Meet Scamper

Well, I finally caved.  We got the kids a puppy!  I know I told Shawn that I had zero desire to get another dog, but Abigail has been softening my heart to the idea.  She, maybe the most out of all the kids, is a huge dog lover.  She loves them so much and talks about them so frequently to the point that I could seriously see her working with animals when she is older.  Anytime she sees someone out with their dog, she begs me to let her ask if she can pet it.  Her favorite place to go is the pet store, and she tells me frequently about her dreams of when she has her own home and the kind of dog she plans on getting.  And that is when my heart first began to soften.  Why does she have to wait until she has her own place to have her dream fulfilled? Why can’t she experience this joy while under our roof, and I can be a spectator to that joy??  This is when my thoughts began to shift.  Two more things began to soften me to the idea of getting a puppy.  One was watching the play the Wizard of Oz with the kids.  I got to watch as Toto behaved remarkably well on stage throughout the whole production even as the Wicked Witch screeched, even while being whisked away in a tornado, and even as Dorothy and him raced to escape the dangers around them, and I began to wonder if maybe we could find a dog with such a sweet, calm disposition.  Then when Anna blew out her birthday candle this year, I asked her if she remembered to make a wish.  Abigail assured her that even if she forgot to it was okay because birthday wishes don’t come true.  She said she had wished for a dog on her birthday candle, and it hadn’t come true.  Talk about pulling at my heart strings!  So these are the reasons behind my shift in thinking.  I can assure you it was not the creative writing assignment Abby wrote for language class at the beginning of this month where she wrote that Shawn and I got eaten by a shark, hence she was able to get a dog and live happily ever after.  No, that certainly did not sway me, although totally true story!  Shawn knew I have always thought Maltese (with hair cut short) was an adorable breed of dogs.  We did a lot of research and found they have the sweet, cuddly disposition I was hoping for, and they are hypoallergenic, which is a must, because, despite how much Abby loves dogs, she is allergic.  Anyways, we have had Scamper for 3 days now, and, so far, he has been everything we could have hoped for.  I told Shawn that when I was a little girl I used to imagine what my room in Heaven would be like.  All I remember wishing for in my design plan was a big, red heart mirror, and, after that, I remember wishing for a real life Snuggle fresh bear from those laundry commercials.  Well, Scamper comes pretty close to that, a sweet little teddy bear!  The kids love him, and I don’t think he has gone more than 30 minutes without being held since being here.  Dylan and Abigail couldn’t believe he was ours to keep.  They thought we were just renting him for the day.  They all said he smelled like a chocolate frappuccino!  Here’s to making some sweet memories and making Abigail’s wish come true!