A Dog for the J Train

This weekend we went to stay with my parents and proceeded with our plan to have this coming week to work on home improvement projects by sending the boys with Jimmy's parents to Brandon and leaving the girls at my parents house in Waldo. Everything was proceeding well when something I never thought would happen happened.

There is this thing about being a Christian. You sometimes feel called to things and have no idea why. This is what happened to me this weekend. Just yesterday, actually. We got a dog. It just sort of happened and for some reason I feel totally okay with it. I'm still wondering if I was possessed by the ghost of a dog-lover or something because I have no idea why I wanted this dog, but like I said, sometimes you feel like you're supposed to do something and it's just not something you ever thought you would do.

So we have this dog, she is a black lab named Bella. She is nine months old, so still a puppy but not a newbie. My Dad helped us get her--it was a man from his church who asked if he knew anyone who would like two black lab pups. Dad said "No" and then a matter of hours later we went and picked them up. Dad's going to keep the other one, her name is Abigail. He may and try to find a home for her, but she's already pretty attached to him.

Last night I laid in bed thinking, basically, "What was I thinking?!" and also things like: Will my house get really gross? Will I be able to teach her to obey? Will I smell like a dog? Will I be able to resist the urge to wash my hands every five minutes? Are we stupid to take on an extra expense? Am I even a dog person? Why, God? Well, I'm going to find out.

After getting her, we had to decide whether or not to keep the already made appointment to get her baby maker turned off. So here I can't even make this decision for good in my own life, and now I have to decide it for my dog which I've only had for a few hours. I just always wanted to see a dog have puppies, and I also just really love pregnancy. Anyway, with the voice of Bob Barker in my head, we decided to control the pet population and she will be getting fixed on Wednesday. The appointment was close to where my parents live so both dogs will be with my parents this week and will have their motherly fates decided together. We will get to bring her home next weekend.

So there it is. Just when I don't think I have any news to post on the blog...we get a dog. It really is a pretty crazy ride around here.

That makes Jesus happy

I've been away from the blog due to more home renovations and company and just general craziness this week which culminated in a horrible restaurant experience tonight that I can easily sum up with the following nursery rhyme:

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe
She had so many children she didn't know what to do
She gave them some broth without any bread
She whipped them all soundly
and put them to bed

I'll leave out the details, for fear that someone from the Department of Children and Families reads my blog...I've always thought there is quite a bit of wisdom in this so tonight Jimmy and I lined everyone up on the couch and well, you know...

Things can get pretty busy around here and there is always something to do. I try to play with the kids when they ask, but it's really hard sometimes to want to sit down on the floor and drive cars around when you have absolutely no brain cells left to devote to using your imagination. Earlier this week I literally fell asleep sitting on the floor "playing." (I put it in quotes because I was obviously not doing much playing.) Yet sometimes, you get a payoff. I don't ever want to forget what Cash said today when I agreed to play Little People with him.

We were playing with a castle and king, queen, etc. Cash, playing the king, said he had to tell everyone something. So he climbs him up to the top of the castle and stands out over his lowly subjects, played by me. He made the king say, "I need you to go to Disney World with me! Do you hear me?!" And I laughed and said, "Okay, king." He began to climb down and as he was doing so he said, "Because that makes Jesus happy!"

If only I could just get down on the floor and play with them more often. Because I think that makes Jesus happy.

Penelope

Penelope is now 18 months and I try not to freak out daily about the fact that my baby is growing up and forcing me down the exit ramp off the freeway of babyhood. It's a crazy bumpy fast-paced ride full of accidents and many tears so you'd think I'd be happy to get off but I'm not. I'm trying to remember the feeling of a baby kicking inside me and a newborn sleeping on my chest...

I like to remember those things, and it's good to do so because then I also remember things like nausea, waddling, spit up down my shirt, sore nipples, night time feedings, and the general greasiness you feel 65% of the time when you have a new baby. So even though all those things are totally worth it, I'm trying to see myself as in the pay off stage. Like, I had the baby, trained her well, now I'm enjoying my adventurous 18 month old who will still snuggle with me whenever I need it.

I snapped this picture of Penelope a couple weeks ago. I didn't catch her like this, she climbed in face first and I caught her in there with her back towards me. So I grabbed the camera and turned her around so I could remember just how cute and little and playful my baby girl is.

I have always tried to capture the cuteness of my kids in the bath...little kids are SO cute wet all over. But I've never really been able to do it to satisfy myself. I threw caution to the wind and got way too close to water with my expensive camera but was able to get a 1...2...3... of Penelope that I think will remind me of her preciousness one day. It is special to be the baby. We're all crazy about her. I'm glad I'm getting this down now, because yesterday and today she started walking around the house yelling, "Maaa! Maaa!" I'm sure this is going to get old real quick but for now I'm scooping her up and loving her with fury.

Finally, today I took pictures of Cash for his "3 year old" photo shoot. I'm only a month late, that's pretty impressive. I put some pictures on my photography blog, but here's one I left off the "professional" site. It happened in the middle of the session...he had to pee so he dropped his drawers right there in the yard. Love it.