The Dog Ate My Homework

Family Friday

Okay, he didn’t.

But if I were still attending school in the time when homework was actually done on paper, he undoubtedly would have.

It’s the cute ones you have to watch . . .

You may remember that last autumn we were having trouble with Oscar frequently peeing on the carpet. Then he got much better. Then this autumn he started eating paper. He used occasionally to sneak used Kleenex out of the bathroom wastebasket. Then he graduated to junk mail we might have left lying around. Then he chowed down on two of my Paul’s checkbooks. He has also been known to ingest bubble wrappers. When they were packed up with presents to mail to Dear Paulina. That evening I yelled at him pretty loudly and he didn’t get to sit with us on the couch. Cleaning up after him in the yard can be pretty . . . weird, honestly.

The day before The BroFam left for their home far, far away, TWCN (The World’s Cutest Niece) drew me two pictures. I stuck them in my backpack to bring to work and hang up on my office wall. Only I didn’t think about closing the backpack. This was pretty stupid, since that’s how Oscar had gotten Dear Paulina’s parcel two weeks before. I don’t know where I went, but when I came back, one of the pictures had teethmarks in the corner, and the picture I liked the best was gone. Without-a-trace gone. Not even a teeny tiny little paper crumb. I would have yelled at him then, too, but there wasn’t really much evidence left to point at and for a while I tried to convince myself I had somehow lost the picture. But that was a month ago and it hasn’t turned up.

I wrote to Sister-in-Lu and told her what had happened, and asked if maybe TWCN would be willing to draw me something else.

So she did. (She drew one on each side of the paper, the good little environmentalist):

These might be bees, but I think they’re butterflies

I like how she knows there needs to be sun AND darkness for a rainbow. And hey–Roy G Biv!

TWCN and Auntie Jenn

This last one’s my favourite. First of all, the drawing of Oscar is pretty impressive–she even managed his beard. According to Sister-in-Lu, TWCN was trying to sound out, “I’m sorry to hear Oscar ate the pictures.” I’m not sure where that is in there, but . . . she’s in kindergarten. I know–I do know–that one day she’ll become just as obnoxious a spelling-termagant as I am. And not even a paper-eating dog can change that.

Ethiopia what?