A post for my pug

It is no secret how much Mark and I love our pug Gatsby. He is our baby and we love him unconditionally. I know that he loves us too, even though he can't tell us. The poor little guy has been really stressed for the past 2-ish months. He wants to be next to me 24/7. He also cries and gets anxious when I make any motion to leave the room we are in. The vet says that he smells/knows something is different/something is happening and it is stressing him out and to expect more of it in the first few weeks that the baby is here.

Mark and I are already mentally prepared for this. We know it will be an adjustment for Gatsby when Ethan comes home. We know he is going to be hyper. We know he is going to want to jump all over the baby in the first day or two and we know that he is going to have a little anxiety from the decrease in attention that he gets. We also know that he will adjust...and that he and Ethan will be BFF.

If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me if I am "worried about the dog and the baby" or something to that effect, I would have a great start to Ethan's college fund. I have been pretty cranky and blunt lately so I'll just tell you all this now: stop asking me. And when Ethan is here, please do not come and visit us and then get all anxious/nervous about things Gatsby related. You will make my dog have more stress and anxiety and it will not be appreciated in the critical first weeks when we are trying to acclimate him to this huge change in his home life. Gatsby will still be our baby...he will be our baby forever. He isn't some inconvenience or (as a woman in Petco said to me the other day) just a dog now.

Since Gatsby won't leave my side lately, I've been taking a lot of pictures of him, including a little 4th of July photo shoot at the local park. Here are some of my favorites:

2009 Christmas Cards

Gatsby Goes to the Beach...and then to the Hospital

My first official day of being a "Real Housewife of Long Island" was Monday. So far, I am enjoying the sharp decrease in my stress level. I decided to take Gatsby to the beach on Tuesday with my friend Stefanie because he has never been before and it was cloudy and cool so I figured there would be no one there. I was right! We practically had the whole beach to ourselves! I took Gats on a long walk down the beach where we met a girl pug! He just loved her. They played and rubbed their necks on each other, it was so cute! Gatsby had so much fun digging holes and sniffing everything, I thought it was the perfect day, until about 8:30 pm that night. Gatsby threw up 5 times in a matter of a half hour and then he was acting lethargic and not himself. We called the Vet who said we should bring him to Animal Emergency in Selden (where he stayed when we first got him and he had pneumonia.) Turns out, Gatsby ingested a whole lot of sand and it was stuck in his intestines. I guess when he was sniffing the sand all day, he was eating it too. I felt like such a bad Mommy for not noticing! He got a big fat liquid injection under his skin and another injection of medicine to settle his stomach and we brought him home. He is doing great now, thank goodness! I think he is really happy that Mommy is home all day and he is spending a lot less time in his crate. In other news, I am slowly but surely getting these wedding thank you cards done. They aren't folded and they aren't perforated where they SHOULD be folded so it is a pain in the butt. With all this rain and no job, they should be done soon.

Pug Life

Let's face it. Mark and I lead pretty boring lives. We go to work, we come home. We eat, we watch tv, we do the dishes and we sleep. The most interesting thing that we have going now is our pug Gatsby. So thats what this post is all about. Our pug!

Let's just get a few facts out there for those that have never met the Great Gatsby. First- he is a little devil. In fact "Mommy's Little Devil" and "Devil Dog" are said A LOT. He is only 41/2 months old and he is hyper and likes to test his boundaries. He also considers biting his Mommy's toes really hard to be playing and great fun.

In order to get some of his energy out, I decide to take him over to my friend Jaclyn's house where there are 5 dogs for him to play with. The night before, I gave him his first bath in the big tubby and he was terrified!

He was running around like CRAZY at Jaclyn's!! He had so much fun especially with their big Golden Diesel!

He was pooped all weekend! He snuggled with Mark and I and we watched movies and the Superbowl.

Today it snowed, so it was a great reason to break out Gatsby's new jacket. He needs it because he doesn't have much fur yet and he shivers like crazy when it is cold out



I think the snow actually zapped all his energy because he is sleeping in my lap as I type.


