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Tri-Dogs and Nocturnal Ears – The 5 year old Linguist

I had meant to post about this over a week ago, but as usual things get busy and blogging falls pretty low on the delegation of time for – well, anything, list. So, in view of recent events, the following “tri” conversation I had with my daughter is bittersweet.

The other day Aishtyn (in the car of course, where all her greatest mental work seems to flourish) asked me if “tri” meant three, since a triceratops has three horns. “Yep,” I said, “And a triathlon is a race that has 3 events, and a tricorne hat has 3 corners, and a trident has 3 prongs, and a tripod balances on 3 legs…” As I paused to consider what other examples I could come up with, she piped up with one of her own, “And your Mom has tri-dogs!!!” Laughing, I agreed. My mom has three dogs, she lives in a tri-dog home…or did until a few days after that conversation. Sigh.

My daughter has developed the habit my grandmother excelled at: selective hearing. On one such occasion (again in the car) she had asked my husband to repeat himself several times, when finally he grumbles out a frustrated “Wake up your ears!” To which Aishtyn immediately responds, “My ears sleep in the morning and afternoon and are awake at night. My ears are ‘OCKturnal’ (nocturnal for those of you who can’t translate 5-yr-old-ese). ” As it was still only mid-morning, I figured we were in for a loooong afternoon of, “What did you say?”

Goodbye to a Friend

On Monday my sweet little ball of fluff, Thisbe, passed away.

She was my first, “baby.” I bought her when I was still a teen, and she gave me and my family 12 years of love. As Aishtyn says, “Nothing will be the same without Thisbe.”

She loved her milkbone snacks, and would often find various places to hide her stash. She had such a belly on her we called her a “watermelon on toothpicks.”

Unfortunately, this may have led to her developing diabetes, which she was diagnosed with late last year. We managed almost a year with vet visits and insulin shots and a special diet…but in the last few weeks things took a turn for the worse, and from one Sunday to the next, she was gone.

Goodbye Thisbe, we will all miss you.

In Memory of Thisbe