Little Tough Guy

Poor Charlie has been battling some kind of rash/reaction/eczema for several weeks, which landed us at the allergist today. The verdict?  Allergy to all things furry and fuzzy. Boo. My dream of getting Charlie his own kitten for Christmas died a quick death. The sad thing is he loves animals – on Sunday, we rode bikes over to Fort Hunt Park (best money I ever spent on that neighbor’s used bike trailer!), where the Park Police keep their horses, and Charlie was SO excited to see them. We even rode back over later in the afternoon to try to see them again (unfortunately they must have been out riding that time). He talks about our next door neighbor’s dog Boomer regularly as well; I’ve even used coming home to see Boomer as a bribe to get Charlie to leave the park without crying!  Oh well – maybe he’ll grow out of the allergy, but if not, we’ll let him admire other people’s dogs and cats from afar, and maybe he can have a pet turtle!

I was really impressed at how tough he was at the doctor’s office. Again, he freaked out on the scale (for a skinny little guy he has quite the weigh-in phobia), and he cried a lot when the nurse was cleaning his back off with alcohol and accidentally swiped it over some scratches he had. That must have burned. But when they were poking him with all the allergens, he stayed in my arms and held himself together, and when it was done, his tears dried up in no time. The nurse was enchanted with him, not that I can blame her.

We have to go back in a month – the doctor wants to talk to me about how he’s doing with the new treatment, and also discuss the possibility of asthma. She thinks he probably has it, but I’m hoping she’s wrong. The poor guy has seen more doctors and specialists and endured more treatments and therapies in his short life than I have in mine, and I’d prefer not to add yet another one to the list! But I know if we have to, he’ll weather it like the tough little guy he is!

To close, here’s a photo of Charlie with his daddy in the neighbor’s tree that was hit by lightening on Saturday! Our across the cul-de-sac neighbor had a beautiful young pear tree in his front yard, and now has only half a pear tree left. But yesterday, the weather was beautiful and several of the men in the neighborhood (including George) congregated in John’s yard to cut apart the half of the tree that fell and drag all the limbs to the curb. John is elderly and recently had a stroke, so he’s moving pretty slowly these days and wouldn’t have been able to do anything about the tree himself other than pay someone to do it. It was awfully nice of the neighbors to take care of it for him.

And here’s a photo of Charlie’s new tub do – I think it’s time for a haircut!