Local Blogs and Personal Dog Drama

For those of you who were wondering, the TU’s Albany blog has a post on what happened to the playground in Lincoln Park.  Meanwhile, their Youth Arts blog has a post on a casting call from the Cohoes Music Hall for kids 5-8 to act in “A Christmas Carol” and another post about  joining the Troy Children’s Chorus, open to kids in grades 2 to 8 who love to sing.

At our house, I’m enjoying getting us all back into the routine.  One of the hitches, lately, has been some unfortunate Dog Drama.  We recently made a recreational trip to Target.  We were looking at birthday wishes for J (who turns 6 on October 1st), and each girl had a back-to-school gift card from Grandma and Grandpa.  I defined back-to-school to mean clothing, school supplies, crafts, or books, but not straight toys.  The girls argued persuasively that accessories should also be included (J:  “Earrings are like clothes for your ears“), and they happily chose their purchases.

Except, then there was the Ginormous Stuffed Dog.  J’s had her eye on this for a while, but it was clearly a toy.  Plus, her birthday’s coming up.  M remembered that she still had credit from a birthday gift card, and at first she suggested that she and J each chip in $10 from their piggy banks to share the doggie.  J, with the wisdom of hard-earned little sistering experience, sensed that this would be unsatisfying and said no.  So M decided to dip into her savings (which she rarely does) and purchase a yellow dog.  J had favored the brown & white.

Goldie (NOT Huggy)

Anyway, it’s only a couple of weeks until the birthday, so I figured that J could suck it up for a while.  M very graciously allowed J to hold and cuddle the dog, and she occasionally asks J to dog-sit.  But, just in general, it’s been ugly.  J would really like to own the dog.  We’ve had some tragic sobbing.  J even decided to name the dog Huggy.  Which is really cute, except that M had already named the dog Goldie.  So there was more drama.  The trouble is, M is being really kind about sharing, but then at the end of the day (or whenever) she wants to take the dog to her room.  Or, they’ll both play with it, and then leave and have a snack, and M nicely asks J to make sure that her hands are clean.  At which point J sobs dramatically.  So I’m almost ready to tell M just to stop all of that sharing already and lock the dog in her room.

Of course, what makes it even more tragic is that J really wants a real dog.  And I’m not up for a real dog.  Two kids and a cat (and a blog!) is about as much as I can handle.  I thought, briefly, that we could try to volunteer at an animal shelter one morning a week, but then a friend pointed out that if we did that, we’d absolutely end up falling in love with a dog who was about to be euthanized, and then I’d have to take the dog home.  So that idea’s been put on the shelf.

In any case, does anyone need me to pick something up at Target for them?  Because I’m absolutely going tomorrow.  Last time I went, there was only one of those ginormous dogs.