Can You Give Him to Me Now?

Blaine and Tug's relationship has been tumultuous, at best.

People say, "poor Tug" but really Tug did his fair share of annoying things to Kole, so he is just "getting his" now.

Blaine's physical aggression towards Tug started a long time ago but in the last year has gotten progressively worse.  Blaine loves him but is really too rough with him most of the time so we found ourselves putting Tug in his room just so Blaine would leave him alone.

Something changed in the last three months though.  Blaine has become more gentle and loving towards Tug.  He likes to lay with him and pet him and give him baths.  We thought this would be a great opportunity to give Blaine more responsibility and ownership over something so we told Blaine that if he continued to be kind and loving towards Tug we would let him have Tug.  This was a very exciting proposal for Blaine and he has been asking, "Can you give him to me now?" nearly every day.  Finally this weekend David told Blaine that if we did give Tug to him he'd have to pick up his poop in the back yard.

Blaine has since changed his mind and no longer asks, "Can you give him to me now."  I guess dogs are cool until you have to pick up their poo.

The story gets better.  (Well, I think it does.)

Yesterday we came home from school instead of going to the Y because Hannah wasn't feeling well.  I had groceries to get out of the car so I asked Blaine if he would watch his sister for a few minutes while I brought in the groceries.  Surprisingly, he said he would and proceeded to carry Hannah over to the carpet where he dumped out every toy imaginable so they could play. I brought in the first load of bags and commented to Blaine how well he was taking care of Hannah and how proud I was of him for being so kind and gentle and loving towards his sister.  He smiled big and went back to playing with her.  After my last trip to the car I came into the kitchen and told Blaine that I appreciated his help and he could go do his thing now.

And with that I hear, "Mama, I'm ready for you to give Hannah to me now!"

Haha!  Dogs... kids... what's the difference?