I Want to Talk about the Puppies

I really want to talk about the puppies.  I want to share the pictures and tell the story of the day Willow gave birth.  I want to go back and fill in the gaps and post the pictures I took (but never posted) as the puppies grew.  I want to record which puppy went to which family and share the pictures I took as we said goodbye to each one.  I want to do a follow-up post and write down the new names of the puppies and include pictures that the new owners have sent to me.  I want to do all of that!

But I can't.  I just can't.  Not yet anyway.

The reason is simple: those 10 little puppies, that I wasn't even sure I wanted, so endeared themselves to me that, now that they're gone, I miss them intensely.  

It's slightly ridiculous--no, make that more than slightly!  Part of the time I'm laughing at myself for how silly I'm being, and part of the time I'm fighting to hold back the tears (and not always succeeding).  Ridiculous, I tell you!

I thought my prevailing emotion, once all the puppies were gone, would be relief.  I had NO IDEA it would be grief.  

Don't misunderstand: I'm incredibly grateful for the GREAT homes the puppies went to (and it THRILLS me every time one of the new owners sends me pictures and updates), and of course there is no possible way we could have kept 10 puppies!  But my head knows that, and still my heart misses them.  Silly, silly heart.

I tried looking through some pictures tonight, and it was too much.  They grew up entirely too fast!  It's hard to believe that these little sweethearts, just learning how to get around when they were a couple of weeks old...

...so quickly grew into these strong, able puppies, exploring and bouncing around in our yard.

The last morning we had the puppies, I was standing in the kitchen watching them on the porch as I OFTEN did, and I happened to decide to take a little video of them.  I knew there was a possibility that one of them might be taken that day but never once imagined that all three would be gone in just a few hours.  When I said goodbye to them at the end of the video, I didn't know the real goodbye would be coming so soon.

I'm sure that after some time goes by, I'll be able to think about the puppies and look at their pictures without feeling such an ache; but until then, maybe I'll stick to lighter, more cheerful topics!

What Adorns My Springtime Table

There's a quote that I see floating around Facebook every so often: "The most precious jewels you'll ever have around your neck are the arms of your children."

With all due respect to whoever first penned that, I'd like to amend it slightly.  Here is my version: "The most beautiful decorations that will ever adorn your table are the bouquets of wildflowers and weeds that your children pick for you."  :)

 I was abundantly blessed today with these hand-picked splashes of color; it seemed like all afternoon, either Tobin or Shav or Moriah was coming in the door with another blossom or two in hand.  I soon stopped trying to arrange the flowers and let them take over that task, too.  They did a fine job.  :)

 My heart has been especially soft towards such displays of affection because of two specific reasons.  First, the way the puppies have all grown up and left us for other homes has been a vivid reminder of how, although the process takes quite a bit longer for children, it does happen!  I find myself missing those puppies way more than I ever thought I would, and I know the day will come when I'll be missing my children when they've left our nest.

 Second, on Sunday night, Tobin had a tummy ache that was so alarming that we almost took him to the hospital.  It wasn't that long ago that we all got hit with that horrible stomach flu that felled us one by one; but even during the height of that misery, Tobin didn't cry from pain like he did Sunday night.  His agony prompted us to google things like "appendicitis symptoms" and even to call my dad, waking him from sleep to ask his advice.  As it turned out, just after Jeff had said, "I think I need to take him to the hospital," and had gotten out of bed to get dressed to do just that, Tobin's pain eased, and he was able to sleep more or less peacefully.  How grateful we were that it was a false alarm, but how startling to be reminded of the speed at which life can change.

Since then, Tobin has complained from time to time about his stomach hurting, but with nothing even close to the intensity of that one night.  His appetite has been off, and his energy low, but nothing too alarming.  Both Shav and Moriah have seemed a little off, too; and there have been some complaints of tummy aches, sore throats, and so forth.  All three of them were eager to fall asleep this evening, and I'm hoping that a good night of rest will bring restoration to their bodies.

A touch of sickness reminds me of the preciousness of life, and tonight it's especially reminding me of the preciousness of chosen-with-love, picked-by-children's-hands blossoms that are beautifying my springtime kitchen table.  There's nothing more lovely than love!  :)

Wordless Wednesday {Cherry Tree Looking Prettier than Ever}

The Final Goodbye

The last of the puppies left yesterday...

...and today, the last (human) visitor--Aunt Joyce--went her way, carted off by some long-time friends of the family, Ken and Freda.

Tonight the house seems strangely empty.

