Here's Your Puppy Elliott

A couple of weeks ago we were out on a walk when we came across a young man walking his dog.  Dogs don’t scare the boys as much as they used to, which means now we have to stop to pet them.  Ian even goes as far as to ask if the dogs can lick him.  Unfortunately, lick doesn’t come as easy to most dogs as sit and stay, so we usually walk away with a very unhappy Ian.  For some reason, after spending time with this particular dog Elliott informed us that he wanted one.  I tried to satisfy Elliott by telling him that he once had a dog.  Three of them, actually.  And some kids never ever get to own a dog, which should make him three times happier than all of those kids.  He told me he didn’t remember those dogs (he was nine months old when we got rid of them). I assured him they were great dogs.  Dogs that he should always treasure and never try to replace.  With a longing face he took a quick glance back at the dog as we continued on our way.  “I still want my own dog,” he said.

A few days later, as luck would have it, Ian decided he wanted to be a puppy.  We were at the dinner table when Katie told Ian he needed to eat his dinner.  He looked upset with her.  I thought because he didn’t like being told what to do, which I know to be true, but that wasn’t the issue this night. 

“You’re supposed to call me puppy,” he said.  We gave each other a puzzled look.  Katie always did like the dogs more than I did, so she was half excited to  have a dog in the house again.

“Ok, puppy,” she said, “eat your dinner”. 

The puppy smiled, clearly thrilled that he had a master, then said, “OK.”

Not able to help myself, I said, “You do know puppies don’t talk don’t you?”

“Yes they do!”

After dinner the puppy climbed down from the table.  When he was on the ground, only for a moment on all fours, he began to hop around like a frog, all the while saying “ruff, ruff.”  Again, I couldn’t help myself.

“You do know that dogs don’t hop around like frogs don’t you?”

“Yes they do!”

Elliott – come take your dog outside!

Elliott did give up his infatuation with dogs long enough to take an interest in flies.  While I was giving him his bath the other night he asked me if there were any horseflies where we live.  I told him there were, but they wouldn’t bother us. This was the first time we had talked about flies, so I had to ask why he was asking about it.  Because horseflies are the only flies that bite, he told me.  

“Well, how many kinds of flies are there?” I asked.

“There are three kinds,” he said.  “There are small flies and medium flies and horseflies.  Do you wanna know why they’re called horseflies?” he asked.

Was there any possible way on earth he wasn’t going to tell me.

“Because some people think that horseflies are the size of horses, so they call them horseflies.  And they have big eyes like horses.”  While he was telling me about the eyes, his fingertips came together in a circle as big as his little hands could create and it was moving away from him until a ten fingered eye was collapsing on me like something out of a Stephen King movie. ‘

I get the picture Elliott. Horseflies.  Big eyes.  Can I interest you in a dog?

Elliott studies the composition of his pinecone - Ian carries his like a grenade waiting for the first sign of life that he can destroy. 

Big brother only lets little man get so brave before he intervenes.

An after adventure lunch.