Family: You all need to see this. I was just informed by Maria and Lynne after they saw this post on FB. I don't have any details as yet. Love you all. Dad
He attached this screenshot from a Facebook post. We were all shocked. I called dad a little bit after that to see how he was doing. He didn't say much about it. I'm sure he was in shock, trying to process the news.
What I could not understand was why Tammy didn't tell dad. I thought that was awful and unforgivable. He was gone for over a week, almost a week and a half before he found out. And he had to find out through his sisters and Facebook! That's terrible. Julie and I talked about how awful that was. And a little while later dad sent this:
Dear Family: Please resist the natural tendency to criticize, and be gentle in your thoughts and words about Adam's mom. Remember, Tammy has just lost her only child, and it's a hard time. Let's not be scornful, but empathetic. Much of the blame for her lack of communication rests with me, something I feel much regret about. Love you all. Dad
After this, I noticed that Aunt Lynn had called Tammy out on a Facebook post, about her not telling dad herself and earlier. And people started going crazy on the internet at her, making all kinds of awful accusations and comments about her and dad. It was awful. I felt like I needed to read it, just to be aware. But it was very unpleasant. I felt that Aunt Lynn did a good job of trying to defend herself and dad, but at the same time be kind and respectful. She didn't put anyone down (aside from saying how wrong Tammy was), and she didn't return fire with fire. I think it was probably a mistake to start with such a public criticism of Tammy. But I think she handled it well thereafter.
Tammy and her friends, on the other hand, were venomous and hateful in their comments. And spewing all sorts of lies about the whole situation in general and my father in particular, especially as they had no idea what went on. I'm actually shocked about how awful Tammy is being. Especially about someone as wonderful and loving as my dad. She has no idea. And dad says nothing against her. He is being seriously admirable about the whole thing, considering. Julie and I are going against all hope that he hasn't been on Facebook to see the whole thing. Especially after Tammy wrote a very pointed post on Adam's page defaming dad in every way as a father. It's awful.
I'm sad for dad. I'm sad about Adam. He was a fun big brother to us. I loved when he came every summer. It's sad, too, that he wasn't closer to our side of the family in the last couple of decades. We would have loved having him around more. I think we all have some regrets where Adam is concerned. I've reached out to him, on his birthdays mostly, over the years, but I always got minimal to no response from him, so I figured he didn't really want anything to do with me. Mom and Julie always had more success in their communications with Adam. I'm sure dad's feelings and regrets are complicated. I just wish I knew what to do for dad.
Mom reached out to Tammy yesterday and was rebuffed vehemently. She basically called mom a liar and dad a deadbeat father and told them not to contact her anymore. I was planning to go to the memorial service, but we're thinking Tammy won't even tell us when and where it is. I'm having a really hard time having charitable feelings towards her, despite dad's admonitions.
And the story will continue. Mom and dad have been trying to find out more information about Adam's death, despite Tammy being uncooperative. I haven't gotten in Facebook since I first did the other day, because I just don't want to be involved with the contention. But Julie told me mom got a Facebook account for the sole purpose of posting a defense of her and dad. Julie read it to me and it was very sensitive and kindly put, though not skirting around the dishonesty and attacks and putting them in their place. I still don't have any desire to be there and see. I hope it all blows over soon. We'll see what we can find out in the end. And we might have to do our own memorial service, as Daniel suggested.
Now, on to the fun news.
We have a dog!!!
Here's the full story: Brooke has been begging for a dog of our own before we started even fostering Sammy. She liked having Pie-Pie, but it wasn't really enough for her, and the hamster died too early. (We probably didn't take proper care of her.) And so she started asking for a dog. Having Sammy helped ease her want of a dog, but not by much. She still asked regularly. And we kept putting her off because, "We HAVE a dog, even if she is only a part-time dog."
Well, we haven't even had a part-time dog for the last 6 months, so that excuse wasn't applicable anymore, and the begging resumed, with a vengeance. She started doing intense research about different kinds of dogs (and so did Daniel) and trying to decide what would be best for our family. Daniel and I (Daniel moreso) were pretty firm on the "no shedding" thing, so they started looking more seriously into doodle mixes. We looked into golden doodles and cockapoos and bernedoodles and labradoodles. We had hoped for a medium sized dog, but Daniel and Brooke seemed to favor the cockapoo breed. And cockapoos only seem to be bred for smaller sizes. We also wanted a darker colored dog. But the breeder we like only had smaller sized dark puppies, and bigger light puppies.
So then, of course, we had our little family date to Spanish Fork to check out the puppies, and everyone, except me, favored this little boy. White with some brown spots. And a little bigger than the rest. He was very cute. But the other puppies were cute as well. We didn't make the kids any promises about getting a puppy. We just told them we were "only looking," just to get an idea of what we wanted. And the Monday after our visit to the puppies, we had a special family home evening about taking care of a dog; listing all the things that were required to taking care of a dog, all the expenses, etc., and we asked each of the kids if they were willing to help with those tasks.
