Since Sister has started Kindergarten, he's had lots of time to reflect and do things by himself he hasn't had the chance to do as a middle child. Like, doctor the dog.
He can be so gentle when he wants to be.
I'm gonna pretend like I don't know where that suction ball has been and let them keep playing with it.
Learn how to write letters in shaving cream.
See how many bubbles we can fill up the sink with.
All the while explaining that this is the car wash for his monster trucks.
It's all such important stuff, you know. Stuff that gets put on the back burner when you have a mom that's stretched beyond recognition with just trying to stay up with wash, meals and refereeing for a family of 5.
You see, Kindergarten can be very tiring for everyone.
Some of my precious views in the car picking up Sister...
I've said it before: For some reason, God has decided to bless us with two very healthy kids.
One thing that was not in the "healthy plan" for our household was our animals. George was diagnosed last summer with lymphoma and Gracie has severe skin allergies. George was given the shortest time span of 4-6 months to live and he seems to be doing just fine; what we can see from the outside. Gracie is, well without exaggerating . . . . .
Miserable.
She has skin allergies that cause her skin to itch uncontrollably and when she constantly licks and scratches, it causes secondary problems on her skin. The summertime doesn't help, it gets much worse. We went through the entire month of April medicating her heavily. Which included antibiotics twice a day for the secondary bacterial infections forming on her skin, yeast medicine for the yeast making the itching even worse, thyroid medicine twice a day because her thyroid is low and aggravating the underlying issue, steroids to try to keep the itching and inflammation down, medicated shampoo twice a week to help the pads of her feet quit burning with itch and special cleansers followed by medicine to cool the burning and itching in her ears. She looked and felt great after all the meds, but as soon as the antibiotics and yeast meds ran out, she was back to itching uncontrollably. So, after a sobering visit from the vet today (3 visits in 6 weeks with another one planned for next week) we are reminded that antibiotics, yeast medicine, thyroid medicine and steroids are most likely in the long-term, daily plan for her.
I just finished watching the movie "Marley and Me" and I've had a heart-to-heart with myself concerning my attitude towards Gracie. Since Katherine came home from the hospital, Gracie has acted like the begrudged
--> used-to-be only child. She hasn't made the effort I wanted her to to accept the newest members of our family. So, for over three years I've been disappointed.
I know you've heard stories about how labs are so good with kids. They're interested in this new little different-smelling person that's come home from the hospital. They're very protective of the baby; won't let new people get too close. They let kids lay all over them and pull fur when learning how to stand. They carefully play with new-walking babies, so as not to knock them over. They want to sleep in children's rooms, next to or in their beds. They are eager to run and play with older kids when given a chance to go outside. You've heard all those stories too, right?
Well, I did and I'm afraid it poisoned my expectations for our dog. Gracie hid in the closet for two weeks when we brought Katherine home. She smelled her a couple of times and wasn't interested. She was not protective of her and would leave the room if Katherine would start crawling her way. She was horrible at getting up abruptly and knocking over the "eager walker" and had/has no desire to sleep anywhere but in our room or the living room. And when there is outside play, she's more interested in what mom and dad's play could be like, more than playing with Katherine (who is finally able to and wants to run around with her now). The fur, don't get me started on the insane amounts of fur.
So I was faced with a cross-roads tonight. Do I continue to harbor resentment that this dog has not been the kid-friendly dog I dreamed of or do I accept her for her not-interested-in-little-people faults and lovingly encourage her and our children to interact? Well, you know the answer to that.
She is 6.5 years old and showing signs of slowing down. She's already on a medicine required every other day and is getting "ailments" associated with age. I think this movie was good for me, tonight. She's been a good dog and great practice for me to put aside my expectations for two little humans training to become adults.
She can't be that bad of a dog. Not many of them would behave long enough to get their picture taken my their weird mother AND keep the outfit on.
