Wiley Update #6 – We are one week from heading to Boston….and about a week ago I was sure that one of the things that we would be doing was taking Wiley to the vet one last time before we go.
But…..I think both Suzanne and I are in agreement that we just can’t do it if he is living life like he is now (he is alert, he rises to walk around and interact with us). This is Saturday. I’d say he was worse Thursday but better Friday and Saturday.
The biggest unknown is how he will interact with our pet sitter while we are gone….will he get up and get outside? The last thing I want to do is leave the girl in a very bad spot with a very sick dog.
Just don’t know what to do……..
Our neighborhood tends to have a transient nature about it….kids come, and kids go, and well, some of those kids aren’t the best of kids and that can present some challenges.
The year our next door neighbors went on sabbatical was a challenge. Five kids from an Iranian family….the oldest trying to pick fights with Matthew to the smallest walking around the neighborhood in a diaper without any parental supervision. It was a good thing when they finally left.
There have been more than our fair share of kids (Obada, Noah, and now Lucas) with decidedly anti-social traits that have had made Mom and Dad have talks with the boys and lay down a few laws about engagement. Lucas, for example, seems to want to spit on Matthew…..Matthew has been patient twice but has let Lucas know that if he should do it again Matthew is just gong to deck him.
And every once in a while there is a kid who lives in the apartments who comes down here looking for friends and causes issues and friction. It’s this situation that brings Ryan into the picture.
My initial impressions of Ryan were that a) he was a little weird but b) he was also very polite when talking to me. He would come by at strange times (when the boys were in school) and ask for them, and at first, didn’t even know the boys names when he came to the door and asked for them. At first, the boys really didn’t want to play with him but that changed over time. And so it went through this spring and into the summer. Ryan would be around at times, but I didn’t see anything in the ‘play’ that really troubled me, and quite frankly, the boys are more than big enough to take care of themselves. Would check in now and again but there wasn’t one thing that happened to make me think “Oh, this is trouble.” There are other kids (Lucas) I watch a lot more when he is hanging around our house.
When we are off to Las Vegas and the boys are off to Spring Hill apparently all heck broke loose around here. Ryan came over to the neighborhood but nobody was home. He, apparently, circled around one of the other houses looking for something…the mom called the police, and so, when we return, half the neighborhood can’t play with Ryan anymore. The boy have been steadfast that they see nothing wrong with Ryan, I don’t have any issues with him. So, Fric and Frac are now caught in the middle….if they play with one group of friends and Ryan comes around he can’t play (and the best part is these kids, all several years younger than Fric and Frac, have now taken to teasing Ryan) with them. And if Ryan is playing with them, the other friends can’t come over.
Sigh.
It’s a month after all of this drama. I am happy(?) to report that the neighborhood ban on Ryan has passed. After one tense evening I stopped his Dad (or foster Dad….I don’t know and really don’t care) and said, hey, you can’t just drop Ryan over here and drive away…you need to at least make sure he gets a response when he knocks on a door and is playing with someone. Happy the boys ‘judgment’ about Ryan seems to be vindicated; glad they got to see how their younger friends (and the younger friends parents!) behaved….which was pretty damned shameful.
