Changing the title

Ok, so now that Maddie is gone, I'll change the title of this blog to "The kids and us." The address will stay the same, but there's no point in keeping the title the same. Sort of like the fact that we got rid of many of Maddie's toys over the last few weeks - very sad, but what are you going to do?

I'll stop posting stuff about the dog, but before doing so, I'm going to write about how the kids are currently handling her absence (along with a few other thoughts and memories in one last post later - mainly for posterity rather than for the edification/entertainment of any readers out there).

Teddy has little sense that Maddie is gone. On occasion, he will mention her name, but he doesn't seem to dwell on her absence in any meaningful way. About the most that he's done is to raise his hand and complain about "Maddie hair" - something that he has always done after discovering some foreign hair object on his pacifier or food. Because we no longer have dog hair permeating the house, his complaints are less frequent, but they still pop up.

Margaret has a better sense that Maddie isn't here, but I don't think that she completely understands why or exactly what it means. Still, she seems to recognize that Maddie is gone and won't be coming back. For example...

When we walk home from work, we can walk through various parks. One is a nice playground just south of K St. that doesn't see many kids, but abuts a fenced-in dog park. The last two times that we have headed home in this direction, Margaret has asked about Maddie, probably because the dog park reminds her of Maddie. During the most recent trip along that route, Margaret, who was sitting (in a blatant safety violation) on top of the stroller in front of me said, "I miss Maddie." "Yeah, so do I," I said. "Why did Maddie have to leave?" "Well, she got sick and had to go to the doctor." "But she misses us." "Yeah, I'm sure that she does." "And we miss her." "Yes, we do." "But will she come back?" "No, I don't think so." "Why not?" "Well, she was pretty sick." (A pause.) "So she won't come back?" "No, she was pretty sick and I don't think that she'll be able to come back." (A pause.) "But she was a good dog." "Yes, she was." (A pause.) "I miss her a lot." "Yeah, I miss her a lot too."

Margaret was getting a little teary-eyed around this point, but I told her that we'd talk about it later and managed to get her distracted by something else. So while Margaret seems to have some understanding that Maddie isn't here, and seems pretty unhappy that she isn't, her understanding isn't terribly deep or persistent at this point.