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Courtney informed me we are 18 weeks from our second baby. We have gotten a few things out of the way. We finally settled on a stroller and purchased Riley a big bed. Oh yeah, and we found out we’re having a baby girl. We’re quite stoked for a girl. Although it hasn’t changed our planning much, just the color of clothes we’re picking out.

One thing we tried to change that didn’t work out was daycares. In an effort to save money we decided to give home daycare a try. When Riley was born we planned on using a home daycare provider but at the last moment decided to send Riley to a TutorTime “school”.

This attempt we did our homework, did many interviews, had another misfire, but eventually settled on a caretaker we felt comfortable with. We’ve been taking Riley there for about 2 months. Since the change Riles’ personality changed drastically. He became very stubborn and was in tears on our way out the door. For the first few weeks we chalked it up to adjusting to the change. But his attitude has persisted throughout.

We also had concerns about the amount of television Riley was watching. Prior to changing daycares Riley would watch a bit of television here or there. We’d turn on Wilbur while giving him his nebuliser. We knew the provider had the television on but we were uncomfortable with the amount he seemed to be watching. Riley was always in front of the television when we dropped him off and picked him up. This week he started asking to watch TV too rather than play with his toys.

I’m not against television. Trust me, the second Riley goes to bed we flip on The Office. Courtney pointed out that Riley had stopped doing art projects. When confronted, the provider told us he refused to do them. We started to question if Riley was getting the type of attention he needed.

He’s never been, nor will be, the kid you can ask to do something outright. He’s always going to give his opinion on the matter before doing something. We hoped in-home daycare was going to provide more attention to Riley. But it appeared it was doing the opposite. Because he was a quiet, opinionated child it felt like he was being ostracized.

Frequently we were told about how “naughty” he was being, something we never heard from TutorTime. We initially were glad to hear a more honest account of how Riley was being during the day. One of the problems we had with taking him to a center was the lack of personal information the teacher could give us. Between taking shift breaks and moving between rooms it felt sometimes that he was getting lost in the shuffle. So we took the new feedback and worked with Riley. We stressed at home the need to be gentle and careful. We cut down on all the “wildness” that is our house. But the negative reports kept coming.

It all came to a head yesterday as I was picking Riley up. He was in a surprisingly good mood when I walked in the door. The provider and I had a great conversation. All was looking fine. I was glad to not hear any bad news. I think secretly Courtney and I were both trying to avoid taking or picking him up for fear of the conversations. As we were leaving I said goodbye and asked Riley to say goodbye to all the kids and the provider. One the children sitting in front of the television looked up at us and exclaimed, “Bye naughty Riley! Bye naughty Riley!” My heart sank. We all know kids don’t make this stuff up. I called Courtney. I knew we were going to need to have a tough talk. It was time to make some tough decisions.

For now we’ve decided to continue at TutorTime. The people there have been nothing short of great to us. Its tough to afford but I think we’re to the point where we are willing to sacrifice a lot to make sure Riley stays happy. Will he continue to be “naughty”? I don’t know. We’re hoping the more engaging environment of TutorTime will help balance him out again.

We adopted Dottie in 2002. We had been in our house for less than 2 months. We had recently adopted our first dog, Sydney, from a rescue shelter. Courtney got a phone call from a Great Dane rescue looking to place an older Dane. Dottie’s owner told us that if we weren’t going to adopt her then he was going to turn her over to the pound. He was being transferred to Kentucky for his job and didn’t want to make the trip with her. So, that afternoon we packed Dottie into Courtney’s Honda Civic along with Sydney.

We were originally told that Dottie was 4. But after awhile her owner let it slip that she was closer to 5. A Dane’s average life expectancy is somewhere in the neighborhood of 8 years. We wanted her to finish out her golden years with us.

Through the years we had our good times and bad times. When she came home with us she was an overweight 140 lbs dog. Within a few years we had her down to 100-110 lbs. Her weight loss was mostly due to her not acting her age at all. She and Sydney ran around the yard all year long.

In the last few years her hips started to go. It’s typical for large dogs, especially Danes, to have hip displagia. She became stiff when it got cold out. She burned through many dog beds over her life. But through it all, she continued to get up every morning and make it outside.

I came home tonight to find Dottie not confined to the kitchen as usual. I also came home to find some sort of “mess” on the kitchen floor, also quite usual in our house. But what I wasn’t prepared for was the condition Dottie was in. Something was wrong and it was obvious.

We put Dottie to sleep tonight. She was 11 years old. She had lived longer than she was expected to. She was a big dog, stinky, stubborn, and beautiful. We always enjoyed watching her lay in the sun during the summer.

She was our Dane. We loved her. We miss her.

Preparation for the next kid has swung into high gear after this past weekend. We’ve been holding out before doing anything too serious until we found out the gender of the next baby. Besides, we had Riley’s 2nd birthday party to plan and execute to keep us busy.

On Friday we found out that our next kid will be a girl. We are excited and relieved all at once. We were just happy to hear we had a healthy baby still in the hopper. We’ve been so busy keeping Riley entertained  we haven’t really stopped to grasp the fact we have a second one on the way. Having a girl will be quite different for the Motylinskis. It’s been almost a full decade since the last girl was born.

There are only a few things we think we need to accommodate a second child. Since a bigger house is out of the picture for awhile (Thanks terrible housing market), we have moved on to getting Riley his own bed and getting a bigger stroller. We knocked out the bed a few weeks ago and picked up a stroller this weekend.

With Riley I’ve felt we’ve been able to maintain some sort of identity as a couple. We always made time to enjoy life with and without Riley. For our sanity, sometimes it has been nice to hear each other over dinner instead of Riley’s constant opinions. But the new stroller I think put us firmly into the parents column. Our initial thoughts were to get a side-by-side stroller for the two kids. Riley loves riding in strollers. But after talking with a lady at Babies R Us we discovered that our infant carrier wouldn’t work in a side-by-side. To make matters worse, we now have a very large 2 year old who shows no sign of shrinking anytime soon. So we ended up not getting the fancy stroller we thought we wanted but a practical Sit and Stand stroller. It’ll accommodate an infant seat and also allow Riley some “Big Boy” freedom.

If you haven’t seen these Sit and Stand strollers, they have a “seat” behind the infant seat where a toddler can either sit or stand by. It’s nothing fancy, more like a ledge of convienience for a toddler who’s engine craps out a mile from the parking lot. Riley really enjoyed it but I think we should be more concerned with the fact that he jumps off of it every time we come to a stop with it. He exits it like some guy jumping from the getaway van in a jewelry heist. I can easily see this turning into a race to Jamba Juice in the mall.  I’ll just slow the stroller down enough for him to make his getaway.

I’ll hopefully get pictures of Riley’s 2nd birthday party online soon. I’ve got some sweet pinata video too.