52:5:Share

In our house...

we're LEARNING to share...

Claire has been learning about sharing lately.  She has lots of great new friends during the day to share with, so it's a good skill to learn.  Of course, we like the power of sharing because it often times gets her to willingly relinquish her grasp on something she probably shouldn't have.  

Most of our weekends now involve excessive puppy play time.  With Claire constantly on the run, it takes more than just us to play--even Wally and Mogwai wear out and give up before Claire's ready for a nap! It's also helped her learn the words "Wally" (so stinkin' cute when she yells out his name!) and "puppy".  She's sometimes confused because she'll use the word "Wally" to mean all dogs, but then we explain that only a pug is "Wally" and the rest are "puppy".  She doesn't call Mogwai anything.  We call him Mogy, but I think it's mind blowing that they're the same dog only one has longer hair.  :)

The best game of follow the leader

Mogwai has really been coming out of his shell with Claire.  He used to run and hide from her, but lately he's been following her around and cautiously looking for pets.  Wally is her main pal, which is good and bad depending on how you look at it.  It's great because he's so tolerant--she's hit him with her toys and cups, fallen on him, poked him in the face, and has been trying to learn to pet him.  It's bad if... well... you're Wally and getting throttled by sippy cups.  He's never shown he minds though, and when he's tired of playing he hides up in the corner of the couch and naps.  

This is her OTHER favorite puppy.  She drags him everywhere.

Mogwai is our rescued pekingese.  He's got a lot of problems (scars on his eye(s), messed up teeth, and then the body that is a pekingese--that's a whole barrel of genetic monkeys gone wrong!).  But he's still interested in play even though he doesn't know what it is.  He's exhibited great patience with Claire (well, after the need to hide in the kitchen wore off).  When we first got him, he wouldn't walk upstairs because he didn't know what carpet was and it scared him.  Imagine what seeing a "little people" must do to his sanity!  

He usually approaches first to get pets, but Claire came a running and he sought Matt for some extra protection.  Notice how she's petting with the back of her hand because she's also trying to point...

But Claire plays well.  She's working on gentle pets (but often times she finger points in excitement, so it looks more like jabbing).  She's also working on NOT stepping or falling on Mogwai.  Wally's tough and doesn't seem to care, if anything it just makes him more excited to play, but Mogwai is small and slow and was never meant to be pounced on.  

This reminds me of a poorly redone version of Godzilla.

 She obviously also is learning to share with the puppies.  She has this puppy (in some of the pictures) that she's become infatuated with.  She sleeps with him, carries him around, chews on him... and she calls him "puppy."  But this shows great sharing that she saw Mogwai was a little nervous, so she charged over (wonder why he's scared?) and gave him her puppy, then went back to play with Wally.  Of course, I had to capture his reaction--he didn't know what to think!

I can has... fake puppy?