49 days until my first marathon. That’s 7 weeks!! I am slightly freaking out, while eating chocolate and not running.
Yesterday we collected our new little baby girl, Sofia Sugar Berry Puka. She is a Golden Retriever and is 8 weeks old. Our family is now even. No longer will people be able to say “You’ll have to have another baby so your family is even”. Are they kidding? Do people seriously think we would have another baby just to make our family even? What if we had another boy, or worse, twins! I used to tell people they could have as many babies as they wanted, I was done. Now I’m going to say, we are even, we have a dog and it is a girl.
Although you are not supposed to take puppies out into the wide world until they are fully immunised, I was not going to be leaving our new puppy in the house unattended while our entire family was out at rugby games for half the day. And so we placed Sofia Sugar Berry Puka in the basket she hates, and put her in the car which she also hates, and took her to the local park for Tiger’s rugby game. Tiger was so excited!
Not one to miss an opportunity to reduce my exposure to chocolate, I filled the car not only with one puppy and four children, but also a couple of boxes of fundraising chocolates.
It was difficult to cross the street with our puppy in a basket under one arm, two boxes of chocolates under the other arm, and a handbag over one shoulder, whilst trying to coerce a 3 year old and 5 year old who are terrified of the puppy in the basket to hold onto my elbows as we cross the street. By the time we were half way to the rugby field, I put everything down. Tiger and Prinny were each given a box of chocolates to carry, the puppy came out of the basket and went onto the leash, and my handbag and jacket went into the puppy basket. This new system lasted for about 10 meters. Sofia Sugar Berry Puka is not a fan of the leash. She refused point-blank to walk in the same direction as me, or any of the children. Little Lottie Lou and Buddy refused to walk anywhere near me and the puppy. Tiger and Prinny gave up waiting for us, and walked the rest of the way by themselves. So my bag and jacket came out of the basket, and the puppy went back in. We made it to the field and I plonked all our stuff down as far away from all the other dogs as we could get. I eyed off the coffee van but had to get everyone sorted first. Tiger tried to take Sofia Sugar Berry Puka to meet his team. I told him to bring his team to Sofia Sugar Berry Puka, it would be easier. Little Lottie Lou and Buddy were too scared to sit near our baby puppy, and nervously hovered just out of the reach of Sofia Sugar Berry Puka’s leash. So I decided to send Prinny, Buddy and Little Lottie Lou off to sell chocolates. Prinny and Buddy each held a box. They let Little Lottie Lou hold two chocolates. Off they went chanting, “Who wants chocolates? You have to buy them?”
Sofia Sugar Berry Puka settled down to sleep. She was obvious exhausted after being carried so far. I continued to eye off the coffee van, but couldn’t leave the puppy. People started drifting over to pat the little puppy. It was very social, but would have been better if I’d had a coffee.
Tiger played well. I can’t remember the score. It was difficult to see from my vantage point, way off to the side, surrounded by the crowd of people wanting to pat the Sofia Sugar Berry Puka and give me advice on puppies.
Amazingly, Prinny, Buddy and Little Lottie Lou sold almost one box of chocolates! Personally, I found their selling skills lacking. However I forgot to factor in their selling strategy based on “cuteness”. As soon as Tiger finished his game he came over to sell his box of chocolates. By the time we left the kids had sold almost 2 full boxes of chocolates. People kept asking for Toblerones. I apologised. Toblerones are my favourite.
It was a long way to the back to the car, carrying the puppy in her basket, chasing after Little Lottie Lou and Buddy as they sprinted to the car. The faster I ran (with the puppy in the basket), the faster they ran to get away from Sofia Sugar Berry Puka. The only positive was there were less chocolates to carry.
By the time we arrived home, welcome parties had started to arrive to meet our newest addition. At one stage we had half Le Bonn’s rugby team in our backyard. I ended up doing weeding in the front yard. Jake came up to see me with Sofia Sugar Berry Puka. We chatted on either side of our driveway gate, both admiring our incredible gift for growing weeds. As we talked, we watched as Sofia Sugar Berry Puka passed right through our gate. I picked her up and passed her to Jake, guess she can’t be in the front yard until she’s bigger/fatter.
Exercise: upper body workout using puppy weight
Eating: thanks to the kids, there are now 85 less chocolates for me to eat.
75 days to... 