By Gwen Rockwood, newspaper columnist and mama of 3

Don’t tell my Beagle, but I’ve fallen in puppy love. My friend Shannon and her family just adopted an 8-week-old puppy from a local shelter, and she is puppy perfection – a fluffy white Lab mix with a touch of butter-colored hair on the tips of her floppy ears.

Shannon has been texting me puppy pictures – snapshots that could easily be featured in a “Cutest Puppies of 2016” wall calendar. With her white fur and coal black eyes, she looks like a snow-white baby seal. After some heavy hinting on my part, Shannon’s daughter appointed me as the puppy’s official Godmother. So I went to their house to play with my God-dog, who licked my face, snuggled under my chin and then pounced on the dog toy I threw for her. Oh, it was fun.

When I went home later that day, our middle-aged dog, Charlie, was waiting for me by the door. I felt guilty that I wasn’t nearly as enthralled with him as the fluffy new puppy. I’d cheated on my dog with a younger model. He didn’t seem to mind, though. He spun excitedly around in circles when I asked if he wanted to go outside.

Lately Charlie has been embroiled in an ongoing battle with one very elusive squirrel. Once outside, he sprints toward the tallest tree, wailing away with the high-pitched, frustrated bark of a dog who knows that the bark is all he’s got. By the time he gets there, the squirrel has scampered up a tree that Charlie knows he’ll never be able to climb. But that doesn’t stop him from pointlessly barking up at the tree – a habit that hasn’t endeared him to the neighbors.

In Charlie’s defense, the squirrel is not a gracious winner. I’ve seen this squirrel run across the top of the wooden fence while Charlie runs alongside it barking like a maniac. Then the squirrel stops and stares down at the poor dog, taunting him from his lofty perch. If I’d been watching through binoculars, I bet I would have seen the squirrel stick his tongue out at the Beagle, the same way the Road Runner mocks Wile E. Coyote.

Inside the house, Charlie works on his napping skills. He steps onto a blanket on the sofa, turns around on it three to four times and then settles down, curling in on himself with paws tucked under his body. Within seconds, he falls asleep and slowly stretches out until he’s on his back with all four paws in the air, snoring softly and passing a silent-but-toxic series of dog toots that make me wonder if he’s eating rotten cabbage.

Despite his quirks, we love Charlie. He may be crazy and stubborn but he’s ours. I’m reminding myself that new is always alluring and exciting. And it’s easy to love anything – a puppy or a person – from afar.

Shannon tells me that, although they love her like crazy, the new puppy can also drive them a little crazy. The teething phase is so intense right now that they’ve nicknamed her “the land shark” because she’s constantly cruising around looking for something to gnaw on. She also likes to whine when she’s left alone, unroll the toilet paper and shred paper towels until the room looks like the aftermath of a ticker tape parade. In short, a new puppy is much like a determined toddler minus the diapers.

So perhaps I should just enjoy my puppy love in photos and short visits and then come home to my hard-headed, squirrel-chasing, gassy Beagle who has learned to love me despite all my quirks, too.

Gwen Rockwood is a mom to three great kids, wife to one cool guy, a newspaper columnist and co-owner of nwaMotherlode.com.  To check out Gwen’s book, “Reporting Live from the Laundry Pile: The Rockwood Files Collection,” click HERE.

By Gwen Rockwood, newspaper columnist and mama of 3

When I noticed the delivery box on the front steps, I flung open the door and greedily grabbed it. I hauled it to the kitchen, grabbed a pair of scissors and sliced through the packing tape in one stroke.

“What’s that?” Tom asked.

“It’s my new trash can,” I said.

“In that small box?” he said.

“It’s a trash can for the car,” I explained.

“Another one? What is this crazy obsession you have with car trash cans?” he said.

“It’s not an obsession, Tom. It’s a necessity. Your children are very messy and I’m usually the one hauling them all over town.”

He rolled his eyes because the kids are always “his” when they’re leaving a trail of crumbs, dirt and used tissues in their wake. (They’re mine again when they’re getting good grades or being especially cute.)

Tom’s car is mostly free of all the kid baggage that clutters mine up – the duffel bag full of ballet shoes, backpacks, stray school papers, gum wrappers, fast-food cups left behind and – the tissues. Don’t get me started on the tissues. Cold and flu season and now spring allergies keep us knee-deep in used tissues, and I just can’t stand the thought of plucking another one out of the car’s cup holders. It’s disgusting.

