galentine gang

This poem was sent to me via email and it speaks so loudly the exact way I felt about each of my dogs that I have had to put to sleep in the past 3 years.  Katie was first on July 18, 2005.  Morgan was next on August 30, 2008.  Last was Maggie on January 9, 2009. 

You're giving me a special gift,
So sorrowfully endowed,
And through these last few cherished days,
Your courage makes me proud.

But really, love is knowing
When your best friend is in pain,
And understanding earthly acts
Will only be in vain.

So looking deep into your eyes,
Beyond, into your soul,
I see in you the magic that will
Once more make me whole.

The strength that you possess,
Is why I look to you today,
To do this thing that must be done,
For it's the only way.

That strength is why I've followed you,
And chose you as my friend,
And why I've loved you all these years...
My partner till the end.

Please, understand just what this gift
You're giving, means to me,
It gives me back the strength I've lost,
And all my dignity.

You take a stand on my behalf,
For that is what friends do.
And know that what you do is right,
For I believe it, too.

So one last time, I breathe your scent,
And through your hand I feel,
The courage that's within you,
To grant me this appeal.

Cut the leash that holds me here,
Dear friend, and let me run,
Once more a strong and steady dog,
My pain and struggle done.

And don't despair my passing,
For I won't be far away,
Forever here, within your heart,
And memory I'll stay.

I'll be there watching over you,
Your ever-faithful friend,
And in your memories I'll run,
... a young dog once again.

Both the kids are playing basketball this season.  They love it.  Of course, much like Ethan's favorite part of baseball was playing in the dugout, his favorite part of basketball is riding the bench!  One time there were only 5 players (the rest of the team was absent) so he had to play the whole game and he would literally come to me during the game and say "I'm tired Mommy!  When will it be my turn to sit down??"  Ha! There's a little boy on the other team (they play the same team each week) that was on his baseball team and is in his kindergarten class.  His name is Elik.  Now, you have to understand that every single solitary time that Ethan gets his hand on the ball, he always passes.  Never dribbles and shoots.  So we are always trying to get him to shoot, shoot, shoot!  So in the game this past weekend, Ethan got the ball and immediately starts looking for someone to pass to.  There are several kids from his team screaming "I'm open Ethan!  Give it to me Ethan!!" but what does Ethan do?  He passes it to a big crowd of kids, most of whom are on the other team.  Scott and I from the sideline said "Ethan!  What are you doing?" and he said "I was trying to pass it to Elik!" and I said "Buddy, he's not on your team" and Ethan turned to us and said "But he's my friend!"  So there you have it.  It's extremely obvious that Ethan does not have an inherant competative streak....but he loves playing with his friends!  So I think we're good.

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I got Maggie when I was only 19 years old.  I can hardly remember being that young!  She was my first baby.  My boyfriend at the time got her for me and she was the last one from her litter.  She had some big ears and wall eyes but I thought she was precious!  She lived with me and my roommates in our first college apartment...where there was a no pets rule. We had to take Maggie outside in the early morning and late at night in a laundry bag.  She was a trooper!  At our second apartment I used to let her out to run free around the complex (which was so dumb looking back) and she would always come back with some random food item that she scavenged out of the dumpster.  Maggie would go NUTS for a tennis ball. She would get this wild-eyed look and nothing could distract her.  She was also a cuddler, she would curl up as tight as she could in your lap and snore.  Maggie lived 14 and a half years and I loved every single minute of it.  She was very arthritic and in pain at the end of her life but she never lost her spunk.  She still came to the table every night for dinner and would eat anything you gave her.  She lived on our futon at the end and I still come into the room and expect to see her snoozing in her green blanket.  Her "sisters" she grew up with, Morgan and Katie, have gone before her and I can only imagine the reunion they had in Heaven.  Lots of tennis ball chasing and swimming.  I loved her so much.  And she is missed.

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Yesterday was the day for class Christmas parties!  Fun, fun!  Ethan's class had a breakfast full of donuts with a bit of fruit thrown in and Grace had a "formal" brunch.  The 3rd grade had been learning about manners and etiquette all week and the brunch was their chance to practice what they'd learned.  They got to dress in their holiday finest and sit at a long table (aka a bunch of desks shoved together with a paper tablecloth....or maybe it was real.  Can't recall.) and eat their bruch.  After Ethan's class was done eating their breakfast, his teacher read us all 'Twas the Night Before Christmas.  Today is pajama day at school and they get to drink hot chocolate and watch The Polar Express.  What a magical time for kids!  Although I think I get more excited about Christmas now then I did when I was a child.  The kids and I made a gingerbread house last night--1st one I've ever done.  We decided we'd make it a tradition, the kids had a great time.  Of course, as you can see from the picture, they did more icing-eating than decorating.  And we have had to stick it in the microwave to protect it from the garbage disposal known as Tess.  She ate FOURTEEN cookies off the bar the other night while they were cooling.  It's always exciting at the Galentines!!  But we sure have fun!

