March something-ness

It’s almost the middle of March – unbelievable.  At the end of each week, Glenn and I find ourselves saying, “how is the week over with already?”  Both of us are busy at work right now and our evenings are a flurry of swimming lessons, piano practice, shooting sports and our own volleyball games.  Everyone is surprisingly calm about the busy-ness and there’s still been time for family dinners, homework and a ridiculous amount of laundry for a family of four.  So we find ourselves marching through March.

Last weekend, Will had a sleepover at a friend’s birthday party so Reina stayed home with us and watched a pre-tween Disney show with her Dad.  I’m happy to report that Glenn survived that movie and he's super excited that there's a sequel coming out soon.  Our little piano players is especially interested in entertainment that involves boys and girls under the age of 20 singing and dancing.  I can’t say the same for Glenn.  On Sunday, Will came home tired and more than a little cranky, as to be expected, but had a paying gig to help his aunt with some yardwork.  I don't know how much he actually helped, but he did get paid.  

After that, we came home and the weather was nice enough for some outside playtime.  Reina rode her bike and Will played basketball in the driveway.  I was making dinner when Reina came back in the house, looking serious.  “Mom, I just got bit by a dog.”  Once that announcement was made, she burst into tears.   I checked out her leg and sure enough I could see some teeth marks and a big bruise forming in the middle of the bite.  It wasn’t bleeding but you could tell it definitely hurt.  She’d been riding her bike on a street around the corner from us and a man was walking his ‘dog with fluffy ears’ when the dog pulled free from the leash and bit Reina as she rode by.  The man did ask if Reina was okay but knowing our girl, she probably just nodded and peddled her bike back home.

Glenn heard the crying and came downstairs to see what was going on.  When I told him, he immediately announced that he was going to kill that dog.  I believe his exact sentence was "I'm going to murder that dog."  That sentiment sent Reina into further hysteria with her howling “I don’t want Dad to go to jail!” and Glenn talking about tracking down the dog owner and talking to him.  It was all very dramatic. 

Now I have to point out that my childhood family dogs, well mostly one dog in particular, bit just about everyone we knew, including each of us at some point.  Nothing bad enough to cause injury or scarring but I might be more blasé about nippy dogs.  

Once Reina (mostly) calmed down, she and I went for a walk around the block just to see if we could find that owner and dog. I wanted to double check that the dog was healthy and I also wanted Reina to not have a chance to become afraid of little dogs with fluffy ears – this was her definition.  I was thinking cocker spaniel?

We didn’t find the dog nor the owner but we did see Glenn who was following us on our walk - which led to a little more Reina crying and "Daddy you're scaring me!" so we came home and I worked on dinner.   A few minutes later, there was a knock on our door and it was the very apologetic dog owner checking on Reina.  He’d tracked us down because Reina’s bike was in the front yard.  He didn’t have the naughty Chihuahua (not cocker spaniel!) with him but he did apologize profusely and told Reina how sorry he was.  Reina kept a worried eye on the hallway, I think she pictured Glenn flying down the stairs for a Confrontation (with a capital C) but he let me handle that conversation.  I thanked the dog owner for coming by and our evening continued on with much less drama. 

  

Everyone is recovered, Reina’s not scared of little dogs and now she knows just what her dad would do to protect her.  Murder chihuahuas.