So I’ve been on a quest to find a suitable trash can for this on-the-go lifestyle. It’s tricky because it has to fit in a place where it won’t be repeatedly knocked over and spilled. And I don’t like the kind that hang from the back of a headrest because then the backseat passengers are eye-level with trash.

My last attempt at a car sanitation system involved a plastic bin with a flip-top lid, and I was pretty proud of my do-it-yourself solution. I lined the bin with a plastic shopping bag and tried to anchor it to the back of the center console, where the kids could easily reach it. But it tipped over time and time again. Too top heavy. So I tried putting Velcro strips on the bottom, but that didn’t work either. Then I tried using extra shoelaces I’d found in the junk drawer to tie the trash bin to the center console. But the laces kept slipping and so did the tippy bin.

After scouring the Internet, I finally found a car trash can with good reviews from other shoppers. It’s waterproof and has a weighted bottom that keeps it anchored even in tight hairpin turns around the Chick-fil-A drive-thru lane. Very impressive.

The kids have accidentally kicked it a few times, but that can’t be helped because three school-aged kids plus friends getting in and out of a car is a little like a herd of hyper horses, only far less graceful.

My new mobile trash can has been in place for about a week now, and having a container to corral the trash has helped my sense of order in the Universe. (I have this suspicion that a mother’s mental state is somehow linked to the condition of her car’s interior, her purse and her clothes closet.)

Experts say that, on average, Americans spend so many hours in the car that – over the course of a year – the time spent there adds up to almost a full month. (For those families that travel to out-of-state ballgames or dance competitions, I’d bet that the number is at least double.)

So it’s no wonder that a mother/chauffer like me would be so invested in finding the right trash can. It’s not a “crazy obsession,” honey. It’s survival of the cleanest.

Gwen Rockwood is a mom to three great kids, wife to one cool guy, a newspaper columnist and co-owner of nwaMotherlode.com. To check out Gwen’s book, “Reporting Live from the Laundry Pile: The Rockwood Files Collection,” click HERE.

By Gwen Rockwood, newspaper columnist and mama of 3

The Rockwood family microwave, affectionately called “Mike,” died suddenly in the home on August 6, 2015 while attempting to reheat day-old pizza. It was 10 years old.

The microwave is survived by two adult roommates, three children and a matching dishwasher, stove, oven and refrigerator. It also leaves behind two bags of frozen chicken nuggets, several cans of soup and a pantry full of microwave popcorn.

Born into the family during the Great Kitchen Remodel of 2005, the microwave served admirably during its decade-long life, heating everything from baby food to bacon. Its kitchen timer ticked steadily through years’ worth of mandatory 20-minute piano practices, while the family’s mother listened from the next room.

“How much longer does the microwave say I have to practice, Mom?”

“Twelve more minutes. Now keep playing.”

The microwave witnessed many family milestones – baby’s first bite of solid food, first steps, birthday meals, Christmas cookie baking, and weekly Sunday lunches lovingly prepared by the family’s Memaw, who always knew just how to push the microwave’s buttons.

As the kids grew, it was “Mike” that taught them the valuable lesson every child must learn the hard way at one time or another: Never put aluminum foil in the microwave. (The children will never forget the shower of sparks they saw that day.)

The family has been dealing with the shock of this loss for many days now. It’s even worse than the Ravioli Explosion of 2009 which left the microwave looking like a crime scene. The mother and most loyal user of the microwave has been stunned by its sudden departure.

“I just didn’t realize how much we needed it until it was gone,” she said. “We haven’t been able to eat microwave popcorn since the day it happened. We just can’t do it.”

The microwave was a devoted appliance and avid re-heater, known for its accessibility and easy-going personality. It wasn’t like most microwaves that slowly rotate their trays. This one defied cultural norms with its side-to-side “gliding tray,” an innovation the family had never seen when they brought it home 10 years ago.

When the family’s children learned to cook, it was the microwave they leaned on most in their time of hunger. Jack, the middle child and most enthusiastic cook in the household, was recently overheard saying, “I keep going to the microwave to put something in there, and then I remember. It’s gone.”

