Neddie

A my pets will do, Penelope has begun her collection of nicknames.  Some of the nicknames I give are just for fun.  Some are a softer thing, truly pet names, the product of the warmth of affection.

For fun, like most pathetic middle-aged women, I do baby-talk the kids.  Gossamer has a funny pronunciation, sometimes, I would have no idea how to translate into text.  Penny sometimes gets called PeNE-dopey.  Something like "pisghetti", I suppose.

But the soft nickname is Neddie, from the Ned in PeNE-dopey.


House training continues to dismay me; I have what I think is a healthy fear/dismay that I might not be the best mom she could have had.  Four days a week, I'm gone for eleven hours (and even longer), and she gets separation anxiety.  Two days this week, she eliminated in her crate, and yesterday when I came home she was simply nasty.  Had rolled in her own pee, and was sticky and stinky and utterly foul.

It's dispiriting (I imagine for us both).

But I have to remember - she has a will to please and to obey.  Her confidence is growing.  I can SEE her progress in manners (she's jumping less; and she seems not to jump on men - she isn't kissing in the face much, and I can put my face next to and in front of her head, and she doesn't go completely nuts (this does have to be timed correctly!).  She does "go" outside, and when she makes a mistake with #1 (#2 is proving a very tricky one to learn at all), it's my mistake often.  When she comes in from being a good girl, she behaves with almost comical politeness.

She's really something amazing.  My sweet - she's had a good bath, you see (and was good for that, too) - little Neddie girl.