Kisses

Right now Esme loves giving kisses and hugs.

She will almost always give you a kiss if you ask.  She often goes up to Cricket and lays her head down on her body or puts her face up to Cricket's to try to kiss her. :)  She even gives her dolls kisses.

I love you Glow Worm!

Unfortunately, I think she tried to give Kaiser a kiss or a hug and it didn't go well. 

I always try to keep Kaiser and Esme away from each other.  If I'm home alone and Esme and I are on the main floor, Kaiser's upstairs.  If Esme and I go upstairs Kaiser gets sent downstairs.  But yesterday when Esme and I went upstairs, Kaiser was up with us.  I thought he was downstairs.  I even shut the gate so he couldn't come upstairs.  But he was upstairs on Aaron's and my bed. 

What we've learned about Kaiser is that when he's laying down, you don't touch him.  He's actually been pretty good around Esme - if she comes near him at all he gets up and walks away.  But he's particular about when he's laying on our bed.  Aaron doesn't even really touch him when he's there.

I was in Esme's room and I heard a big growl and Esme started crying.  I went into our room and there he was on our bed.  I was so surprised because I thought he was downstairs!  Then I looked at Esme and this is what I saw.

I was FURIOUS!!!  Needless to say, Kaiser was in trouble.  He got it from me.

I have no idea what to really do.  Aaron won't get rid of Kaiser.  We talked about it and it's just not going to happen.  I don't know that that's the best idea anyway, but I look at how close he came to Esme's eye and it just flips me out.  I have seen the kids come in to see our oculoplastics surgeon who have had dog bites, it's not pretty.  I hear on the news about how children get killed by their family dog.  It's so scary.  I just really hope that we never have to deal with that.

So for right now, we are being more vigilant than ever.  If Esme's running around, Kaiser is again on another floor.  We now do NOT allow Kaiser on our bed, EVER.  Even when we're out of the house, we put pillows and stuff on the bed so that he's won't jump up on it.

But as Esme gets older, my fear is that she's going to try to go after Kaiser more and more.  I've seen toddlers chase dogs.  Obviously, we can't let that happen.  So my question is this - how do we instill a respect for Kaiser in Esme without also making her scared of dogs permanently?