Ethan

Grace (2)

Gingerbread house

Anyone who has a kid between 5 and 15 will know what a "GNO" is....a girls night out according to the Hannah Montana song!  Last night Grace and I had a GNO, or at least we tried to.  The plan was for all 4 of us to go out to eat but I got home from the store after 5:00 and it was too late to attempt it at that point (Ethan was, as usual, very whiney and needed to be in bed early).  So I was irritated and Scott said "why don't you and Grace go?"  Great idea!  It had actually never crossed my mind.  I was craving Olive Garden and Grace loves their virgin strawberry daquiris so it was a perfect plan.  Except that it was a Saturday night at the height of Christmas shopping season and there wasn't even a parking place.  Scott asked if I went in to see how long the wait was....there literally WASN'T a parking space so I couldn't even go in and ask.  So I thought fast and figured the one place there wouldn't be a long wait was Cracker Barrel!  And I was right!  So Grace and I headed to C.B. and had dinner and finished it with a frozen mug caramel sundae for me and hot fudge for her.  It was wonderful.  And the best part?  Singing at the top of our lungs the whole car ride to the entire soundtrack of High School Musical 3 and Taylor Swift!  We divided the HSM soundtrack into parts...I got stuck singing the boys' parts everytime, but luckily, I knew them all!!  (I might be the only 33 year old who actually knows every single word to all 3 HSM movie soundtracks!)  On the way home we had made it all the way through the 12 songs on HSM so we switched to Taylor Swift.  There's something that warms a momma's heart about hearing her 8 year old belt out "...so tell your friends that I'm obsessive and crazy, that's fine, I'll tell mine that you're gay!  And by the way...." Gotta love country music.  Of course, it's not the best thing when your child is trying to pick a song to sing in the talent show.  "Mommy, how 'bout 'Before He Cheats'?"  Ummmm, no.  "What about 'Picture to Burn?'" (here are some of those words:  "I hate that stupid old pick-up truck you never let me drive, you're a redneck heartbreak who's really bad at lying, so watch me strike a match on all our wasted time, as far as I'm concerned you're just another picture to burn!!"  Not exactly talent show material.  Ha!!!  One thing is for sure--the apple doesn't fall far from the tree!  She loves to sing loud to the radio in the car!!  I was driving with her last night and thinking about how fun it's going to be when she's a teenager!  I hope she still wants a GNO with her mommy then!

Grace and Tess close up pic

Us crazy Galentines.  We have this "thing" that makes it impossible for us to live without 4 dogs in our home at all times.  I don't know what it is.  My friends warn me each time I entertain the idea of getting another one.  "Just have a baby and be done with it!" some of them say.  But the doggie bug and the baby bug are different.  I thought a puppy would be much easier than a baby.  I was wrong.

I have to have quiet and dark to sleep.  It's just a fact.  And I have to have sleep to function.  LOTS of uninterrupted sleep.  Well, we adopted Tess, a 6-monthish old yellow lab from Atlanta Lab Rescue the Monday before Thanksgiving.  She is too too sweet. She is also too too cross-eyed which drives me a bit bonkers.  But that's neither here nor there.  The first night we had her we put her in her "box" (crate) to sleep.  About 90 seconds later came the whines, cries, barks, etc.  So we let her out  (under the pretense that she would wake the children, really she was going to prevent me from sleeping!!) and she came in our room.  She hopped right up onto the bed and slept there all night without moving.  Oh, how sweet, right?  Wrong.

So it's been about 2 and a half weeks of Tess sleeping on my feet.  I'm over it. I guess I should interject that we also have a 14 year old Boston Terrier, Maggie, who sleeps (well, LIVES) on our futon in our sitting room.  She's old and crotchety, and she's also deaf and half blind, so there's no kicking her out.  I've tried.  I move her ever so gently to the couch complete with her blanket and she is scratching and crying at our door 5 minutes later.  So that's pointless.  Maggie has a major snoring problem and I used to be able to just holler her name and she'd quit.  But now she's deaf so I have to actually get up and shake her and get her to change positions at least 5 times a night.  Add a big lab sleeping on your feet and it equals no sleep.  UGH. 

We also have 2 other Bostons, Mia and Olivia, who race and chase and trip me and crash into my shins while they're traveling approx. 30 miles an hour.  Mia and Olivia are also scared of the rain.  They won't go out to potty while it's raining.  It's been raining for 2 days.  They are peeing on my floor.  Tess isn't potty trained.  She is peeing on my floor.  Maggie has doggie dementia and from about 4-7pm every night barks INCESSANTLY (as anyone who talks to me on the phone regularly knows) and.....pees on my floor. 

So here's my final thought:  Maybe I should have taken my friend's advice and just had more babies....

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               Here's Tess on the $50 dog bed she won't use

Maggie picture

                                   Here's 14-year old Maggie 

Mia card

Here's Mia, or "BFM" (Big Fat Mia) as she's better known...

