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Micah, our first grader, is quite talented in drawing. A couple of weeks before Christmas, he sketched a very elaborate scene from our kitchen -- down to the basket of hot pads sitting atop the microwave and the calendar hanging on the wall. But right in the middle of the kitchen was a cute picture of a dog -- which we don't have! I'm not much of a pet person, really. All of our small pets (bunny, hamsters, gerbils et al) have long since died off, except the two fish that Lydia lovingly tends in her bedroom. I don't like extra noise and mess (we have enough of that already with ten kids!) and can mentally calculate vet bills and pet food costs -- but this picture of Micah's touched my heart. He and the rest of the kids all really wanted a dog. I started thinking that maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea, and in fact, I started getting excited about it. A small cadre of us snuck off to the humane society and some pet shops to look, and..... we didn't get a dog. The sounds and smells brought me back to reality. I'm not ready for that extra stress yet. So instead of finding a live puppy under the Christmas tree, Micah found a realistic looking stuffed dog, and he was thrilled. Fast forward to yesterday. He was on my bed kissing baby Melody, when suddenly he turned to me with adoring eyes and said, "She's much better than the dog I wanted!"
Well, my Aunt Nancy must have heard that we were thinking of getting a dog, because she forwarded this joke:
Let Sleeping Dogs Lie
One afternoon, I was in the back yard hanging the laundry when an old, tired-looking dog wandered into the yard. I could tell from his collar and well-fed belly that he had a home. But when I walked into the house, he followed me, sauntered down the hall and fell asleep in a corner. An hour later, he went to the door, and I let him out. The next day he was back. He resumed his position in the hallway and slept for an hour.
This continued for several weeks. Curious, I pinned a note to his collar: "Every afternoon your dog comes to my house for a nap."
The next day he arrived with a different note pinned to his collar: "He lives in a home with ten children - he's trying to catch up on his sleep." |
Aug. 29, 2006 - Kim Forder