Mom, When Can We Go to a Farm?

As some of you may or may not know, we haven't had a lot of luck with our pets in the last couple of years. As a matter of fact- we've had no luck at all. We lost 2 of our dogs in the last two years. Our Jack Russells, who we loved so much.

I'll spare you the tear inducing love story that I could pen about my 'babies before babies' and just tell you that in short- Maximus, the baby, got out of the yard and discovered Victory Blvd too early in life...and Bare, 'the middle child', just recently had to be put down due to kidney failure.

Coach Hubs and I decided that at 3 years and 2 years old we just weren't ready to teach the kids about REAL life, life and death etc. To us it may as well have been the birds and the bees talk already. No, thank you. Instead we opted to use the perfectly good, old-school, not nearly used enough explanation of "The Farm".

Now this method doesn't really help in their reaction at all. Let's get something clear here, this method is for the purely selfish, unprepared, lazy parent. We selfishly didn't want to have to explain death, we were certainly unprepared about the necessity to explain death and entirely too lazy to research the correct thing to say to 2 toddlers who just lost their puppy. This is why we went with the Farm Response.

The explanation is simple, the benefits (to the parents) is exponential. Maxi dog felt sick and needed to go to the farm for medicine and fun. No, he's not coming back. Bare-Bare missed his brother SO much he wanted to go to the farm to be with him. No, he's not coming back.

The tears are real. The true feeling of loss is real. But the excuse (in this naive mommy's brain) eases the pain. At least they're on a farm- together.

Cut to today, 2 years after Maxi left for the farm and 2 months after Bare left for the farm...

Big L asks: "Mom, when can we go to a farm?"
Me (totally oblivious): "Great idea, L, a farm would be fun to go and see."
Big L: "Ya, that way we can see Maximus and Bare again."
Mom is speechless. The wind has left me. I just nodded my head and said, "Ya...that's a great idea."



That's our Bare
(and my body-painted children)



Maximus w/ a 6 month old Luke (awww)