A moment of real life.

This has been such a week.

We got to do something fun this weekend.  El helped a friend out with her blog.  :)  She had a play-date with one of her friends - who she's been friends with since they were in the baby room together.  They tried out a new-to-them doll.  It was a great combination of something between a baby doll (baby doll sized and shaped) but with older girl features (good hair, clothes and accessories).  They had a lot of fun seeing each other and playing with the babies.  I brought La with me also - she and the friend's little brother played some kind of imaginary pirate attack/chase game that was pretty funny to watch.  La has a lot of baby sitting potential in a few years.  Not only did El really like the baby, but La picked up to try it out - and she doesn't play with baby-baby dolls anymore, but she does play with "darbies" as we call them here. 

The girls were both really impressed with Rylie's dog, Chloe.  And she was very sweet - she was good with little fingers petting her and liked to play catch. 

We've been watching our dog Tiger start to seriously decline pretty quickly.  We had a moment about a week and a half ago where we thought it was "time", but the vet gave him some antibiotics and anti-inflammatories and he seemed to be perkier for a few days.  He was able to get through the dog door again and spend some time laying in the back yard, being lord of all he surveys.  We said good-bye to our dog Tiger yesterday after about 13 nice years with him. 



We got Tiger when the monkey was 5.  La was born when he (the monkey) was turning 9 and El was born when he was turning 14.  The girls have always had a dog.  After meeting Chloe, the girls are requesting a golden retriever for next time, and I think they've worked out a system where one girl gets to pick out the dog and the other one gets to name him. 

Here's something good.  When we went to the grocery store this weekend, I had to bring both girls.  We got one of the bench-wagons and things were going sort of OK.  They weren't antagonizing each-other too much.  They were asking for a lot of things we didn't need.  I didn't have to use middle names too much.  The candy row is the same as the magazine row.  I didn't have quarters for the candy samples, but I let them each pick a magazine.  La got some tween gossip thing (reading is reading) and El got something called "Sparkle World" a little advertise-y, but fun.  I swear to you they looked through the magazines for the whole rest of the store and were super well behaved.  $10 well spent.