Howls and Halloween

Let me start off with the sad news from our week.  We had to put our "number one" dog, as we called him, down last Friday.  Winston Bounding Mayne was exactly 9 years and 10 months old to the day and though that's a little less than average life span for a pug, he had a very good life.  He was my Valentine's Day present to Seth on our first Valentine's Day, and he's the first "baby" we had together, and he's really the first reason that people think of Seth and me as the "pug people", so I think losing him has been more of a blow than it would have if it had been any of the other dogs.  We know it was for the best.  He wasn't feeling well and had stopped wanting to go outside or play, so it didn't seem fair to keep making him suffer, but it broke my heart when he got so very, very excited to go in the car when we were taking him to the vet.  Backstory, for those who don't know, is that Winston has a particular kind of skin cancer that never metastasizes to the organs but will continue to produce painful tumors all over the body, and these tumors can grow at a very rapid rate.  About 3 months ago he developed one on his left shoulder joint and in the course of three months the thing grew to be the size of a large apple.  The only option was surgery, but even then the vet wasn't sure he could get it all and suspected that any of the other 20 or so tumors that Winston had in other places would go the same way soon.  Plus Winston didn't recover well from the last surgery we put him through two years ago, so we decided that it was for the best to let him live for however long he could live comfortably.

The point of this blog is to be about Evie, so I won't keep dwelling on Winston, but simply add that even Evie knows something is off about the number of dogs we have.  Winston had started lagging behind the others when Evie and I would let them out in the morning.  The other three would be all the way down the stairs while we were walking down, and Evie would always look up to the top of the stairs, and there would be Winston, still trying to get up the energy to come down.  On Saturday morning it about broke my heart when she looked up the stairs to try to find him.

Anyway, enough sad stuff, let's talk about the good stuff.  I have so many fun and funny things from this week I'm not sure where to begin!  Let's stay on the dog theme.  One morning before leaving for daycare I was doing my usual balancing act of trying to feed Evie breakfast, let the dogs out, and get myself ready.  It was raining a little bit so the dogs weren't very patient about being outside so I let them in but didn't march them upstairs immediately because I was still doing things in the kitchen.  Evie took that opportunity to pitch them some Cheerios and she laughed and laughed, watching them try to catch them or scurry around after them.

Her love for animals is pretty apparent.  She has become fascinated by the picture of fish we have in the bathroom.  She always wants to look at the picture of Noah's ark on her wall, which was painted by her great-great-aunt Donna, and point to the animals while I name them for her.  She now knows that cows go "wooooo" and she picked up a new one this week: the elephant sound, complete with trunk motion.  She's catching on so quickly!

She saw lots of animals up close and in person this past Saturday at the farm in Smyrna where they had a pumpkin patch, corn maze, and lots of other activities for the kids.

 

Evie and the wooooooo

 

This is not the best picture of her, but I love how it shows off her hazel eyes.

And I LOVE her hair!

Evie's gotten very good at imitating things that we do.  We had some dip at a restaurant one time this week and Evie watched us dipping our bread in it.  She immediately pointed and moved her piece of bread close to the dip, so we let her dip away.  She continued to dip, even with her puffs, yogurt bites, beans, and chicken.  She also likes imitating anything to do with putting on or taking off shoes.

 

Here she is, wearing my shoe.

 And then trying to put my foot into my shoe.

She also must see a lot of sweeping at daycare...  Either that or shuffleboard...

I love how verbal she is getting and how well she is comprehending new words.  She can identify her foot, teeth, nose, and head and can even find these on someone else and her doll.  She understands toothbrush, and the concept of brushing teeth and washing hands, and loves to use the word more for everything!  I got some video of her asking for more water during bathtime.

Of course, tonight is Halloween so I waited a bit longer than usual to post this entry so that I could include a picture of her in her costume.  We didn't do trick-or-treating since she's not old enough to eat candy or understand what's happening, but we still liked dressing her up.  She's a panda, from China of course, complete with authentic Chinese garb (thanks, Addie!).

  Look at those perfect curls!

 Pandattitude.

One of my sweet stories from this week is from when we were at a restaurant.  It was the day we put Winston down and Seth and I were both really glum, to say the least.  We sat through most of the meal in silence because, really, what do you say after losing one of your best friends of ten years?  I had my hand on the edge of the table in between feeding Evie bites of food.  She leaned her cheek on the back of my hand, put her hand on my arm, and started patting, as if to console me.  She is such a sweet baby.