Good Dog, Good Bye.

Bella, our beloved yellow lab, past away on January 15th. Our Valentine puppy was exactly one month shy of her 12th birthday.

She was a 10-year old pup, full of energetic tail wagging, greeting all who entered our home with more excitement and playfulness than was comfortable for most. When she reach a decade of age life's rigors finally began to show. A puppy turned suddenly into a gimpy old maid. She had been slowly falling apart for the past several years, suffering from the normal creaking joints of old age, then more recently and seriously from nerve degeneration causing tracheal paralysis and other complications. A tumor erupting at the back of her tongue a few weeks ago was her final endurance.

I've still been in the habit of walking with the boys in the early evening, before supper, as Pebe says. It's strange to turn and look for Bella as we make the final turn for home on our usual neighborhood circuit. With stiff legs and a wandering nose, stopping to sniffing sweet pee on a bush or munching on a petrified bit of garbage at the sidewalk's edge - yum - she was our tail gunner on most walks, lagging me, the waddling Rhys and Kelly speeding expertly on his Like-a-bike. I look but she's not back there, no need to urge her forward and around the corner toward home, a home now missing a long-loved member of our joyous family.

Bella was loved by all the boys. Rhys, who's language was busting into full bloom as Bella spark waned, liked to order Bella around. With an animated hand gesture and thick, halting tongue Rhys would command her, "Bell-ha nooo! Bell-ha nooo!" or "Bell-ha maat, Bell-ha maat!"

She was a good sport and put up well with the occasional harassment of the little humans. Fair deal in her mind, I bet. The little humans dropped previously unknown food and flavors on the floor for her enjoyment during the final, difficult phase of her life.

A few days after Bella was missing from the house, Kelly hadn't asked about her, so we had a talk. I asked if he noticed if anyone was missing from the house. He being the logical minded 3-year old he is started listing off all our family members not in the room: Grandma Mary, Pebe, mama, Rhys, Beanie, Uncle Pat.

"Yes, all those people aren't here in the house right now, but who's not here that normally licks up food that Rhys drops on the floor?"

"Oh, Bella. Where is she?"

"Well, you know how we tell you and Rhys to be gentle with Bella because she's old and she's been having trouble eating? What happens if you don't eat?"

"You're not healthy."

"Yes, exactly. Bella hasn't been eating and she hasn't been healthy. She's been sick."

"So, you took her to the doctor?"

"Yes, we took her to the doctor yesterday (Kelly refers to any time in the past as "yesterday").

"Oh, wait, I want to show you something," Kelly interrupts and trots off to grab something off the kitchen island. Prancing back to our conversation spot at the round, walnut kitchen table, Kelly struggles back up in the chair and exclaims, beaming, "Stickers!"

"Do you do a sticker project at school today?"

"No, I just found these in the playroom."

"O.k., well let's put these down for now. I want to finish talking to you about Bella."

"So, Bella's been sick. So, we took her to the dog doctor, the vet. The vet found something in her mouth that wasn't letting her eat called a tumor. You know how you have teeth in your mouth, and tongue and lips, all things that help you eat and are supposes to be there?"

"Yes," Kelly replied smiling and showing me his teeth.

"Well, the tumor is not supposes to be in her mouth and isn't letting her eat. Like you said when you can't eat, you can't be healthy and Bell couldn't eat, so she died. That's why Bella isn't here anymore, she died."

"Where is she?"

"Well, she died, so that means she's not living anymore and that's why she's not in the house."

"Oh. So, Bella won't be living with us anymore."

Not convinced Kelly was understanding this talk entirely, I asked, "Do you have any questions?"

"Yes, can I play with my stickers now?"

Kelly is a sharp, scary smart 3-year old, but death is a concept, apparently, just beyond his understanding.

We love you and miss you, little Bella.

Good dog, good bye.

Three Little Willies: Where are they now?

It's been a few weeks since my blogger muse tickled my writer bone. So, what are those little Willies up to now?

Beckett:
Santa brought us the gift of a full nights sleep. Beckett slept through the night on Christmas Eve and Christmas day, giving weary ma and light sleeping pop a glimmer of hope that our four-month stretch of interrupted sleep was now over. Well, the little hellion spoiled our Yuletide joy yanking our chain and drawing us (and by us I mean Catherine most nights) out of bed for 3 am feeds for the next two weeks. Beckett is now sleeping from about 6pm to 6am. Yes!

