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Mommy: “Sam, tell Daddy what we got for snack today.”
Sam: “We got fruit snacks and dog piss!”
Daddy: “Fruit snacks and dog piss?!”
Sam: “Ugh. Ben, tell Daddy what I said.”
Ben: “Fruit snacks and gold fish!”
Sam: “Yeah. Dog piss!”

Click to get the full size images. They’ll work for printing 5×7s or whatever.

This is what too much of it looks like.

This is the start of my favorite time of the year… For the next five months I get to be married to an older woman. Hot.

Happy birthday, sweety!

The boys and I played Pictionary tonight. Let’s see how many you can guess. Mouse-over for the answers.

Ben went first:

Then Sam:

Ben:

Sam:

Ben:

Sam:

Ben:

And finally, Sam:

It has been almost a year since I’ve visited you. I likely wouldn’t have come back at all except I just had to renew your domain. I just couldn’t let it lapse. You’ve meant too much to me to just let you fade into Internet oblivion. You served me well as a conduit to my friends and family. You also were there whenever I needed to vent or just wanted to get a quick quip out of my brain.

The former has been supplanted by Facebook. Heather’s regular status updates are far easier and reach far more people than we ever could. Alas, there was never an app that made posting to you as easy as she can do now. But the latter reason I’ve never surrendered. I’ve written a hundred posts in my head, on the drive home, in the moments before I fell asleep, and anytime I was working some task that required more dexterity than consciousness.

A lot has happened in the last year. How the boys have grown. They’ve grown bigger, yes, but their personalities have exploded, forming their own little selves in spite of my efforts. The more they grow the more I see that they are themselves, and the best I can do is show them how to deal with that.

We’re getting close to the Christmas holiday and to our annual winter sojourn back east. I miss everyone back there more than I can tell them. Life out here keeps us busy, but in my mind I’m always orienting myself to the east. I still consider that home, I guess. I’m not sure if that’s something I’ll outgrow or if it is something I even want to.

We put the dogs to sleep this year. I have never had to do something so terrible. I wasn’t there when Heather had to put Hannah to sleep. I couldn’t have imagined the anguish Heather endured and the strength it took for her to do it alone. It seemed I couldn’t even fully internalize that Hannah was gone for a long time. For weeks I still saw her everywhere, a faint motion out of the corner of my eye, a lump of a blanket in a dimly lit corner. I didn’t get to say good-bye. I regret not being there to help her and Heather through it.

But what I will never be able to forgive myself is what I did to Abby. I still don’t know how I talked myself into it. She was not that sick. Certainly nothing she had to die for. She was having a good day, when we took her for that car ride. She seemed so happy, glad to be out and about again. She panted merrily as Ben held her leash in the back seat of the Pacifica. She jaunted happily into the office and followed obediently into the little back room with the blanket laid out on the floor. We all sat around her, and as they pushed that pink fluid into her little leg, I will never forget the last look she gave me. I tried to keep the tears in as I held her head in my lap. I pressed my mouth to her ear and her body went limp in my hands.

I regretted it instantly. And I hated myself. No matter how much I had convinced myself before-hand that it was the right thing to do, I couldn’t justify it now. I still can’t. I can’t think of one even slightly rational explanation I could have given Abby in those last seconds as she stared up at me to make her understand that I had decided it was her time to die.

One would hope that in those waning moments you would get that intelligent look of understanding, the “It’s okay. I know you love me and you’re doing what’s best.” Instead what I got was, “When we get done here can we take another ride in the car?”

I was a mess that night. I strained every muscle in my face to make it through dinner without breaking down, and as Heather took the boys upstairs for their baths I glanced down at the kitchen floor. I saw crumbs.

Never in the last 13 years had there been a single crumb on any floor in our house. Nor on any chair, or even on a table edge if we turned our backs. And now there they were, tiny reminders that there was something missing that had been so much a part of our lives.

Abby’s pet bed lay nearby. I gathered myself, and resolving that there was no use delaying the inevitable I pulled a trash bag from under the kitchen sink. I dropped to my knees beside the bed and grabbed the pillow in both fists. Without thinking I pulled it to my face and breathed in the last bit of her that remained. The familiar smell filled me up and instantly left me empty. I knelt there, sobbing for minutes, before I could stifle the tears long enough to stuff the bed into the plastic bag, tie it tightly and hurry it out to the trash bin. What I really wanted to do was hold that bed forever, to have that little piece of her whenever I wanted.

I later managed to seal her stuffed animals in a small plastic bag and tuck it away in my nightstand. I haven’t had the stomache to open that drawer since.

The girls were always the first to greet me when I came home. They were never too tired, too busy to say hello. How many times I ignored them or, worse, shunned them. “Go lay down. Git.” What I would give to have them under foot again.

Our journey together is done. I don’t know if having the blog then would have helped at all, but I’ve written this post many times over in my head. I don’t care if anyone ever reads it, but I think that finally getting it out may help.

I’m not going to make any promises, old friend, that I’ll be back any time soon to chat again. I’ve always liked the idea that I was contributing original and meaningful content to this Internet thing. And as therapy there is none better. We’ll see how things go. But as I said, I couldn’t say good-bye just yet.

For anyone who hasn’t seen it on Facebook >:(

In the gallery. Apologies for the delay and for anyone depicted negatively in the photos (almost everyone over the age of 5).

Very tired…. Ttyl.