Little Mr. Big Man

 Owen at a hockey game, being carried by the team mascot.  Of course he was.

 Owen and Mommy in the photo booth at Main Event during the week that brother and sister started school, but Owen's preschool had not yet started.  That is always a fun week of Mommy and Owen time.  He loves the arcade game where we shoot pirates together (he's quite the marksman), and air hockey.

 Meet The Teacher day at preschool.  Enjoying the toys already.

Spiky hair - I love my spiky hair!

Little Mr. Big Man.  The biggest personality in the smallest body.  Owen has a way of getting in the middle of ANYthing and EVERYthing.  I know it sometimes bugs his siblings, this way he has of gaining favor and getting things from people.  He is a master of charming people in order to benefit himself.  As a mother, I can see the value in it - I know he will always find a way to get by in life.  If he had been my sibling...well, I can certainly understand how it could rub a person the wrong way.

I have lost track of all the things he has been given in stores, restaurants, everywhere.  There was a Mexican restaurant we frequented when he first came home, and a certain waitress there would always spot him and come running over to either 1) offer him ice cream (& no she didn't offer the other 2!), or 2) apologize for not having ice cream.  I think all that started when he was barely talking and he asked her for a treat.  At Main Event once a girl let him pick a treat out for free (in the area where they are supposed to use the "points" they earned at the arcade games) if he would just wink and give her a thumbs up like he did to someone else.  The list goes on and on.  The good part for me is that I generally hate talking to strangers or asking for things, so I can use him for that.  If any of the kids gets a toy at McDonalds and they whine to me that it is something they don't like or already have, Owen will go ask at the counter for an alternate toy.  I always thought they just had one toy choice per week, but I've seen the Latina ladies behind the counter giggling over him, and taking 10 minutes to go in the back and find something else.  Even his siblings can appreciate this, because my response would normally be "You get what you get." but if Owen is willing to bargain, I'm okay with that.  What can I say - he has a gift.  So when he went to a hockey game with Jim the other night for a baseball teammate's birthday, did it surprise me at all to get a text of Owen being carried around by the mascot?  No, it did not.  Sometimes I want to tuck him under my arm and carry him around, myself.

He Loved Me Best

During my summer blog hiatus we lost a furry member of the family.  Mostly in the blog I used Tigger to add a little humor, because he was...well...kind of a cranky old sourpuss.  He was never really the kind of cat that inspired, um, devotion.  He was a bully to my sweet old cat, Rita, and pretty much kept her hiding in a closet for years until her death.  He could get lovey, but even that was unfortunate due to an issue with excessive drooling triggered by happiness.  Getting slimed sort of puts a damper on snuggling.

Once the kids came along...he wasn't always mean...but he was never one to run and hide.  He preferred to sit in close proximity, giving off warning tail swishes, and possibly even flash a little belly to tempt little people into petting him, and then bite them when they did.  Still, they (and I) forgave him.  He was like a cranky old man living in the house; occasionally funny, sweet every so often, but mostly just obnoxious and intent on getting his own needs met.  So, when kidney issues arose (enough said) and the house was in danger of becoming a giant litter box, I hesitated only a bit before making the Big Decision.  It was time.  He was old.  He was getting super sneaky about finding places to tinkle.  I am old.  I was tired of watching him every second, and cleaning urine.

So WHY was I a basket case when the deed was done??  Could be because Tigger had a passionate hatred for vets (that manifested itself coincidentally at the same time he was declawed as a kitten), and went down fighting like I knew he would.  Not pretty.  But I think, more than that, it was because he loved me best.

His personal skills with humans, or animals for that matter, were minimal at best, but I could always count on the fact that Tigger wanted my attention every.single.night.  When the kids were younger and had sleep issues, I would sometimes sit outside their bedrooms, ready to walk them back to bed multiple times (good lord, I don't miss those days).  Tigger was in heaven - it was his own personal massage time, as I tried to keep him from meowing too much and waking up the babies even more.  Every night on the couch in front of the tv, he would come to my lap for his snuggles, whether I felt like snuggling or not.  I literally could not even push him off my lap when it was "his time."  The kids sometimes asked why Tigger liked me so much (it wasn't like I was all that nice to him, after all, especially post-kids), and why he followed me everywhere.  I remember back to picking him up in a mall parking lot as a tiny kitten, scared, loud, demanding attention.  He kept me up the entire night trying to suckle milk from my ear lobes.  He thought I was his mother.  He was stubborn, testy, and obnoxious, but he.loved.me.best.  I was his one and only person.  His mother-person.  And perhaps that is all it really takes to forge that bond of love.  I loved him because he loved me best.  Or at least, he wanted only me, he needed only me, and isn't that a huge part of what we think of as love.

For the kids, it was a life lesson, for sure.  Natalie has had her own style of pillow pounding, hair pulling, yelling kind of grief.  Liam's is more of a grief drawn inward, unsure whether to share it or not.  Walking by his room one night I heard a mournful keening that broke my heart.  But it allowed me to provide my big 9 yr old boy some comfort, and that was nice.  Liam let me stretch out alongside him, hug him tight, and just hold him while he cried.  Bittersweet.  Owen...well, Owen was never much a Tigger fan.  He tolerated him, but never trusted him (smart).  The picture above makes me laugh, because Owen's body language says it all:  "Eww, ewww, those paws, those teeth, I think he might just touch me!" Owen has been able to turn Tigger's passing into a great sympathy ploy, however.  Always one to make conversation, now if he can't think of anything else to say to someone, he'll throw out this zinger, "My cat died.  His name was Tigger.  He's dead!"  He is going to work that sympathy angle for quite some time.

RIP, Tigger.  And thank you for loving me best.