I had thought to stay up late and begin the task of posting pictures and words from the past nine days of extra-special visitors and moments.  But I can't seem to make myself do it tonight.

Tonight is a time for feeling the weight of emptiness, for missing those who are no longer here.  And then time for resting and preparing to wake up tomorrow and switch gears.  It's time to figure out what normal looks like again!

Celebrating a Four-Year-Old's Birthday (in the Middle of a Week of Celebration!)

There have been so many meaningful moments during this week of visits from extended family that I can't even count them anymore.  I feel a little breathless from the whirl of it all, and it's not over yet.  :)

These are the kind of days that I would like to make a video of, to replay in the future and remember how it was to be together, face to face, in the same corner of God's big earth.  But since taking a video of each day from beginning to end is slightly impractical ;-), I'll content myself with grabbing snippets of the special events of this week.

One of those was the fourth birthday of Jayden, the son of my cousin Doreen.  To celebrate, we had birthday cake at home for him and then went to our local indoor mini golf place to play a round.  I didn't take my good camera, but here are some (inferior) cell phone pictures to jog my memory in years to come.  :)

 My aunt had only played mini golf one other time in her life, and that was something like 48 years ago!!  Despite her lack of experience, she did really well and even got a hole-in-one on two different holes!  :)

Benjamin was perfectly content to stay in his seat and watch all the action.  I had expected that he would need me to hold him, but he didn't, thus making the evening a little easier for me as I juggled my roles of scorekeeper and watcher of lots of children.  :)

At the end of the evening, Josiah was the overall winner with a score of 39.  But actually, all of us who had fun there together and made a special memory for a new four-year-old boy are the real winners!  :)

Wordless Wednesday {My Mother, Yesterday}

Where I'll Be

If you're looking for me online in the next couple of days, you might have a harder time than normal finding me, but there's a good reason for that.  I'll be enjoying real-life, face-to-face time with some people that are precious to me!!  :)

They arrived here from Canada and Ohio today, and I'm not exactly sure, but I'm guessing that at least half their motivation for coming was to see the puppies!  ;-)

 Well, that's fine.  We'll do whatever it takes to get our far-away relatives to decide to come our way for a visit.

And we're not above using puppies to do it - ha!!  :)

My Two Favorites (Songs, I Mean)

Life has been a little crazy recently.  Crazy in a mostly good, life-is-abundantly-full-but-how-much-longer-can-I-sustain-this-pace kind of way.

At times, I've felt like I was in a whirlwind.  Other times I thought I must be running a marathon, although struggling to do so at the speed of a sprint.  Sometimes I saw myself as a swimmer in the middle of the ocean, treading water until help arrives and getting SO exhausted in the process.  And other times, I've thought surely I was the proverbial frog in the pot of slowly-heating water.  When would I reach the point of jumping out?  And how could I jump out anyway?

Because I have my Kindle set up in the kitchen and use that to listen to music on Pandora, I rarely turn on the radio these days; and when I'm driving in the Big White Van with my kids, I don't routinely turn it on there either (it's hard enough for people a few rows back to hear the conversation in the front, so adding more noise to the environment doesn't make much sense).  But once in a while, someone--usually Moriah--will request music while we're riding along; and if there's no important discussion happening at the moment, I will say yes and turn on the radio.  

That happened twice recently, and the song that came on both of those times was this one...

I had never heard it before, but I liked it immediately, and my kids did, too.  They, particularly the older ones, are well aware that life has been especially full during the past couple of months; and the message of "just breathe" was, I believe, a welcome one for them as well as for me.  :)  (And who can resist the effect of the music suddenly calming and the piano playing alone about 49 seconds into it? Perfect effect!)  :)

After the second time I heard it while we were driving somewhere, I told myself that I really needed to look it up when we got home.  I did and have listened to it a number of times during the past week or so; and even when I'm not listening to it, I often find a phrase or two from it running through my mind along with a snippet of the melody.  It's a new favorite, for sure!

With all of the things going on, I continually feel like a juggler who, in the middle of a public performance, just dropped all the balls in the air.  To put it mildly, I am not getting to everything that I should be getting to!  I feel like every day I apologize to someone (or multiple someones) by saying something like, "I'm so sorry I didn't get back with you about that," or "I'm sorry I haven't done that yet; I'll try to do it soon!"  

I'm all in favor of apologizing, but I wish I didn't have to do it quite so often!!  My self-condemnation is a heavier burden than anything that anyone else is putting on me, and so, this next song speaks deeply to me...

