Family Fuller

It’s with a heavy heart that I report that Sevi is no longer with us. Over the past few weeks her condition drastically worsened; the weakness in her rear leg led to further weakness in one of her front legs, and for the past week or so every time getting up off the floor/ground (which wasn’t often) was a heart-wrenching ordeal. Combined with the fact that her breathing became very labored, Jess and I knew that it was time.

I can’t adequately describe how hard it was to come to that decision, but in our hearts we know it was the right one. She hadn’t been herself for some time, and after almost 13 years with her I could tell she was getting no joy out of life at this point.

I feel unequal to the task of describing how special she was.

I can’t think of anyone who likes dogs who didn’t fall in love with Sevi. She even made dog lovers out of some non-dog people (and probably contributed to a few people getting dogs who might not have otherwise). It feels like just a short while ago that I brought her home from the pound in Chapel Hill – hard to believe she came into my life when I was 22. While I know she lost some of her star status once the kids came along, I believe she had a good, fulfilling life.

From the email my Mom sent me this evening: “We will always miss her, but in my mind’s eye is a picture of her on the front porch at Block Island–so graciously in her element, gazing out over the front lawn.” Thanks so much for that Mom, it sums up so much about her.

We’ll always love you Sevi girl – we’re sure you’re chasing squirrels (and catching them) wherever you are.

As Chuck said we are still here – but very busy. I am usually pretty organized but I am having a hard time keeping track of all the things going on. We still have a lot of stuff in boxes, no pictures or decorating of any kind, a whole bunch of toys on the front porch – needless to say the house is looking a little trashy. Meanwhile, we had visitors in town over the weekend (my good college friends Emily and Tracy) and preschool has been keeping me busy, not to mention it is Halloween on Wed and we don’t have any costumes. Colin has been changing his mind between a penguin and a pirate, with astronaut thrown in a time or two. I think I am going with penguin since he says that most often.

These pictures are from Golden Gardens, just about a mile or less from our house. Tuesday it was sunny and 70 so we went to the beach. We also went back today with daddy – not quite as nice today, but still a good time.

Not sure what I have blogged about recently but preschool has been going absolutely great. Last week Colin actually turned the TV off and told me it was time to go to school. When we got there he said “hug and a kiss. OK, go now mom” – I love it. He is making some friends and having a great time. Plus being able to walk over there has been really convenient. Overall Colin’s behavior has really improved since we got a bit settled and I started a little sticker chart for him, so now he more agreeable to say, getting dressed.

Holden is on the move. He still army crawls but he is fast – and yesterday he pulled up on the train table. He doesn’t want to be held anymore. He wants to be down on the floor with you next to him so he can practice standing. I haven’t heard Mama as much, but tonight he said Dada quite a few times.

Over the weekend while our friends were in town, Colin also got another ear infection. This time while eating lunch he just mentioned that his ear hurt. I took him to the dr and she said he had another one. It doesn’t surprise me because we have pretty much all had colds since he started preschool. He seemed to be handling it pretty well.

Colin was absolultely loving it when we had people over to watch the game on Saturday. He is a party boy and was singing and entertaining everyone all day long – it was hilarious. At one point he was playing preschool and sang the “hello” song around the room. Right now he isn’t so sure who is who with the Colleen, Ian and Liam crew so he sang “Hello Holden, Hello Mommy, Hello Daddy, Hello (mumble, mumble, mumble), Hello Tracy, etc… – it was so funny because he just kept in stride like when an adult forgets the words to a song.

On a sad note, Sevi doesn’t seem to be doing very well. She had trouble walking over the weekend. It comes and goes, but it looks bad when it hurts – she just kind of fell over. She also hasn’t wanted to eat as much. We took her to the vet, and the blood work checked out fine, but she just isn’t herself. We are willing her to be OK, but she is getting up there – 12 and a half and has cancer so it isn’t looking good.

I am sure I have a ton more to write, but I am beat and Chuck and I need to watch the last episode of Rome. I will try to write again soon, but until we are more settled it’s going to be hard.

I am working on organizing all our digital photos (in my spare time) and wanted to post a few recent pics. Above is one of the first decent ones I have of me, Colin and Holden – up until this point I don’t think I had actually blow dried my hair since Holden was born.

Here is my chubby little boy – Holden just keeps packing them on and looking cute. He is sleeping better now that we have started swaddling him again – and he will sleep by himself, instead of on top of us – yeah!

