Day: January 6, 2009

Charlie is was our family pet, a fish.  Ruby got him for her 3rd birthday.  While the idea seemed neat at the start, Charlie quickly was neglected.  I mean, I had a 3 year old, a 2 year old, and a 2 month old at the time of welcoming Charlie into our family, so I don’t know what I expected.  Quickly, his bowl was disgustingly dirty.  He randomly got fed.  He hardly ever got talked to.  I made several concerted efforts to pay him more attention and clean his bowl and feed him regularly.  I was starting to become fond of Charlie.  Ruby, on the other hand, hardly even knew he was here and never fed him or talked to him.  She even had the audacity to up and change his name to Dorothy because that is Elmo’s fish’s name.  

HOWEVER, upon our return home from Albany, I went to check on Charlie and found that our cleaning lady, Mrs. Lee, had graciously cleaned his bowl.  It was in bad shape, but I didn’t want to clean it before we left because he could eat off the gross stuff all in the bowl.  She thought she was doing a favor, but in reality she killed Charlie.  He is supposed to have these drops in his bowl if you change the water, and she didn’t do that.  I was a little sad at first, but then realized it is all for the better.  I figured the kids would not even notice.  I stuck his bowl out in the back yard until we figured out what to do.  Well, today Ruby saw the bowl and wanted to know why Charlie was outside.  I explained the situation, and you would have thought she actually cared for this fish!  She cried and cried and wanted to know why Mrs. Lee didn’t put in the drops.  I comforted her for a while, and we talked through it all several times.  

Josh got home, and Ruby brought it up again. Ruby told Josh that she didn’t want another fish, but she wanted Charlie back.  He encouraged her to be grateful for the 18 months she had with Charlie,  then I heard him say that it is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.  It was hilarious. Josh thought we should have a parade and then a funeral to honor Charlie…then flush him down the toilet.  Ruby was very offended at the thought and didn’t want Charlie to go down the toilet.  She kept crying out, “I miss Charlie…I’m really gonna miss Charlie, mom.”  I asked her what she would miss about him, and she looked at me with big tears and said, very seriously, “He was a good fish!”   

I just wish Charlie had known while he was alive how much Ruby loved him.

We wrapped up our Christmas celebration this past weekend in Albany.  And what fun it was!  We didn’t do much (lots of talking, reading, and eating), which is why it was so nice.  I told Josh that I like the road trips now simply because I have to sit down—and I don’t see any toys that need to be put away, there is no laundry to do, no food to cook, etc.  It was nice to sit and ride.  

Of course there were some funny stories…like Molly and the golf cart ride.  She came in from a golf cart ride with PawPaw crying and holding her arm.  No one else that was with them seemed too concerned.  Molly, however, told me, “I fell off the golf cart and Paw Paw ran over me.”  “What? Molly, where did PawPaw run over you?,”  I asked.  “On my arm!!!! See???,” she whined.  “So, you fell off the golf cart and PawPaw ran over your arm?,” I asked, skeptically.  “Yeeeesss….,” she continued to cry.  “You mean the tire went over your arm?”  “Yes,” she once more said.   Well, of course that didn’t happen.  She is quite dramatic.  And her daddy came in to help her and offered her a cookie.  He asked her about halfway through the cookie if she felt better (using food to heal her emotional distress…she’ll blame us later in life if she struggles with her weight, I am sure).  Her response to Josh was, “After this cookie, a popsicle will help me feel better.”  Oh my goodness.

Ruby played so well the whole time.  She just enters into her imaginary land, playing with her new Tinkerbelle fairies and ponies.   She also has a very “grown-up” side to her.  She was playing with Mack, and he ended up crying or something, so Josh told her to stop it and calm down.  She turns around to go the opposite way from Mack and looks at Josh and says, “It’s just a joke, Dad.”  (As if to say, lighten up—good grief!)

Mack kept everyone laughing with his funny little self.  He enters a room and can immediately figure out who is not there and then asks for them a million times or until they enter the room again.  Genius baby.  I will post pictures later of him “wrestling” with Molly.  She is so patient with him as he rolls all over her and even sits on her head.

This morning we had Molly stay with us during church because she wasn’t feeling well.  She ended up making her way to Mrs. Mary, our sweet friend who is so patient and kind to Molly (and all my kids).  She got to try some tic-tacs while sitting with Mrs.Mary.  Later that day at lunch I was telling Molly how great she did today in church.  Her face lit up at the compliment, then she said, “And then you let me go sit with Mrs. Mary, and we had tic-tac-toes.”  It was so cute.

Another great part of the weekend was a little book that Gran brought to read to the girls so that they could act it out with all of her hats.  She had a hat rack up with hats all over them, so that the kids could wear them if they wanted to match Gran.  Deb looked great in all of them.  Anyway, the book was called CAPS FOR SALE.  There is a man who is walking around wearing five hats and hollering out, “Caps for sale!” No one buys any, so he decides to take a rest under a tree, only to wake up and find that all of his hats but one are gone….and to top it off, monkeys up in a tree have stolen them and are wearing them.  The man tries to tell them to give them back, but they just mimic him, which makes him mad.  After a few episodes of this, he throws his hat to the ground.  The monkeys do the same, and the man is happy as he goes on his merry way selling his hats.