A few days later, Daniel put a deposit down on the little boy dog we liked. He put a picture of our puppy in a picture frame and wrapped it up for a Christmas present for the kids. We saved it to be opened last. The kids were so funny when they opened it up. They opened it together, and when they saw it, they said, "Oh, what a cute picture of a dog!" They didn't realize that the actual dog was the actual present, until Daniel said, "That's the dog we paid for!" They were SO excited, especially the girls. I think we made Brooke really happy.
We came home from Oregon on the 31st so that we could pick the dog up on the 1st. We drove down to the breeder, and she brought our dog in to us. Before we took him, she clipped his nails and gave him a quick bath so that he was nice and sweet smelling and ready. She gave us a blanket to wrap him up in on the way home, so he wouldn't be too cold. He seemed very nervous in the car on the way home. I'm sure it's quite an adjustment for these little puppies, leaving their families and homes to go with a bunch of strangers. I'd never really thought about it until this situation was upon us. He shivered and shook the whole way home. And when we brought him into the house, he didn't seem to know what to do. None of us really did. We let the kids play with him for a little bit, and then put him in his little kennel so that he wouldn't be too overwhelmed. But he howled and whined most of the time he was in there, with maybe a little nap squeezed in.
That whole first day, he kept having accidents. It was almost like he was just leaking constantly. I'm sure it was mostly due to him being nervous to be in a new and unfamiliar place. But that first evening, I snuggled up on the couch with Daniel to watch a movie, and the dog snuggled and slept while we watched. It was so sweet and delightful.
It's been almost a week now, since we brought him home. Potty training is going better, I believe. We are also getting better about taking him out all the time. But he's started biting and nipping people and chewing things he shouldn't be chewing. He's also getting used to sleeping and being in his kennel. We first had it in the Craft Closet, because the training book said it should be in a non-high-traffic area. But he just was so unhappy there and whined a lot. So a few days ago, we tried pulling the kennel out of the closet during the day, and he's much happier in there now. I think he likes to be around us and see and hear us, even when he's put away. He's been sleeping all the way through the night, which is lovely. We just have to take him out right before kenneling him, and take him out right when we wake up. He's a very sweet dog. He just wants to be with us all the time, and he often just follows me around the house. He loves snuggling and napping on the couch. He seems to be shedding quite a lot, which makes us think we may have picked a "dud." (The kids hate when Daniel and I call him that; they love him and feel like we are slighting him when we say that, but we just mean that we happened to pick the one in the litter that sheds.) Daniel is hoping he's just shedding his puppy coat and that eventually he'll shed less. I guess we'll see. Either way, we all already love him and he won't be going anywhere, no matter what his coat does.
I'm way more obsessed with him than I thought I would be. He's SO cute and sweet, and it's just been fun having him. I was telling Daniel last night, though, that I'm struggling to come to terms with the fact that I have (hopefully temporarily) lost a big chunk of my freedom (which stinks, because I'm a mom and didn't have that much freedom to begin with, haha), because now I'm having to keep my eyes on a dog a lot of the time. I don't feel great about keeping him in his kennel for most of the day, which means I will have to be sitting around with a dog a lot, or do most of my stuff on the main floor (we're trying to not let him on the carpeted areas of the house until he's better house-trained. We even put our area rug away for the time being. Eventually, he should be fine going anywhere in the house, but we're not ready for that. But it does make it difficult for me, because he just wants to be with us and follow us around, and since Sawyer are the ones here all day, that means he wants to be with us. And if he can't follow me around to all parts of the house while I do my stuff ... it's just proving to be difficult to manage.) I need to pull back my expectations of goals and what I'll accomplish this year from where I wanted it to be. Because I surely won't be able to do as much with a little puppy in the house. And it's okay. I just need to convince my brain, haha.
I'm also surprised by how much Daniel loves him. 😂 He's always picking the dog up and walking around the house with him and saying, "Look, it's my dog!" (In all fairness, though, we all call him "my dog." 😂) I just didn't think Daniel would be that way with him. It's sweet.
Brooke is so happy. She was so cute bringing him home, because all she wanted to do was hold him and play with him and she was smiling all day long. I'm happy for her and happy we could make this childhood dream of hers come true. She and Camille have been great with him and with taking care of him. It's been really fun to watch. Brooke has taken most of the initiative for naming him and learning how to train him. We bought a dog training book that we'll all read and use the techniques from for training him. While we were still in Medford, Brooke read the training book and came up with a long list of names for him. She asked everyone's opinion, even family members whose opinions wouldn't really matter in the end. And she wrote down all the ones that we liked, but she really liked the name Tucker, and she kept trying to convince everyone that it was the best and cutest name for him. I was not convinced. And Daniel wasn't convinced. But she had almost everyone else on her side. My favorite name was North. Daniel liked Charlie best. But when we went to pick him up, and that whole first day, he definitely looked like a Tucker to me. So I guess Brooke did convince us all in the end. And when I started calling him Tucker that first day, it just stuck and became official.
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