{"id":3155,"date":"2014-04-23T18:07:17","date_gmt":"2014-04-23T23:07:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/?p=3155"},"modified":"2014-05-09T10:25:49","modified_gmt":"2014-05-09T15:25:49","slug":"howie-memories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2014\/04\/howie-memories.html","title":{"rendered":"Howie Memories: It&#8217;s Those Little Things"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_3157\" style=\"width: 640px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/DSC_2927.jpg\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3157\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-large wp-image-3157\" src=\"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/DSC_2927-1024x677.jpg\" alt=\"June 2013, at Howie's last family reunion in Lancaster. Jacob loved him so much.\" width=\"630\" height=\"416\" srcset=\"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/DSC_2927-1024x677.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/DSC_2927-300x198.jpg 300w, http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/DSC_2927.jpg 1600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-3157\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">June 2013, at Howie&#8217;s last family reunion in Lancaster. Jacob loved him so much.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>It&#8217;s been 5 days, and I&#8217;m pleased to report that we can now write and talk about Howie without bursting into tears. But it sure was a tough 5 days&#8230;for Jacob, it was the worst first thing in the morning, when he usually kisses Howie good morning, and at bedtime, when saying &#8220;goodnight&#8221; to Howie was part of his very elaborate go-to-bed routine.<\/p>\n<p>I felt like the bad guy by Monday; the boys had a day off from school, so they had an extra day to grieve, but by Monday night I had to ask the boys to do their best to get back into their normal routines. School, baseball, and music lessons weren&#8217;t going to stop.<\/p>\n<p>Nonetheless, all week there have been tiny little hints of Howie&#8217;s absence. I feel it pretty profoundly when Dave is at work at the boys are at school. I&#8217;m not bursting into tears anymore, but I still think to myself, &#8220;Boy do I miss my good boy.&#8221; Here are several small examples of where I feel his absence:<!--more--><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Howie usually gave us a heads&#8217; up when someone was approaching our front door. He didn&#8217;t go crazy, by his last few months it had turned into a subdued &#8220;woof woof woof&#8221; almost under his breath. This morning the sprinkler repairman arrived with no barking fanfare.<\/li>\n<li>I miss the jingle of his dog collar while he&#8217;s eating and drinking, typically during our family&#8217;s dinnertime<\/li>\n<li>When I go to bed (usually later than Dave does), I always left our\u00a0bedroom door cracked because Howie would push the door open about 30 minutes after I went to bed and come to bed himself. I will still continue that habit for a very long time.<\/li>\n<li>Dropping food on the floor. Howie is a pretty picky eater, but I knew I didn&#8217;t have to worry if I dropped cheese or snack foods like chips or popcorn. On Monday night I made chicken parmesan and dropped quite a bit of shredded mozzarella cheese on the floor. I actually had to bend down and clean it up.<\/li>\n<li>Now that we&#8217;ve cleaned up his dog beds, feeding supplies, and collars and leashes, there are parts of the house that seem so empty.<\/li>\n<li>As annoying as it was, we all miss Howie&#8217;s incessant pawing at our back door to go out. Or his pawing at the back door to come in.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This week I&#8217;ve had to\u00a0make a few administrative phone calls, such as canceling his kennel appointments in June and July. I am about to cancel his pet insurance this week as well.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s sinking in with us that he&#8217;s now at the Rainbow Bridge. We are still healing slowly, but I&#8217;m proud of all my boys on how well they&#8217;ve adjusted back to regular life.\u00a0In the next couple days I will be trying to accumulate all &#8212; and I mean ALL &#8212; of the pictures we&#8217;ve taken of him, into one new album.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s been 5 days, and I&#8217;m pleased to report that we can now write and talk about Howie without bursting into tears. But it sure was a tough 5 days&#8230;for Jacob, it was the worst first thing in the morning, when he usually kisses Howie good morning, and at bedtime, when saying &#8220;goodnight&#8221; to Howie [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[1],"tags":[505,80,506],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5ycQ0-OT","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":290,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2009\/01\/howie-my-forgotten-baby.html","url_meta":{"origin":3155,"position":0},"title":"Howie, My Forgotten Baby","date":"04 January 09","format":false,"excerpt":"I just realized that I never blogged about Dave's and my first baby, Howie.From HowieThe day we got him, he had to wear the leash for about 24 hours straight and the crate was his home for the first 18 months or so.Or Howard.Or Howie-the-Wonder-Dog.From HowieHowie is our 8 1\/2\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"family\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":275,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2008\/11\/snow.html","url_meta":{"origin":3155,"position":1},"title":"SNOW!","date":"30 November 08","format":false,"excerpt":"We awakened this morning to about an inch of snow here. Yay! I leave tomorrow for Florida for my pre-deployment training and I was hoping to see some snow before I left. We had the boys bundled up and out the door around 8am.That's Jacob throwing snow at Howie on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"air force reserves\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":330,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2009\/03\/howie.html","url_meta":{"origin":3155,"position":2},"title":"Howie","date":"04 March 09","format":false,"excerpt":"So many of you know and love our Howie-the-Wonderdog.From HowieFrom HowieHowie apparently blew out his knee while running around in our backyard on Tuesday night. We\u2019re guessing he was chasing squirrels, they are the bane to his existence! He was hit by a car while chasing a squirrel in 2002.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"deployment\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":446,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2010\/07\/jacobs-video-of-howie.html","url_meta":{"origin":3155,"position":3},"title":"Jacob&#8217;s Video of Howie","date":"31 July 10","format":false,"excerpt":"Jacob asked me to share this with you. Jacob thinks that Howie seems to perk up at the word \"Rhino\"...and he does. But I'm not sure it's the word as much as the inflection in his voice. Jacob enjoys watching funny dog videos on You Tube. His favorite series of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"howie\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3159,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2014\/04\/howie-slideshow.html","url_meta":{"origin":3155,"position":4},"title":"Howie Slideshow","date":"28 April 14","format":false,"excerpt":"This is a work in progress, but I've been consolidating Howie photos from my Google photo albums into one location. For those photos that are already in Google, this has been quite simple. Select the group of photos, and select \"Copy into New Album\". However, I didn't start using Google\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"dog\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3148,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2014\/04\/howie-2000-2014.html","url_meta":{"origin":3155,"position":5},"title":"Howie the Wonder Dog: May 2000 &#8211; April 19, 2014","date":"21 April 14","format":false,"excerpt":"This past weekend was very sad for our family. We lost our beloved family dog, Howie. He had developed a liver tumor that grew incredibly quickly. We first discovered it in February while he was getting pre-dental blood work done. On Saturday morning, after 36-48 hours of not eating, he\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"death\"","img":{"alt_text":"Howie lying in the snow, one of his favorite places to be. This was taken on April 13th. The last picture I took of him.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/IMG_9001.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3155"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3155"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3187,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3155\/revisions\/3187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}