November 15 is my mother’s birthday. It will always be, even though it has been ten years since she was here to celebrate it. Her last was her 78th, in 2010. I wrote the blog below on what would have been her 80th birthday. When she was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2008, she was told she might live for five or more years. She wanted to live to 80, but fell 18 months shy. Every word below is still true. Only more and still brings a tear to my eye. Now that my kids are blossoming into full-fledged adults, it is hard that she is not here to experience. She would have enjoyed them; they would have enjoyed her.
So Mom, happy birthday. I wish you were here.
My morning coffee. Photo is on my 49th birthday, my last with my Mom.
From the Archives, November 2012.
What I Miss…
I miss being able to call for recipe clarification. Or for the recipe since I’ve misplaced it for the twentieth time.
I miss being able to call her to brag about stuff about my kids. She was always their most avid and enthusiastic fan.
I miss being able to complain about my kids. She didn’t offer too much advice. She know she just needed to listen.
I miss the feeling of two parents anchoring my extending family, having two parents at Thanksgiving and birthday dinners.
I miss seeing her at dinner parties we put on. I know she got much joy from entertaining and I know she was proud that I could set a pretty table and not burn anything.
I miss that she will never see Sydney’s smile with all her adult teeth in.
I miss she will never hear Jackson play clarinet.
I miss that she will not experience the personality blooming in Sydney: sassy, dramatic and entertaining.
I miss that she will not see Jackson as a middle schooler.
I miss that she won’t see Sydney’s new ‘look’ with her bangs grown out.
I miss that she will not see Jackson in his trademark fedora.
I miss that she can’t sit down with both my kids and listen to them.
Finny, as she is now called, is the adorable centre of our home. As evidenced by the above pictures, she pretty much has her run of the place. One of her favourite places to be is her ‘fancy bed’ in the first photo, so named because the bed has legs and tufted upholstery. But it has to be covered in the blanket shown, with not too many wrinkles. She does have choices of bed – the middle picture shows four of her beds. I like to spread them out, one in each room. But she prefers that they cluster together and will drag them all into one room like she’s a shepherd or something. But also, she sleeps or sits anywhere she wants, and has her own seat at the dining room table. I know, we’re too much.
She enthusiastically greets each of us at the door and is always a little on edge until ALL FOUR OF US ARE HOME. The first year the kids went to sleepaway camp, she stood beside our bed at 10 pm barking at us: aren’t you forgetting something?
For most of the last ten years, Husband is definitely number one in Finny’s eyes. I can’t imagine why, except that he feeds and walks her almost all the time. Now in pandemic days, I work from home and Husband works in the office so she is a lot more conflicted. Husband takes care of her but I am the one that is always therefor her. So on weekends, when we aren’t in the same room, she will patrol. Lay down with me for half an hour. Then will jump up go find Husband and hang out there until she has a pressing need to find me again.
The kids are largely irrelevant, especially Jackson. Which is curious because he is always at home too and was home the most before the pandemic. Sydney will always hang out with Finny when Husband and I golf, so she is grudgingly accorded a bit more respect than, say, the couch.
This dog is smart. Husband has a morning habit. When he sits down with his breakfast he throws her a Dentastix chewy treat. Then he puts his plate on the ground where Finny will lick if she deems enticing enough. Then Husband throws her a biscuit. These two, they have their routines. On some mornings, if Husband is still eating when Finny finished her first course, Husband will throw her the biscuit. Finny will not eat it, because, obviously, that is not the order in which things happen. Plate first, then biscuit. She will paw at Husband’s foot until he obliges with the plate and only then will she roll in and then eat her biscuit.
And last story (thank you for indulging me). Finny has become a bit of a finnicky eater. Which is tough because she already can’t eat anything with chicken in it, which is like most dog food out there. So we curate a delicious and varied menu like lamb and bison, or goat cheeks which she loves. And then one day she won’t eat what is on offer. An hour later she will start barking because she is hungry. We bring her to her dish to point out a lovely bowl of Moroccan pheasant and she will walk away. So we stuff mini treats into it as extra inducement which will work occasionally. The rest of the time? Desperate measures. (I pause here to note that we should just let her be hungry. But the thing you should know about Finny is she was born without a shame gene. So notwithstanding her delicious meal of artisanal pheasant, the additional treats added, she will have no hesitation in waking up in the middle of the night BECAUSE SHE IS HUNGRY.)