What else? Beckett's baby tricks include: rolling over, smiling and laughing at anyone, and withholding bowel movements for up to four days. Ayyyy! And speaking of parts below the waist, he recently discovered he has feet! Who knew of such wonders!

Beckett is still generally a happy little baby and at 17 lbs. not as sprightly as he once was. We believe, he's currently going through the black to blond hair molting process that happened with both Kelly and Rhys. Sloughing off clumps of fine, wispy hair daily, Beckett now has a monk-like hairline.

Rhys:
Rhys' (18 months) vocabulary is exploding in both English and, with the assistance of his high-energy nanny, Spanish.

"Be beck, k?"
We just thought he was saying "Baby Beckett", which he says often, but he would say this phrase while leaving the room and we figured out it's, "I'll be right back OK?"

"Mas" See photo.

"Jamas" = Pajamas

"No!" = Yes, despite having his ears done last week (tubes), Rhys has found a new level of assertiveness, loudly expressing his displeasure when whatever glass, valuable, or otherwise not-for-babies object is forcibly removed from his possession.

That's not an explosion of examples, but I must move on.

Kelly:
Kelly loves ice cream, his mommy, his baby bros, riding his like-a-bike with dad, and, like a mother bear protecting her suckling cubs, his diaps. Kelly still loves reading, too. We've been reading for hours at a time the classic work of poetry by Shel Silverstein, "Where the Sidewalk Ends." He enjoys the rhyming and word play, and seems to understand much of Shel's inventive humor. Another interesting and different book we've been reading before bed is a chapter-type book written in the '40's with illustrations every other page, or so, to keep Kelly interested, "The Little Prince."

New Year's Bash with Cole & Beanie

Pat, Lig, Nora, and Cole jetted in from Chicago on New Years Eve to celebrate 2010 with us, meet Beckett in person, and give the big cousins 72 hours of non-stop, romping fun.



















Kelly was Nora's shadow for most of the visit. Cole, a cute high-energy little fellow, is already a ladies man at age 3. In the photo below, Cole is winking while saying, "Hey baby, Hey baby."

Rhys, the drool soaked reindeer, had a very shiny chin. And if you ever saw him you would even say he slobbered. All of the other reindeer use to laugh and call him "Raindeer".
He's cute but has had some hard days with throbbing ears and erupting teeth.

The Santa Situation and Other Holiday Nuggets

It snowed Christmas Eve and the day before, (about 8" total) giving us a perfectly timed white Christmas.

Rhys, Bella, and I geared up for a Christmas Eve day stomp in the snow - no small task. Have you tried to put mittens on a fussy 18 mo. old lately?

Our great friends the Moon's and Van Der Bosh's joined us for a Christmas Eve feast of roast beast. Our three families combined for seven boys and one little girl, sweet Lucy Moon, all age 4 or under. Let's quickly do the math....hmm, oh, yes, it equals chaos. Buzzed on Christmas candy and electrified by the pending arrival of the Fat Man, the biggest of the small ones, Kelly, Willem, and Jack, frenetically tore the house apart, somehow avoiding injury during hours of roughhousing. Cocktails were consumed by all over the age of 4, certainly an ancient parental survival mechanism.

Cast in the role of Old St. Nick for my second year with the same group of mostly nice little boys and girl, before roast beast and after a few beers to perk my jolly-old-soul, I slipped away to Grandma Mary's house and changed into my Fat Man suit. The costume is deluxe complete with white beard and wig; fur trimmed hat, coat and nickers; round spectacles; and topped off by a well placed pillow around my middle, of course. I barley recognized myself.

Sack of Christmas gifts, straight from points north in hand, I rang the doorbell and gave my best "Ho, ho, ho!" The kids had been warned of Santa's arrival and I heard squeals and the pounding of running little feet from the other side of the door. I made my big entrance, greeting eight, wee, beaming faces with another ho, ho, ho and boomed, "Merry Christmas" for good measure. As a courtesy, I greeted the mostly naughty group of half-drunk parents and began my serious business: giving the first gift of Christmas to all the good little children. Randomly, I drew out Kelly's present first. He approached me with an appraising look, not smiling, quickly snatched his gift, and retreated out of my site line, screaming and crying. I doled out my bag of goodies to the other kids, staying in character and using my best baritone Santa voice to quiz the kids on their status: naughty or nice. All the while, Kelly was still freaking out. Catherine, wide-eyed, through clenched teeth, hissed, "You need to leave now. Kelly is freaking out because you're Santa." Kelly made me! He's only three. What?

