Bring on the Sugar!

Cubby got off the bus yesterday with a small bag that had been presented to him by his bus driver. It had a picture of a grinning jack-o-lantern on it, and the innocent child thought it was filled with balloons or something.

Isn't it nice he's gotten to five years old without understanding the true candy-fueled nature of Halloween?

He was delighted to discover it held candy, which he of course wanted to eat. I let him and Charlie pick out one piece each to eat before dinner, and then dumped the rest into the bowl I dubbed "the Halloween bowl*." I decreed they can each pick one piece for dessert after dinner.

I am the most un-fun mom ever, yes.

Both Cubby and Charlie are going trick-or-treating in the village with their schools today, which means more candy for the Halloween bowl. Cubby has not yet come home with the wondrous news that you can go trick-or-treating on the actual day of Halloween and get bags full of candy, but he'll eventually learn that at school. Because it's not just botany he learns there.

So we'll see if he insists on trick-or-treating on Saturday. If he doesn't, I'm not going to suggest it. We have plenty of years for that in the future. And anyway, I'm sure he's going to be flying high as a sugar kite when he gets off the bus today, so the traditional Halloween sugar gorging will not be denied him. Along with the traditional Halloween sugar crash.

Should be a fun afternoon.

* This bowl, actually. We probably have the classiest Halloween bowl in the country. Thanks, Dad!

Leashed

I'm on day four of Mia's convalescence, and I can already tell you that if I had to live somewhere where a dog could only be leashed and walked by me to go to the bathroom, I would not have a dog. What a drag, man.

She's getting better about being a leash dog. When I first started taking her out, she would just wander around aimlessly, stopping to stand around and sniff the air, maybe just flop down on the grass. Basically, acting as she usually does when she's outside, because she is never outside on a leash. 

Thankfully, she's slowly gotten the idea that when she's out on that leash, she is out there to relieve herself. So now when we go out, she's pretty quick to sniff around, find her spot, and get the intended activity over with so we can go back inside. 

Even so, whenever I can get A. to do it for me, it's like a great gift has been given to me. Because wrapping up a dog's food in plastic and walking her on a leash multiple times a day is not really something I felt was missing from my life. Especially when I have to figure out what to do with a crawling infant while I'm wandering around with a leashed dog. Or when I'm walking the dog on one end of the leash and Charlie on the other end of it, because he wants to "help."

Anyway.

I take her to the vet tomorrow to get the bandage changed. I am not at all hopeful that the bandage will be left off, which means at least a few more days of the leash. But eventually, she'll be let loose to get her foot as wet as she wants and wander aimlessly once again.

Freedom will taste sweet indeed. For both of us.

Caring for the Wounded

I took Mia to the vet yesterday morning. She needed some vaccinations anyway, and I didn't like the look of the toe that the raccoon got a hold of.

Good thing I took her, because her toe was nearly severed. Not that you could tell from her behavior. Collies are ridiculously stoic dogs, and Mia is even more stoic than the average collie. So she was just walking around with her toe almost off, like, "Whatever. It's just a scratch." She even tried to go back under the porch after A. shot the raccoon, to make sure it was dead, I guess.

Brave, or kind of stupid? Maybe both.

Anyway, I had to leave her at the vet's office so the vet could sew her toe back together. I went to pick her up at 4:30 yesterday afternoon and she was in a very pleasant drug stupor and had a stylish orange camo-patterned bandage on her foot.

It's her Halloween costume. She's going as a wounded raccoon assassin.

So now I have a week of wrapping her foot in a plastic bag and taking her out on a leash several times a day for potty breaks. A serious pain in the ass, but a dog so brave deserves some care. Maybe even a medal. Though I think she would prefer a steak bone. I could probably manage that.