Sunday, December 14, 2014

A Year Later

It has been a long while since I have written a new blog post. Having a baby has been all consuming. Finally the hormones are wearing off and I'm not just staring at him in awe constantly. Well, most of the time I'm in awe but I'm getting used to it so it's not so distracting. I've gotten good at multitasking. Staring in awe and being productive. Check.

Blind Louie practicing calm next to 2 month old Dario, 12/13
Adding a baby to our 2 human-2 cat-2 dog household has shaken things up a bit, but not too much. Just enough to make things interesting. Louie and little D get along swimmingly now. I just make sure the baby in polite and uses gentle hands and Louie loves that another person is giving him attention. It was a different story when Dario was a newborn.

Louie just wasn't sure what to make of this tiny baby, but he was determined to figure it out. It was challenging to keep Lou from crushing the new baby while trying to deep smell him and lick him at the same time. They just had to be separated most of the time. Louie got his baby visits with a chaperone giving complete and undivided attention to the situation. Soothing talk with words like 'slowly' 'gentle' and 'wait' helped Louie contain his enthusiasm enough to be up close and give the baby a  good sniff.

During the first six months of being a mother, having my parents living next door was a really big help with Louie. He usually spent nights next door and got to spend tons of time with Budde the Puppy who is not a puppy at all anymore. It is also a fact that Louie absolutely loves my dad.

Louie walks along side one year old Dario, 11/14
As Dario grew and started vocalizing, he became less mysterious to Louie. I think when the only sound the baby made was crying, Lou was a little confused by him. Now that Dario is walking and getting sturdy on his feet, let the fun begin! Louie does so well walking next to people and follows voice commands amazingly, this makes walks with blind dog and baby in the yard are super fun and easy. If Louie is going too fast and heading right for the baby I say 'Stop', and he stops and waits for me to catch up and lead. All these years of working with him have really paid off. Now, as for training this baby of ours. That is proving to be much different than training a dog if you can believe it, but just as fun!