Colin and his pajamas are a constant battle – in the morning he refuses to take them off and before bed he refuses to put them on. Lately he has discovered that he can take his pants off for nap time, so today after lunch he said “OK, time to go upstairs and take my pants off”

Of course, last but not least, our poor pup Sevi. She is doing great, cancer and all. She hasn’t changed much at all since we found out she had a tumor last summer. She jumps around like a puppy, but then pays for it later. She does seem a bit more stiff, but she is 12 years old now. From the look of the picture of her below I think she would vote for no more kids for our family…this picture was taken right after Colin crawled over her to turn on the Curious George soundtrack for the 100th time.

Not to jinx anything, but Sevi seems to be dealing with things very well thus far. No outward signs of anything wrong, and to date I haven’t noticed any changes in the lump on her foot. She’s just as anxious as ever to be outside in the yard, eats regularly, and hasn’t lost any weight. So fingers are still crossed, and we’re being even nicer to her than we usually were (and trying to remember that we have two kids already, and she needs plenty of attention when we can spare it).

The picture is older, from April I believe, but I don’t think we’d thrown it up here before, and as we head into the winter months it’s good to remember that spring is actually out there on the horizon.

This would be one of those days.

I took Sevi to the vet with Colin over the weekend for her yearly vaccinations, and asked them to take a look at a lump that had formed on her left hind foot. The vet took a quick look at the sample while we were there and said it very well might be cancerous, but that they’d have to send it out for analysis.

And so of course I deluded myself into thinking that she would be okay. Sad to say that’s not the case – they called today with the results, and Sevi has a cancerous tumor. So something both Jess and I should have been prepared for somehow took us off guard (thanks denial). Even more sadly, it’s inoperable – or rather the operation to remove it would be so risky that their advice was to continue with the denial – Jess said they actually called it “benign denial” – and just make sure she’s a super happy dog. The silver lining is that they simply can’t predict how these things will grow, and there’s every possibility that she’ll simply live with it for a good long time…I think this time we’ll just expect the worse, tinged with the hope that she’ll be fine. Luckily she gets to go to Block Island in less than 2 weeks, for 10 days of fun in a spectacular place for dogs.

I’m sure she’s going to know something’s up when she realizes how many more treats she’s getting.

Too soon.

Sunday was quite the eventful day. Not only did Colin walk, but we had a star in our backyard. Woke up around 7:30am to the sound of Sevi barking – Sevi never barks unless someone is here that she doesn’t know.

I go downstairs, and she’s barking at the kitchen window (it’s about fifteen feet above the ground). I look down and there’s a guy standing there staring at the house, but not doing much else. So of course I’m freaking out, I mean I’ve got Jess and Colin in here and some guy lurking around my backyard. He proceeds up to the living room side of the house, and positions himself in front of the window, which happens to be where the heater vents. At that point I noticed he had leaves all through his hair, and a pretty glazed look on his face.

So I knock on the window and ask him what the hell he’s doing? Let’s just say this guy must have had a fun night, because he was close to incoherent. He mumbles out a few things about how cold it is, but generally can’t put thoughts and words together, thanks to being cold, stoned and drunk.

I suppose now that he’d made contact, he thought it was time to get inside and warm up – so he heads over to the side door to our house and starts trying the door. We have a window in the door, so I’m just standing there talking to the guy trying to get in. Our conversation moved forward a little bit at this point, after I repeated to tell him that I wasn’t going to let him in and he should just go home – to my telling him I don’t know who he is: “I’m Carter” (great, that explains it), followed by “I’m Lenny Kravitz” – to my asking him if he lived around here and that he should go home: “I’m not that country” (except for sleeping in my backyard I suppose) – reacting to the dawning realization that I wasn’t going to let him in: “I’m not trying to break into this chicken coop” (that’ll score you points).

In hindsight we figured out that the Lenny Kravitz comment referred to what was a somewhat subtle Halloween costume, and this guy must have had a hell of a time at a party the night before – so much so that he passed out in our backyard. Eventually the fact that he wasn’t going to get warm here penetrated the haze, and he took off (he was surprisingly nice about it, very careful when opening and shutting the gate).

You’ve got to love Halloween. The upshot was that a little later, after walking the dog, I walked into the backyard to see where this guy had settled down for the night, and saw that he’d left a Trojan (which is probably still there, haven’t checked since) and a $10 bill. Guess that was the rent for the accomodations, so he ended up buying us breakfast. Thanks Lenny!