Mama said there'd be days like this...

Yesterday afternoon one of Mama's sweet "farm dogs" went on to doggie heaven. Jeb and Sophie came to live at Mama's house when they had been rescued as fuzzy little black puppies out of a garbage dumpster by a friend of ours. His family had no way to keep them and he called to ask if Mama could take them in "just until he could find them a home." Nearly 14 years later we still joked about the fact that Joe needed to come pick up his dogs now that he had a home of his own, but secretly we knew that Mama would never give them up. They became part of the menagerie of animals that lived on "the farm" with mom and she loved them all! Mama's so sad and poor Sophie is going to be lost without him!

Jeb was a huge dog, but such a gentle giant and he will be missed greatly! (At this point you are either a "dog person" and you "get it", or you aren't' and you think we are crazy for crying over a dog. I respect either thought, but please realize that to us, dogs are members of the family). So last night I was in tears at the dinner table recounting the story of his death to Ian. Kylie wanted to know why I was upset and we told her that "Jebbers" had gotten very sick and we wouldn't get to see him anymore. She wanted to know why Grandma didn't give him some medicine and so we went on to explain that the dog doctor had come over and given him some shots, but that he had been really sick and couldn't get better.

Fast forward to today...

Yesterday afternoon Caleb was being "helped up" to touch the wind chime by Kylie when she accidentally dropped him. He caught himself with his hands and grimaced when he hit, but didn't even cry. Then I noticed him favoring his left hand and when I checked it out, there was a splinter the diameter of a toothpick that appeared to go straight into the meaty part of his thumb. I tried to get it with my fingernails and then with tweezers, but the darn thing wouldn't budge, so we waited for Ian to get home. Let's just say that after much screaming and gnashing of teeth Caleb still had a huge splinter and all four of us were crying. So we discussed that we'd have to take Caleb to the doctor to have them remove it.

Through the night I remembered that Caleb had not started his vaccines yet and most likely wasn't up on his tetanus shot. This fact was discussed at breakfast. (Can you see where I'm going with this?)

So at the doctor's office Caleb screamed his little head off while the doctor dug around in his hand to get the splinter out. Let's just say that doctors don't seem to work as tenderly when it isn't their own child... Kylie cried a little during that part just because she was sad for her brother because it obviously hurt. Then out came the needles (they decided that since he had an appointment in two weeks to get his first round of immunizations that they may as well go ahead and give them all while he was getting the tetanus). At this point Kylie totally lost her composure and I couldn't figure out why. I tried to remind her that she had gotten shots before too but that didn't get me anywhere. (And yes, there was a good bit of time to reason with her because he had to have SEVEN shots today) Suddenly I realized that she was terrified that the shots were going to go for Caleb the way Jeb's had gone for him. She was afraid that her brother was going to get very, very sick and go to heaven. My heart broke for both of my kids at that moment ~ for Caleb because he was in pain and confused as to why I'd let this happen to him, and for Kylie because she was so worried about her baby brother.

I'll take a bit less drama for tomorrow...