March 21st, 2010...I graciously open my door and my home to a 2-man camera crew and a director who are here on behalf of Animal Planet. They will be here with us for the week, filming us at will and trying to get us to live as normally as possible. No, they aren't sleeping here and there are not cameras set up in every room of our tiny little house, but anywhere we go in our house, we carry microphones clipped to our shirts and the cameras follow us everywhere. I admit, I cleaned a little before they came here. I tried to clean off the dining room table enough so that we could maybe even eat in there instead of the TV trays we usually use in the living room. But getting around in here is still difficult at best. I had no idea how used to this they all were.

The first day of filming was easy. "Just go about your normal routine", is what we were all told. They filmed Pete getting up in the morning to go out to look for work. They filmed me still in the bed with seven cats and a chihuahua all cuddled up with me. They filmed my sleepy kids getting up late in the morning which is part of their daily routine (ah...the lives of an un-schooling family!). They just filmed and filmed and filmed!

I got up and did what I normally do which is take my dogs out before anyone has an accident. Louie, our beagle mix is screaming his high-pitched wail in his kennel as he waits for me to get downstairs. As I descend the stairs, the other dog that sleeps in a kennel, Jacy, starts pacing and pawing loudly to get out. It's a run to the back with four dogs right at my heels. I let them out into the concrete back yard that we use as a dog run. After I clean up the waste, I go back in for feeding time. Four dogs, four feeding areas in my teeny, tiny kitchen. I have an order in which I feed the dogs. It's the hierarchy of the pack in my home. First Spirit because he is the oldest and the slowest to eat. Then Jacy. He needs to know that he has a higher spot on the chain than the other two dogs. Then Louie and finally, my latest acquisition, Koda the chihuahua. The dogs are nervously pacing, waiting anxiously for their filled bowls to be placed on the floor. All the while, a cameraman is following me around filming. He's filming the poop out on the dog run, he's filming the food in the dog food bin, he's filming the clutter on the kitchen counters, he's filming the dogs eagerly wolfing down their food. No big deal. As long as he can stay out of my way, I'll give him what he wants on film.

Next come the cats. I have to block the stairway when I go upstairs because once I fill the cat food bowls, if a dog gets up there, it's gone. They also like to eat poop out of the litter boxes. The chihuahua slips upstairs before I can block it, but I think, "No big deal." I scoop out the three litter boxes that desperately need cleaning while seven cats surround my feet. They, too, are waiting for their food bowls to be filled. I go to clean out their water bowls and get them fresh water from the bathroom sink. The food bowls are lined up in the upstairs hallway. But as I come out of the bathroom, right in front of me at my girls' bedroom door, a new pile of poop. "Damn that little chihuahua", I think as I go to clean it. "Not on National TV!" But too late. The cameraman spies it first and he is getting a close-up...of the poop! I clean it up, muttering under my breath as I prepare to fill up the row of bowls with food. Seven happy cats, one pissed off pet owner and a quivering little chihuahua, all caught on tape.
And I still don't know what I'm in for here. I'm thinking that I handled that pretty well. My life with these animals is not so abnormal. I can handle it. I am NOT overwhelmed. Am I?