Spouse and I eat what I made.

Unless, of course, The Eldest Boy and The Girl happen to be the ones who made the stir fry. They're both currently taking Home Ec in their middle school -- which has been relabeled with the politically correct moniker, "Family Consumer Science" -- and in the past week they've both come home from school with a container of a chicken, vegetable noodle stir fry that they'd made. They were absolutely delighted with their creations and gobbled them up while I watched, amazed.

My new plan: The next time I pull out the work, I'm also going to pull The Eldest Boy and The Girl into the kitchen with me so the "experts" can show me how it's really done.

Cute Max Snow Pic

Max the dog -- who still spends much of his time rooting around the house looking for non-edible items that he can eat or gnaw on (tissues, dryer sheets, ball point pens, socks, etc.) -- was startled when we let him out onto our deck this morning and the snow was nearly as high as he is tall. He tried pushing his body through the snow, but stopped after traveling only a few feet and tried to get back into the house. (If snow was up to my eyeballs, I'd want to retreat too.)

However once The Spouse shoveled out several pathways for him, he romped around his little paths as though he were in a hedge maze. 'Twas very cute. The wet dog smell he has now that he's drying off, not so cute.

The Peaches & the Puking Puppy

Over the past few days, Max, our one-year-old Mini-Wheat, has been puking. (He’s got a few favorite spots in the house in which to do this, I'm learning.)

He's not doing it constantly and they don't involve full-body heaves or anything. It's been happening sporadically, so sporadically that I can’t seem to figure out if it’s his food that’s making him ill (we started giving him new food two+ weeks ago, but the getting sick part has only been happening in the past few days) or perhaps he’s gotten into something else, but then again when DOESN’T he do that?

My working theory is that it’s the peaches.

We’ve been living in our house for nearly six years and it was only last year -- when we'd only allow him out in the yard while leashed -- when a small tree our back yard started sprouting peaches. (Up until then, we had no idea it was a fruit-bearing tree. Last summer, we noticed that its limbs were starting to bend over, heavy with fruit, when it finally dawned on us that those were peaches. No green thumbs in our house. Nor rocket scientists, apparently.)

Peaches have now started falling from the tree and onto the grass. We’ve been finding pits in the yard. We suspect Max has been eating them. The pup has tried to smuggle some smaller pieces of fruit into the house without us noticing by putting his head down, so we can't see the peach in his mouth, hoping we won’t notice. (It’s worked a couple of times.)

Hopefully, this is just attributable to the peaches, however, more detective work will be required.