Bye, Yawsh

Well, it's been about a month since I updated the blog last. First I must give a little tribute to our darling dog Yawsha who we said good-bye to last Friday. She was absolutely the best dog for us and we will miss her so much. It was just getting to the point where we couldn't deal with her incontinence anymore. The maximum dose of her medicine was not helping anymore and there was nothing left to try. It was breaking all of our hearts, including hers I think, that she wasn't living as a real part of our family, having to be confined to the basement or the porch all the time. It just wasn't fair. I think it will be a long time before we think about another dog. Clara doesn't understand why. I tried to explain how much work and responsibility a dog is and that we'd have to wait until the girls are all in school, a little older, and able to help out more. Then Clara proceeds to ask, "Are cats like that too?" Then I had to explain my cat allergies to her and how that was out of the question too. The day we took Yawsha in to the vet, John and I were understandably quite teary. Elizabeth, our sensitive, compassionate girl climbed up on my lap and tried to comfort me while Clara reprimanded us for crying. She said, "Stop crying, you guys. We don't have any fun when we cry. We can always get a new dog." I was starting to worry about her heartlessness, but then at bedtime that night it hit her too. She cried and cried and couldn't get to sleep. I think we're all doing a bit better now though.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the lessons we learned from Yawsha. We adopted her from the Calgary Humane Society almost 9 years ago. She was about 4 years old at the time and was on the verge of despondency. She had been rescued with about 30 other dogs who had been terribly neglected and 20 of those dogs had to be put down they were so traumatized. Yawsha was among the ten that survived. She was a survivor, but probably would have been put to sleep soon if we hadn't adopted her. I don't think anyone else would have looked twice at her. She was so depressed...she wouldn't even make eye contact with us. With a little bit of love though she turned into a totally different dog. She will always be such an object lesson to me of how a little bit of love can change a life and bring hope. She must not have had a normal puppyhood because she didn't know how to play, fetch, climb stairs, balance herself in the backseat of a car, chew on a bone, or anything that you'd think a dog would normally learn in the course of its lifetime. But boy did she love to be loved. She loved to cuddle.

She loved her predictable two walks everyday and meeting her doggie friends that lived around the block. After moving to PEI we found out she LOVED the beach too. I've never seen a docile dog run so fast as when her paws would hit the sand!

The whole time we had her we only heard her bark once (at her cat cousin who had her cornered). One loud, deep bark I'll never forget...neither will Sasha whose bladder promptly emptied before she sprinted up the stairs. Yawsha was also the greatest dog around the kids. Even as an old lady she was so patient when the girls wanted to use her as a body pillow.

Oh, Yawsha, we'll miss you so much! You were like no other dog we ever knew.

(This is one of the last pictures we have of Yawsha...she loved her walks in the woods!)

Well, on a lighter note Elizabeth celebrated her 3rd birthday on February 8th.

She requested we go bowling for her birthday and we did just that. We had a great time. They put gutter guards up to make it more fun for the kids, and Clara and Elizabeth both broke 100. Then we went back to Mom and Carl's place for pizza and cake. The cake was extra special. Mom made the same bunny cake for Elizabeth that she used to make for me when I was little. It was a great day. I can't believe how grown up Elizabeth is getting. We are beginning potty training with her. We're off to a pretty rocky start, but it will come I'm sure. She just really has a mind of her own. As sensitive as she is she's also got a rough and tumble side to her that likes to pinch, hit, pull hair, and scream. Then in the next minute she can be twirling gracefully like a ballerina. She's quite the cat!

Clara is at preschool this morning, and they are having their Valentine party today. We made homemade valentine cards together for her class. Clara traced every heart and signed her name on each card. We made little oragami paper hearts with a chocolate heart inside. We used some beautiful oragami paper that our friends from Japan brought to us.

The girls are getting very excited about our upcoming trip. Almost everyday Clara is asking when we're going to visit Grandma and Grandpa and Sparky. One night while I was putting her to bed and we were talking about our trip to Moose Jaw, Clara said, "That's a funny name for a land." So in a few weeks we're off for the "Land of Moose Jaw." Daddy is pretty happy that Clara loves Moose Jaw so much!

We've been getting more than our fair share of snow this winter. One of the churches in town had the following message on their sign this week, "Whoever's praying for snow, please stop!" The same church had this message on their sign last week, "Too cold to change sign...message inside." Clever! Driving down our street it feels like you're driving in a tunnel with the snow piled up on either side of you. We are so thankful for the snowblower. John thinks we started a trend on our street. No one had a snowblower when we got ours, and the other day while John was clearing the driveway he noticed about three other people on our street had snowblowers now. You really need one this winter. All the snow days have been kind of fun though, and after a fresh snowfall when the sun is shining so bright it is absolutely beautiful. I'd rather this than a brown, slushy mess.

Ella is on the move. She recently started crawling and can really make tracks now. It was so cute when she first started to crawl I could tell when she was on the move because she would make this "caw, caw" sound like she was clearing her throat. I guess she was just concentrating so hard on getting going. Then she started making a blowing bubbles sound when she would crawl. One of the ladies at church said, "She's getting her motor going." We are noticing now that she is already trying to pull herself up and get on those feet. She can get one foot under her and then she usually collapses, but I don't think it'll be long before she's cruising around furniture if she keeps this up. It's all happening so fast the third time around. I don't feel like I'm ready for my "baby" to be a toddler yet.

When I got Ella up yesterday morning her hair was imitating Daddy's and sticking straight up. I said to Clara, "That's what I call bed-head." Clara then says, "That's what I call sticking-up-hair-head."

Today when I was cuddled up reading on the couch with Elizabeth I noticed she had some sticky wax in her ear (which is nothing new for her). I removed a bit with my finger and after looking at it, Elizabeth says, "Oh, that looks like booger wax." Honestly you just never know what kids will come out with.

A couple of weeks ago Clara had a terrible case of bad attitude one morning. We were expecting some friends for a play date that day, and Clara decided she didn't want to see anybody, didn't want anybody to see her, didn't want to share her toys, etc, etc, etc... I finally had to tell her to go to her room for some quiet alone time. I wasn't harsh with her, but just firmly requested she go to her room. Well, she stomps up the stairs and I hear her door slam. I proceeded to sit down and check my email. Then I hear a little voice in the dining room behind me, "Heavenly Father...." I turned around to see Elizabeth standing there, holding her blanket, with her eyes closed. I walked over and scooped her up, and she was kind of embarrassed that I had caught her praying. I said, "Were you praying, sweetheart? What were you praying about?" She then tells me she was praying for Clara and I. There's that sensitive side of Elizabeth that I mentioned before. My heart melted...maybe all those times we've told our girls that they can talk to God anytime about anything is finally sinking in.

Clara and Elizabeth having fun with some colourful wigs they got for Christmas. Even Daddy got in on the funny hair...

Happy Valentine's Day from the girlies!

Well, I better sign off for now. I'll try to update again soon.