I am thinking this blog will end up being "The Daily Life of the Great Gatsby Lane" with a few nuggets about Mark and I every so often. That's ok though. We accept that its all about the pug, all the time!

Our First Year

Hello Everyone!

Welcome to our new blog. We are replacing our wedding website (tear) with this blog so that we can keep in touch with our giant extended families as well as our friends that are scattered throughout the country. People have been asking us what we have been up to since the wedding so here is the VERY condensed story of the last few months:

NOVEMBER 2008:
For our honeymoon, we went to Sandals Royal Bahamian in the Bahamas and it was fantastic! We have never been more relaxed in our 10 years together. :

All-Inclusive is the way to go! While we were there, Mark celebrated his 30th birthday. I arranged for us to have a couples massage on the private offshore island, and also had a "Bahamian" birthday cake sent to our room .

Every day the staff would put a new bottle of champagne in our room fridge and every night after we had dinner, we would sit on our balcony and drink it.

We highly reccommend Royal Bahamian. It was worth every penny

It was hard getting back to the every day routine but things did not stay boring for very long. The day after thanksgiving, we drove 10 hours to Delta, Ohio, to adopt a 10 week old pug that had been rescued from a puppy mill in Michigan. We found him on petfinder.com and fell in love. We named him Gatsby and brought him home to become part of our family. Here is a picture of him in the car on the ride back to NY

The end of November was also when we had Marcia's Bridal Shower (Mark's Brother's Fiance.) It was a great party and she got lots of cute and nice stuff for her and Chris's cottage.


DECEMBER 2008
Things with our new puppy definitely got off to a rough start. We noticed he had some congestion so the first day we had him home, we brought him to the only vet that we could get an appointment with, who told us he had a cold and that he was too young for antibiotics and sent us on our way with some vitamins. Two days later we were back in the vets office: Gatsby was barely breathing. He had a full blown case of pneumonia, probably caught at the puppy mill he was born in. He was in the hospital for 4 days, and it was very touch and go for a while. We were very upset. Even though we only had him for a few days, we were already so in love! When he was well enough to come home, we babied him like crazy, snuggled a lot and also dosed out lots of meds and nebulization treatments to get him better. He started bouncing around with energy and putting on weight and we were so relieved!

Christmastime brought lots of parties, including our friend Kamila's Second Annual Holiday Party that she has to benefit needy families in our area. Every guest brings something for the family that Kamila and Chris have chosen to adopt. In addition to that, Kamila and Chris bought some raffle prizes, and they had a raffle and a 50/50 to benefit Gatsby! I was telling Kamila how much his hospital bills were and she decided to try and raise some money because she is such a good person (and obviously a good friend!)


We also went to Mark's Aunt and Uncle's Christmas party that they have every year. Miranda drank a little too much wine and broke not one but TWO wine glasses!! They were replaced, don't worry! That party is always a good time!!


We had a great Christmas Eve/Christmas Day. Santa Dog brought Gatsby lots of stuff Kristin and Miranda also sported matching Christmas pajamas

JANUARY 2009
Happy New Year!!

The big event of January was Chris and Marcia's wedding, which took place on January 17th at Holy Cross in Nesconset, followed by a reception at Larkfield Manor in East Northport. Mark was a co-best man and Miranda a bridesmaid. The sun was out for the day and Marcia looked BEAUTIFUL in her sparkly wedding gown.
Miranda mentioned that it would be nice if it started snowing after everyone arrived at the reception hall, and it did! Who knew? Everyone had a great time and we are betting the pictures in the snow come out spectacular.



Which brings us to now. Everything is going really well for us! We are in the process of picking out photos for our wedding album and songs for our wedding video. Gatsby is almost 10 lbs. and we are taking him to puppy kindergarten class in February. We are so excited about these next few years. We are hoping that some exciting things happen that we can share with you like buying our first home and maybe, just maybe a little baby is in the cards. If anyone would like to see ALL the professional wedding photos, we have uploaded them here: Our Wedding Pictures


Let us know what you think!!
XOXO
Miranda