tears, actual, real, non-fake tears!

MY EM CAN CRY! it's so good to know! what a hard, horrible day it was for all of us, but i'm honestly just blown away by her response to losing our beloved pup. i thought mr would be sad, since he's learned to feel his sadness. but i was trying to mentally prepare for em to be, well, not sad, but she shocked me. she was incredibly torn up and just sobbed and sobbed hard! and you RADical moms know that is AWESOME! now, after almost 3 years, i've finally seen real emotion from both my RADicals!
yes it's painfully sad and i'd never wish it on any of you, or my family, or myself, but it's so good to know em really made a genuine connection at long last. i wasn't going to tell the kids that we were putting her down, i was just scared because they're still so insecure with us. and it was mr's first question (if we get cancer they'll do that to us??) but dad thought we should and i'm so glad we did. the kids had a whole day to spend with her to say goodbye and they took good care of her and gave her lots of love. they helped dad dig the grave and even made her cards.
we brought her home (the kids didn't go with us) and buried her and shared stories and all of us cried hard and long. it was an amazing day of bonding for us. dad said it was like it was her last gift to us, and worth a year of attachment therapy!
so she's no longer in pain, and though we are, it's good that two RADicals who learned to block the pain are starting to feel it again because we all know that means they can feel the LOVE again too! so a terrible day, but a great day, all in the same day for this family.

our poor old dog, this will be RADical

We'll be saying goodbye to our dog Sydney today. :( She's sick and in pain, and not treatable. She's 11, so very old for a boxer, and I know it's the right thing to do, but that doesn't make it easy. I let cj stay home so the kids could love on Syd today “just in case” she doesn’t last. I don’t think I can tell them, cj could handle it, but mr and em are still too insecure to understand we’d never do that to them.
This’ll be tough for our RADicals. Em’s already started in on making fun of us for being sad. It’ll be SO hard for me to be nice to her through this I’m afraid, but I’m trying to be ready, I know it’s not her fault. But again, doesn't make it easy. This will be their first loss of someone they're close to here. Cj was close to his great grandma, but the other two weren't yet. Em and mr lost their grandpa before they came to us and they really seem to miss him. So no idea how this one will go. Oh I'm just dreading this. :(

happy birthday cj!

today was cj's birthday! he's the big 9! em was sad that her month and a half of being the oldest was over. (they still don't understand that she's always older, but then it *is* confusing being that close in age!) but cj was very excited and ready to celebrate. we took cookies into his class, then had a fun party here. the trick candles got him again! he was very surprised when he saw his new skateboard. it's sic! (really, it says so right on it). :)

another NON-RADical vacation!

we're either getting better at vacations, or we keep getting lucky, but this one was very normal and not very RADical! and that's so refreshing. i just wish it had been WARMER!
on our trip to florida, since we were freezing and had planned to warm up, we drove to the very bottom of florida, and it did get up to 70° one day. not the heat we'd hoped for, but we took it! we explored the everglades, one of dad's favorite places, because it's beautiful, uninhabited, and untouched, well that and all the alligators! the kids LOVED finding them and getting up close.
the second day we took canoes out a few miles into the everglades and explored in peace and quiet (well, except for the kids!) and it was so much fun. dad, cj, and em even saw a manatee! we got up close to some american crocs too (they're more scary than alligators if you were wondering!)
then we went to the everglades alligator farm and saw animals, watched shows, and took an airboat ride. all three kids volunteered for anything anyone asked (of course) and em got to feed fish to alligators and cj got to pull out a snake. airboat rides are always fun and we all got a bit wet from turns and spins, especially the kids as they sat up front, and we spotted lots of gators too.
then we headed back to the grands and the colder weather in northern florida!