Anna M. Aquino

            Last week we almost lost our dog, Mojo.  I say almost because my youngest daughter kept insisting he needed our help.  The temperatures last week were in the single digits and she’d gone outside to play at my parents’ house.  Our dog and my parents’ dog were playing and while we kept an eye on her no one thought much about it.  Until she came in frantically crying that our dog was stuck under their pool.  Honestly that child has a penchant for the dramatic and everyone kept saying “He’ll come out.”  But he wasn’t coming out.  Soon we realized that Mojo really was stuck under the pool.  We’re pretty sure he was chasing a rabbit, and somehow managed to wedge himself between a pile of dirt and the deck.  For whatever reason he couldn’t get out the way he came in.  Due to the extreme cold conditions we also knew that time was not on our side.    Four adult...

                As I’ve written about before, we have become a single car family; which for us it means that when I pick my kids up from school we have to hang out where my husband works for an hour.   It’s really not that big of a deal.   His work has a small pond and a couple picnic tables set up.   The girls do their homework, and Mojo (my dog) gets to spend some time outside.   Yesterday my youngest was on a toot.   She was procrastinating on doing her homework. “Mommy, I forgot my sweater in the car.   Mommy, I don’t have a pencil.   Mommy, I need to get another piece of paper.”   I was getting frustrated, and sent her back to the car to get what she needed.   In order for her to do that, she has to cross a parking lot. I tell her every time to be careful in the parking lot. I had Mojo’s leash in one hand, and my tablet in another.   Suddenly I heard a scream. ...

  A few days ago our dog Mojo came in from the outside while we were finishing dinner. Right away something smelled off.   It smelled rank.   Right away the Northern Woods Girl came out of me and I wondered how did this dog get around a skunk?   I found myself beginning to wonder if we had enough tomato juice for a skunk smell to clean him up.   We opted by started to give him a bath.   The smell was atrocious and my eyes almost began to water as I reached down to his collar to take it off.   As I did, my finger gooed in what I knew right away was poop.   I think Mojo had rolled in it, got it wedged in his collar, and now permeated the odor all through my house.   In the end he had to be scrubbed at least three times, all my surfaces cleaned, and I’m still not sure he was 100% clean. People in general can be like this in life.   You know something doesn’t seem quite right with them.   You try to help them out by helpi...

  I do not remember how young I was when this story happened.   I would guess I was probably somewhere between 10-14, but I’m not sure.   I have a bit of a flare for baking.   It’s not that I’m great at it, but give me a recipe and let me go.   Sometimes I enjoy it.   Yes, I confess I can be a ninja mom.   However for some reason on this particular day I decided I would make biscuits and I flatly refused to follow a recipe.   My dear sweet mother attempted to steer me in the right direction as I randomly grabbed cooking items off the shelf. Flour billowed in the kitchen with whatever else looked or smelled like it should go in the batch.   Surely I didn’t need any recipe.   I could do this on my own. What resulted that day was something my family and I still laugh hysterically about.   When the “biscuits” came out of the oven they were bad, really bad.   I started to cry.   My mother in feeling sympathy trie...

My youngest daughter and the dog have developed quite the “sibling” relationship.   I say sibling because I don’t know what else to call it.   The dog picks on her, and runs all over her, she just screams.   I’ve heard her tell him “No” but he doesn’t listen to her.   It usually turns into her crying, me stepping in giving Mojo one hard look and he’ll leave her alone. I’ve tried to explain to her that the dog doesn’t listen to her because he knows he can bully her. It’s not that he’s hurting her, he just pesters her.   A few days ago I was getting annoyed at this; I was tired of the whining.   I yelled through the living room at my youngest, “Would you please take your authority?” To which I heard her ask, “Why?”   I wanted to hit my head against the wall.   What do you mean why? “Because you’re the human that’s why!”   Suddenly as the words fell out of my mouth I realized a powerful truth about spiritual warfare.   It was i...

             I walk to pick up and drop off my daughters most days to and from school.   I’ve been in the process of trying to get Mojo to walk that with me more.   He’s cute.   He’s a puppy, of course all the kids come out of the school gate and scream and shriek over a puppy that is extremely social and friendly.   It’s a common occurrence for the parents to walk their dogs here.               About a week ago this lady stops me and said, quite snarky I might add, “Everybody like’s YOUR dog.”   She was leading her adult dog, and the way she said it I could tell she was so mad at me because these kids were gathering around my dog.                 “Oh well yes.”   I tried to smile at her.   I couldn’t figure out how she could be so upset and jealous over who...