All in all, this little boy is more resilient than many adults I know.

Let�s take a short hike through the toll he has seen, shall we?

Early on in his life his mom lost her hearing. (He was two-ish?) For the most part due to her own inner pain/drama over this, and drink, he lost most of his real contact with her then. Go back to entry three or so, to get the whole story in a lump.

Friday (all our pets have been named after Heinlein characters) was his/our dog. I got her after he was conceived so that she�d be semi-trained when he was born. (Gawd, I love dogs and miss having one�but can�t do it for the nonce.) She was about six months old when the young man arrived on the scene. What an amazing dog. I�ve had four in my life�all of them wonders in their own right, but Friday was incredible. Her dam weighed-in at 225 lbs (or 84 kilos for the rest of the planet,) and her sire was about 290 (or about 108 kilos.) I�ve always loved big dogs. So we got an Old English Mastiff, fawn in coloration. Friday was the runt of the litter and never made it over about 200 pounds. We had searched our entire region for the best breeder and the best, nicest, kindest line (as if Mastiffs are ever anything but a joy for the most part.) This dog was sure that she was DaBoy�s mom. She was gracious and gentle around him while being a klutz in every other way. I�d put him on the floor and I have never seen a giant dog do such incredible ballet-like moves to avoid stepping on a baby. She�d lie down next to him and he�d curl up against her belly and fall asleep. She never slept when he did this. She just watched. They were best friends. Friday died when he was three (very quickly) of an anomalistic genetic disorder. Her dam and sire are still alive today.

Soon thereafter one of our two cats disappeared. We were living at the time in the Dallas area in one of the few hilly regions�and our best guess is that a bobcat got him. His name was Lazarus. I�ve never been a big fan of cats�but this cat was more dog than cat, so I was pretty fond of him.

When his mother became Non Compos Mentis after her strokes, he was four.

The same week that his mom started with the hemorrhages followed by strokes we lost our other cat, Seraphim. She was elderly, it was time� but man, it just didn�t seem fair to the lad.

In the lower-loss column?

I (YourSauceOfTextHere) avoided relationships for over two years after all the fall out with his mom. I just didn't want to rebound on anyone as that didn't seem fair. Then I met this amazing dame. She was smart (scary brilliant almost, as she had finished school at 14 and gone to college, could out trivia me�and I am a wealth of useless knowledge.) Lovely (had been a child actress and had eyes that could melt steel.) Easy-going, a voracious reader, vivacious-yet-willing-to-nest-as-well, deeply sexual, and on, and on, ad nauseam.

She (and her wonderful dog) moved in with us after about 120 days of whirlwind initial relationship. She was amazing with my kid. I was sure I was in love. [Now? Not so sure.] Within about sixty days in the same household things started to seem odd in regard to her responses to the boy. If he was sick or had a headache or any other middle of the night trauma, he�d climb into our bed. Note that even now, this is not allowed until it is light outside�so he knows it had better be important and real or he is marched back to his own bunk bed and retucked. [But he gets incredible amounts of love and nurturing. Don�t look at me like that. Grin.]

Anyway, he�d climb in� and she (deep sleeper) would make noises about not letting him touch her� Oookay. It went further, as the forth or fifth time�she was sitting up in bed screaming, �He�s touching me! Don�t let the little bastard touch me! EVER!� She didn�t remember any of this the following morning. I started noticing things like her leaving the room when he acted like a kid (read this any dashing around or noise making.) She would get tense and leave his classroom at school if there was any semblance of kidlike activity occurring.

It took your dullard-diarist a bit to figure the whole thing out. She really didn�t like kids. At all. Not in the least. Couldn�t stand them, in fact. Everything else was near-perfection (on a human scale). It was clear she loved me. She was trying really hard to be the right human for the gig with him--whatever that might be, but couldn't manage. Nor should she have. Not with the weight of I HATE KIDS on her shoulders. There were early indicators that could have clued me, but I took them as part of the package. I knew that she didn�t have any interest in having children herself. [I'm OK either way on that, ya know?] I knew that her mom was astonished that she had fallen for my kid. And on.

I asked her at one point, if she had liked children when she was one. Her response? �I couldn�t stand them. They were irritating. I preferred the company of adults.� At another juncture, she hit me with an indicator soon after I had tucked him in. DaWonderChild and I, had had a long conversation about his mom. So DisGal looked up and randomly said, "Why don't you JUST tell him that she IS completely fucked and never going to get better." I just gawked. How could anyone do that to a child? Crush hope? Whoa. Clearly this was not to be...

It took me a long time (gently, as I hate to hurt anyone that doesn�t completely deserve such) to get through to her that this was a gating issue. He was a preexisting condition that wouldn�t ever go away�and no matter how polite and easy going DaKiddo is, he is still a child and will act like one. I�d even prefer that he do so (still trying to grin here.)

We got her moved out (on my nickel, Natch!) just before Christmas.

Funny. Though he misses her dog very much, DaBoy has only mentioned her once, and that was when I was getting frustrated and told him I was approaching the point of yelling at him. He looked at me, and said, �A* yelled at me a few times, and never waited until she was frustrated to do it, and sure never warned me that she was going to��

It made me hurt inside that I had nearly fallen prey to her need to have a relationship with me, despite my son. Loved her? Dunno now. And if the answer is dunno, it should probably be: Duh. No. But I thought I did.

DaBoy clearly is not missing her. Which is good, as there was a ton of loss before that.

--SauceHasNowDoneAllTheIntrospectionYouAreGettingForAWhile

--or�

Look out phuckers, the next few entries are going to be More FUN FOR ME!

PS. Hey! Those that were bitching about yesterday�s reading? Get a life, damn. Yes, he was sorta racist, but consider the times. Every entry seems to draw in the cranks. Grin.