Olivia card

                    Last but not least, Olivia.  She causes the least amt. of problems I think.                                           

As I was putting Ethan to bed tonight, I was just about out of the room when he once again figured out a way to stall.  He said "Mommy, can I tell you something?"  I said "yes" (thinking "please hurry so I can get out of these germ-filled scrubs and into the tub).  Here's how it went down:

Ethan: We made a star of David today at school

(a star of David?  Let it go and say 'oh, that's nice')

Me:  What's a star of David?

Ethan:  An ornament.

Me:  Yes, but what IS a Star of David?

Ethan:  It's what they use at Hanukah.

(Do I really want to have this conversation now?  Guess so....)

Me:  Oh.....what's Hanukah?

Ethan:  It's where they light the 8 candles, remember?  We're going to every kindergarten classroom to learn about Christmas around the world.

(funny how I imagine they will not be making crosses when they learn about Christmas, but rather Santa or a Christmas tree....but whatever.  That's a losing battle.)

Me:  Well Ethan, there is only one Christmas no matter where you are in the world.  You're learning about HOLIDAYS around the world.  Christmas is when Jesus was born, so Hanukah isn't Christmas.  Does that make sense?

Ethan:  Well then what's Hanukah?

(well, here we go.  How long is this going to take to explain?)

Me:  Hanukah is the holiday that Jewish people celebrate at this time of year instead of Christmas

(can you guess where this is going?)

Ethan:  What's Jewish?

(I should have taken a religion class in college or something, I'm not an expert on the Jewish faith!)

Me:  Jewish is a religion where the people don't believe that Jesus is the Son of God.  They believe He was a person and He was alive, but they don't think He was God's son.

(I think that was simple and to-the-point.  Good job, me!)

Ethan:  Ooooooh.  So Jewish people are going to Hell?

(HOLY CRAP!!  What do I say to THAT????  Think, think, think.....)

Me:  uh, well, um, no, not necessarily.  I'm not really sure Ethan, you know Jesus was Jewish. (and that will be easy for a 5-year-old to understand). 

Ethan:  HUH?

Me: It doesn't matter, Ethan.  What matters is that if you believe in Jesus then you will go to Heaven.  We don't need to worry about Hell.

Ethan:  Mom?

Me:  What? (PLEASE no more hard questions!!)

Ethan:  Remember that one time when we had frozen rain called hell?

Me:  Ethan, that was HAIL.

(well, I guess I didn't scar him too much.  It amazes me how kids' brains can move from one subject to another so quickly.  I guess that's good for us moms who don't know how to answer the tough questions in lilfe!!)

Kids b-ball

Here's a cute picture of the kiddos before their 1st basketball game last weekend!  Unrelated, but cute nonetheless! 

So Thanksgiving has come and gone and now we're in the Christmas spirit.  Just wanted to take time to reflect on all of the things I personally have to be thankful for:

1.  Jesus who gives me eternal life even though I might not always deserve it

2.  Scott, who puts up with me even though I might not always deserve it (hee hee)

3.  Grace and Ethan, who I knew I would love before they were born, but didn't have an inkling how much

4.  My family, especially my mom, who wouldn't skip a beat if I asked her to dive off a cliff for me or my kids

5.  My old friends who have been with me through all of the ups and downs life has to offer

6.  My new friends who hopefully will be with me through all of the ups and downs to come

7.  My job, which I sometimes wish I didn't have, but that I also realize some people would give anything to have

8.  My puppies!  They offer such a source of unconditional love and bring my family so much joy

There are many more "things" I am thankful for (Grey's Anatomy, the PHONE, facebook, ice cream....) but without even one of the above listed, my life would be much the poorer.

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can't post an entry without a picture!  ha!!  Here are 3 of the silliest things I am thankful for!

I have great kids!!  And luckily, they have the whole "Jeckyll and Hyde" thing downpat.  At home, they might be fussing and fighting the majority of their wake time, but at school--angels.  Ha!  In September their school announced it's first ever (brand new school, just opened this year) students-of-the-month.  There is one picked from each classroom (I think?).  Grace was picked from her class!  I was so proud and she.....forgot to mention it.  I found out through the 3rd grade newsletter.  Today I was at their school to attend Ethan's "Thanksgiving feast" and as I waltz through the front doors, I notice a bulletin board that says "Students of the month rock!" (sidenote--their school is called ROCK Spring Elementary and everything there "rocks").  I quickly scanned the board to see if maybe Grace's picture was up there, but instead I found Ethan!  Last week they picked their second students of the month, and this time Ethan was picked!!  Again....he forgot to tell us.  So my 2 kids were in the first 2 batches of great kids recognized at their school.  I am proud beyond words.  Now if only I could make them think I was secretely videotaping them at home to show their teachers.....then maybe I would get to witness some of this excellent behavior!!

Kid with their certificates