Apparently, Kelly figured out, almost immediately, I was behind the beard and flipped out not wanting me to be Santa. Catherine, after realizing that Kelly had dissected the whole Santa charade, told him that Daddy was just pretending and that the real Santa would, in fact, visit our house later and bring him presents. He finally stopped crying 45 minutes later when, in a act of parental desperation, we stuck a candy cane in his mouth.

Due to the emotional trauma suffered by myself and eldest son, I would like to officially and publicly announce my retirement as one Christopher R. Kringle.

After spending the morning opening presents, Kelly put on his new fleece jacket and sunglasses and hiked a few blocks to our little neighborhood park. The snow was too cold and light to make a snowman, so we just flung handfuls in the air and rolled round in the powder. Despite the torments on Christmas Eve, dressed in his red Christmas pj's, Kelly had a joy-filled Christmas playing gracefully with his mountains of new toys and his loving, little brother.

The photo below of Rhys with blue ink on his face was the result of Kelly's unsupervised attempt to make Rhys look like a "Kitty Cat."

Beckett played the part of Christmas elf in his festive jumpers.

Christmas Cookies

Beckett can't help it, he was just born cute.

















Kelly showing off his new gears to Dariana.
For a video of the gears turning, go to:
http://gallery.me.com/tfkdenver#gallery

Pebe reading to Kelly and Cath via recordable book. Kelly listen to his grand ma read The Night before Christmas about 16 times before bed.

Tree Topper, Tree Tropper, Tree Topper

We finally bought a fine fur tree and trimmed her with our collection of heirloom ornaments: sparkling glass balls, handmade gems from our youth, silver bells, and a traditional fat-lipped fish with a lady face. Rhys just learned to kiss, lovingly puckering his moist maw for most any occasion, even if you only ask for a hug. Unable to resist a pair of perfectly kissable lips, Rhys made out with the lady fish for a while, then we hung her high out of reach of her little lover boy.

As Doodie peered down from atop the soup, judging our actions naughty or nice, Kelly and I pretended to be Christmas Trees, balancing the Santa tree topper on our head just for the fun. I finished our trim job by placing the Santa, needlepointed with love by my mom in 1980 and bequeathed to me last Christmas, on top of our fancy, fat spruce.

We trimmed the tree last Sunday. Since then (it's now Friday) we've hosted three holiday parties at our house. Grandma Mary came in for a quick pre-Xmas visit with the boys. We planned to take her out for a nice hot meal, but ordered in Little India - too pooped to rally for a an evening out and away from Crew KRB. Catherine has been asleep on the couch before 8pm most nights this week.

Did you see the photo of Beckett? He's getting cuter and balder.

Big Christmas Box and the Tiny Tree

So, we finally mustered up a focused fifteen minutes and fished the boxes stuffed with Christmas chachkies out of the crawler. We decided not to free the dusty fake poinsettias from their clear plastic coffin, but we unboxed the musical snowball to the delight of Kelly and Rhys. Santa and his petite team of just three reindeer must have circumnavigated the glass globe at least one hundred times before the boys grew tired of watching. When the blizzard inside the orb waned to a flurry, Kelly would reminded me to turn it over by prodding, "More nieve (snow in Spanish)."

Rhys loves do anything with me, but especially if he's sitting perfectly in my lap, just so. He'll read a library of books, watch a few minutes of a ballgame, or eat really anything perched in the sweet spot of my lap. If he slips down just an inch or if I need to shift him this way or that, he can lose his marbles lickety-spit...and drool. He's a big lover and hugger. Two of his favorite books involve hugging. One picture book called Hug is about a baby chimp who needs a hug. The only word in the book is "hug" and Rhys lights up each time the word is read and leans his head toward my chest, giving me a little snuggle. At the end of the story the little lost chimp, Bobo, finds his Mommy and gets a big hug. Rhys always laughs and grins when I give him a big hug, too.



Today, Catherine took the big ones to a birthday party at Monkey Business while I stayed back at base (gladly) with Beckett. I hadn't had a day alone with him in a while. It was a joyous, relaxing few hours together. After his morning bottle and before his morning nap, I gave him a proper bath. My only regret today was not running for a camera and doing a Pebe style photo shoot. Beckett kicked, splashed, and smiled while I shampooed his thinning baby hair and de-cheesed his neck folds.

For more photos of today's adventures around the house, go here: http://gallery.me.com/tfkdenver

Did you notice the foot-long strand of drool tailing out of Rhys' mouth in the photo above?