Caring Kids and Pups

It's not that unusual for kids to be afraid of dogs, but we have a dog who is afraid of kids. Max is, and has always been, terrified of our kids. Thankfully, he mostly manages this well by simply running away from them, and he has a bed in the living room and a bed in our bedroom that are his safe places to "hide" from the kids.

Despite his fear of the kids, he still takes good care of them. A few weeks ago, the kids all came down with a stomach bug. Leon seemed to have a particularly nasty case, and he spent most of one night running to the bathroom. On the bright side, Leon is now big enough that he runs straight to the bathroom when he's not feeling well, and he doesn't come get me first. Knowing this, I slept on the couch that night, so I could run in and take care of him if I heard him get up. Unfortunately, this had been going on with the other kids for several days, and I was pretty groggy and slow moving. That didn't stop Max though. Every time Leon got up, Max ran to the bathroom and stood guard in the doorway, protecting Leon until I got there.

Last Sunday night, Max woke me up in the middle of the night. I figured he wanted to go outside because the backyard squirrel brigade was planning another uprising, or some other matter of importance to a dog at 1am. No, that wasn't it. Then (I was groggy again), I realized that Mike was having a nightmare and talking really loudly in his sleep. Max wanted me to go take care of Mike. Max waited dutifully by the boys' bedroom door while I calmed down Mike, and it was an exhausted Max that slumped back onto his bed when I left the boys' room.

My kids, both the biological children and the adopted furry children, are all pretty good at taking care of each other. I definitely saw it in the human kids this weekend. For years, Ree had no interest in her siblings, especially her little sister who steals her toys and hogs Mom and keeps her up all night. But lately, Ree has had a lot more patience for Natalia, and I've even seen them playing together. On Saturday, I took the girls to the fall festival at the big kids' school. Ree played one game just because the prize was a bracelet she already had. She wanted to win another one (which she did) to give to Natalia so they could have matching bracelets to wear.

While the girls were at the fall festival, the boys were at a birthday party at a place like Chuck E. Cheese with all sorts of games that you can play and win tickets. Leon is the luckiest kid ever. The first time he went there for a party, he won the jackpot on one of the games. Something like 500 tickets. Saturday was his second trip there, and he won another jackpot. But Leon never even considered what he wanted. He just turned to Mike and began negotiating what they would get.

Adding to Leon's crazy luck, on Sunday, the boys happened to go there AGAIN for another birthday party. We typically go to about 3 birthday parties a year, so that was kinda nuts anyway. While he was there, Leon won a 1,000 ticket jackpot on a game. The next game he went to, he scored some points, and then won another jackpot. He got good prizes to share with his brother that day!