Even the family cat has been lost since the appliance’s passing because the microwave’s over-the-range nightlight has gone dark, leaving the fat feline to eat her Fancy Feast cat food in a pitch-black kitchen.

The family has survived by relying on old-school methods of food preparation, like boiling hot dogs on the stove. The kids said it was “weird and takes too long,” proof that their grief is still palpable. Good old “Mike” will be deeply missed.

The family said the best way to celebrate the microwave’s life and service is to welcome a new appliance into the home and continue the tradition of heating, timing and night-light shining. So it is with great joy that they announce the birth of a new microwave that arrived on August 17^th, measuring 2.1 cubic feet, named Maytag or “May” for short. May’s sing-song chime which signals that the food is heated has brought happiness back into the kitchen.

Even so, the family will never forget “Mike” and the many times it heated up leftover lasagna. They hope the machine has found its rest and that its signature “gliding tray” might still be floating side-to-side in a much better place.

Gwen Rockwood is a mom to three great kids, wife to one cool guy, a newspaper columnist and co-owner of nwaMotherlode.com. To check out Gwen’s book, “Reporting Live from the Laundry Pile: The Rockwood Files Collection,” click HERE.

By Gwen Rockwood, newspaper columnist and mama of 3

If I had a business card for my job as a mother, the job description would read “Finder of Things.” Because that’s what I do. I find things.

I love my husband and kids but they’re terrible finders. And I wouldn’t mind it so much if they weren’t also excellent losers.

The most frustrating part of the problem is that I consider our house to be somewhat organized and generally tidy – certainly not “eat off the floor” tidy, but it’s what I’d call a “someone could stop by the house unannounced and I wouldn’t die of embarrassment” level of tidy. Chaos makes me anxious, so I organize things to make it easier for us to find and keep up with what we need. I’ve never met a storage bin I didn’t love. Clear countertops make me happy. And I own and use a label maker even though I’m fully aware of just how geeky that sounds.

Yet despite the strategies and the storage and the customized labels, we lose stuff. Regularly. I’d guess that something goes missing about every third day – a hairbrush, a belt, somebody’s gym shorts, that paper for school, her dance tights, his retainer, and a receipt that Tom swears he put right here on this counter. But then poof! The thing is gone. Vanished into the void.

Sometimes the thing is missing for only a few minutes and sometimes it’s gone for good. How long it stays gone is usually in direct proportion to the person who’s doing the looking. I won’t name names, but some people – and you know who you are – have woefully inadequate searching skills. What some people call “looking for it” is more of a cursory glance around the general area.

If I send one of our kids to the pantry to get a can of green beans, they might tell me we’re all out of green beans. Because if the green beans do not leap off the shelf into their hands, there are no green beans in the house. And if a giant, blinking, neon arrow doesn’t magically appear in the pantry and point directly to that can of green beans, then there are no green beans in the house.

When looking for something involves moving things out of the way to see it, there’s a 99% chance the thing is going to stay lost – until Mom starts looking. Kids use moms like most of us use a GPS: “In 200 feet, make a left turn at the living room. Extend your free hand and make a sweeping U-turn motion under the sofa cushion. You have now arrived at your remote control.”

To avoid being used and abused as the Official Family Finder, I’ve started putting a price tag on my finding services. Yesterday one of the kids swore to me that there were no more hot dogs in the fridge.

“No hot dogs? Are you sure? Did you really look?”

“I looked, Mom!”

“So you looked behind things and under things and on every shelf?”

“Yep. I looked everywhere.”

“So you’d be willing to bet a week’s worth of extra chores on this? If I go in there and find the hot dogs, you’re gonna be busy this week but not in a fun way. You feel that confident about the missing hot dogs, right?”

“Well… maybe I’ll go look one more time.”

“That’s what I thought.”

The moral of this story? A wife and mother is a person with stuff to do, not a homing device with ovaries. And sometimes terrible finders just need a little extra motivation. Pass the hot dogs.

Gwen Rockwood is a mom to three great kids, wife to one cool guy, a newspaper columnist and co-owner of nwaMotherlode.com. To read previously published installments of The Rockwood Files, click here. To check out Gwen’s book, “Reporting Live from the Laundry Pile: The Rockwood Files Collection,” click HERE.