A funny little story

This update was going to be all about Elsa, but I thought I tell you about last week’s happenings first and a funny little story.

It was Annaliese’s turn again to visit us for a week. Both dogs were very happy to see her again and of course get lots of belly rubs, which she happily administered. A six year old sure can keep you busy and I have no idea how her parents manage household chores and working full-time with three kids but they have my admiration.  I had good intentions to blog during the week but I could not find the energy in the evenings to sit at my computer let alone compose anything at all.

So to the little story: One of Annaliese’s front teeth had been wiggling when she arrived and I could tell it would not be long before it would fall out. About mid-week all of a sudden she felt it coming loose and she held that tooth proudly in her hand.  That is such an excitement for a six year old. She wanted to keep the tooth to show her Mommy and Daddy and of course it was needed for the Tooth Fairy.  I gave her a little plastic Ziploc bag to keep the tooth in and then went about our dinner preparation.  A short while after I hear Annaliese bursting out in a heart wrenching crying and she runs sobbing into the kitchen saying she lost the tooth in the toilet. What? 

You could see Benno’s face changing from his normal smile into a   please don't do that to me face, he pictured himself sticking his arm up to the elbow into the toilet and searching for the tooth, but feeling something soft and sticky.

No, she didn’t loose the tooth in the toilet.  She was trying to clean the tooth under the running faucet at the sink in the bathroom and it slipped out of her fingers and dropped down the drain.  Oh no.  Opa had to come to the rescue.

In the process of retrieving the lost tooth by dismantling the drainage pipe, Benno got splashed with wastewater in his face and yelled for me to quickly give him a towel and a container to dump the contents of the pipe. In it oh joy, we found the lost tooth.  All was well now and the tears dried up quickly.

But, this tooth was so precious that Annaliese had to look at it several times every day until Sunday when it was time to drive back to London for the swap when her Daddy was picking her up and for Heidi to come with us.  The moment her Daddy pulled into the parking lot she ran out to show him her tooth, but the bag ripped open and the tooth fell out never to be found again.

Her dad thinks that the Tooth Fairy, which had come already to our house and had left two very shiny golden Loonies (Canadian Dollar), must have now taken the tooth.

Elsa is gaining weight now and she is showing a little belly. We thought it to be time to build her a whelping box and to do that we all piled into the truck and drove to the Rona Building Center (owned by Lowes) in town to get the material.  You think this is a quick thing to do, however a mix-up at the service counter with wrong part numbers, redoing the paperwork, having the correct plywood cut to our specifications, getting a refund and finding an error on their calculations, getting another refund and more paperwork took forever.  Thank goodness Annaliese is a patient little girl and she never complained about all that waiting time.  Then it was off to another store to get the right screws, washers and other hardware before she and I could go shopping for some fun stuff for her. 

Benno got busy to build the box where Elsa and her puppies can rest.  Once he had the box assembled he took it apart again for me to paint.  I put three coats of white paint on the outside and I am now working on varnishing the inside.  This varnish is water dissolvable and non-toxic.  When all completed I will take a picture again.

So while we worked on this project Annaliese was busy experimenting mixing the watercolor paints to paint all the rocks she had collected at the beach in a different color. One afternoon we took the dogs for a walk at the Kopegaron Woods Conservation Area. This park has long boardwalks throughout and the trail leads you through the forest in a big circle back to the parking lot.  Our dogs love this park and we like it too, especially when we don’t encounter anyone else walking it.

I guess you'll have to wait until my next post about Elsa's progress. So please stay tuned.