So Sydney blessed with the spiritual gift of spoon-feeding a dog, will hand feed. Finny will not accept the food from anyone else.
Finnegan Lucy joined our family ten years ago. Here is her story.
Excerpted from the Blog archives November 2010
How did we come to welcome this cuddly ball of fur to the family?
The kids had been wanting a dog, which is a universal childhood condition. At age 6, Jackson orchestrated a family vote on getting a dog By orchestrate I mean in a third-world-country-voting-irregularity kind of way (Jackson held proxies for fictitious family members). Then, in his first (and only) chance to be a guest blogger, Jackson used the platform to talk about getting a dog.
Recently, I blogged about how Husband and I were getting closer to getting a dog, but we needed the kids to be more responsible. Jackson outlined his plans and a Master Plan to behave more responsibly.
Husband and I agreed that we were working toward getting a dog. The ideal time being around spring break in March, which will be 2 weeks and a perfect time to break in a puppy. Or, as it turns out, to have her break us in.
So Husband and I agreed that a good first step was to research breeds, appropriate sizes, places to get puppies. So with almost as much zeal as when Husband was looking for a flat panel TV last Christmas, we began our investigations. I was pretty set on a poodle-something cross. A smart, good medium sized dog that won’t shed. The non-poodle part part will up the cuteness factor as I find poodles crossed take the cuteness of both breeds.
Sydney and I stumbled onto a show, Pick a Puppy where families meet three breeds of puppies and then choose one. It’s like Househunters for the canine inclined. About the second show we watched, highlighted Maltese puppies. The kids fell hard for the white balls of fluff. Husband and I were not far behind. We were sold.
We decided a Maltese mix would suit us best – perhaps poodle or shih tzu. We looked for what was available on the Internet, mindful to avoid, to the extent you can, puppy mills and unscrupulous breeders. We found a few possibilities but realized Christmas, the best time to invite a puppy into our home, was still six weeks away and we had a few busy weeks ahead. Let’s wait a bit.
But. There is always a but. There was one litter of puppies, that seemed perfect. Mom was a 15 pound Maltese-Shih Tzu. Dad was a 9 pound Maltese. Cute-as-a-button. Husband and I agreed we would pursue this one lead, and if it did not pan out, we would not pursue anything further for a couple weeks.
We heard back from the breeder and they had 5 puppies still available. We liked the idea of seeing a litter and choosing the puppy that most suited us. Monday after school we made an appointment to meet the puppies. You have no idea what kind of energy FIVE puppies have. They were in kennels when we arrived. There were 2 girls in one crate and 3 boys in the other. I have an irrational preference for girl dogs. I did not really want to live in a world that involved a dog wiener. The girls were released and they ran circles around us. One of them was slightly interested in meeting us, the other wanted only to run as hard and fast as she could. The first one, I thought was a possibility, the puppy-with-too-much-energy fell to the bottom of the list.
The boy puppies.
After a few minutes, the boys had their turn to meet us. One boy was obviously more assertive, but also very, playful. He had dark grey ears and I was sorely tempted. The other two boys were completely white and both more the shy and cuddly type of puppy.
How do you choose? I could have gone home with any of them at that point. I said to myself “I could totally have a boy puppy, you don’t even notice their boy parts”.
As if reading my mind, one of the shy boys peed in front of me on the carpet. While puppies will be puppies, when I picked him up, pee dripped down the fur around his boy thing.
Girl it was to be.
The boys were put back in their kennel and we examined the girls carefully. I tended toward the smaller of the girls. She seemed a little calmer. But then, as soon as I stated my preference, little miss-too-much-energy climbed into Jackson’s lap.
This was notable. What had been happening during our visit was the puppies were running madly in circles around us. Husband, Sydney and I would grab one as they ran by and would interact with them until they squirmed out of our arms. Jackson would only pet a puppy someone else was holding.
But that little girl, the one who had fallen to the bottom of my list, climbed into Jackson’s lap and sat calmly.