I first heard of Andrew Peterson when he opened a concert by Michael Card that I attended with my friend Julie some years ago, so every time I hear this I think of her.  :)  And then the refrain "be kind to yourself" runs through my head, and I take a deep breath, ready to take on the next task--whether that be apologizing to someone or a job that's more fun.  :)

Well, there you have it: my two newest favorite songs.

And now, for no apparent reason, I'm going to toss in a couple of pictures from part of yesterday's whirlwind.  :)

At a roller skating party with some local homeschoolers yesterday afternoon, the oldest four boys circled the rink numerous times, and I never did get a picture of them.  But the youngest two were a little easier to capture (although I took the photos with my cellphone so the quality is fairly low).

This is what Moriah likes to do when we go to the skating rink.  :)

And Benjamin got to hang out with one of his favorite people, Miss Janie (who also appeared in this blog post from several months ago).  :)

And with that, today's whirlwind has stilled, and sleep beckons, and I'm reminded that I am SO THANKFUL that God created the cycle of day and night so that we would get a break.

Because even the strongest swimmer can't tread water forever.  ;-)

The Most Surprising Thing that Happened Yesterday

The most surprising thing that occurred on Thursday was NOT that we gave away two puppies.  No, indeed.  As a matter of fact, they've been going like hotcakes; and currently we only have three out of the original ten!

On Thursday morning, Daniel came with his dad and our friend Sarai to check out the puppies...

 ...and after playing with them and observing them for a while, he made his choice:

 Sofia!  :)

 We are so happy for this beautiful, spunky little girl...

 ...to have a new home with Daniel!  :)

On Thursday night, we had another set of visitors. The Johnson family came to look at the puppies...

...but our friend Colleen was more interested in the other baby around here.  ;-)

The Johnsons chose Mystery, which brought great delight to David's heart.

He had known that they were considering her...

...and he was rooting hard for them to be the ones to take "his" little girl home--after he gave her a little extra love before saying goodbye, of course.

We're thrilled that these friends that I've known since we were part of church youth group together...

...have added Mystery to their family!  :)

As wonderful as those two events were, they weren't the most surprising part of Thursday.  But this was...

I had dropped Josiah off at the barber shop for Jeff to take him to his speech and debate club meeting, and then I had dropped David off at a rehearsal with his Junior Strings ensemble.  After that, the other kids and I headed for McDonald's to grab a bite to eat while we waited for David to finish.  We ordered our food and pulled up to the window to pay, only to hear the girl there say, "The car in front of you paid your bill.  You don't owe anything!"

WHAT?????????  I had heard that such things happened, that sometimes complete strangers, out of the goodness of their hearts, decided to bless others in that way.  But it had certainly never happened to me like that!!!

"Are you serious?" I asked the cashier, not really believing my ears.  But when she repeated it and when I looked at the driver of the truck in front of me and saw the big smile on the face of the older gentlemen who was driving it, the reality began to sink in.

"THANK YOU SO MUCH!!" I leaned out the open window of my van and called to the other driver, hoping that my tone of voice would somehow convey just how grateful I was for such a pleasant surprise.

"You're welcome!" he called back.  "Have a great day!"

"Thanks!!  You, too!!" I responded; and then with a final wave, he drove off.

WOW.

I was still a little stunned, and the kids were, too.  As we passed out Happy Meals and opened bottles of chocolate milk and put straws in drinks and made sure everyone had a napkin, we marveled and rejoiced at what had just happened.

And then I began to think a little more about it...

I realized, after some pondering, that there were three major events--and a whole string of smaller ones--that led me to be in that exact spot at that exact time and be blessed in that way.  First of all, we don't normally go out for food on Thursday evenings; instead, we come home and eat a late supper with my dad after David's rehearsal.  But because I knew the Johnsons were coming over to look at the puppies, I had decided we'd better eat somewhere earlier.  That was the first decision that placed us there.

Secondly, I was asking the kids where they wanted to go, and half of them said Burger King and half said McDonald's.  They tried to get Benjamin to break the tie, but he wasn't much help.  ;-)  The next option was a coin toss, and by using that method, we made the decision to go to McDonald's.  I can't help but think that God was involved in that coin toss.  ;-)

Third, the McDonald's we went to has two drive-through lanes where you can order, and then you merge into a single lane to pay and pick up your food.  I was heading toward the second drive-through lane when a car, coming the opposite direction, swung in front of me to get to place their order first.  It seemed a little rude to me, but I wasn't in a great big hurry, so I slowed down and let the lady go ahead of me.  "It's OK," I thought, "I can wait."  And because she went ahead of me, that put me in the position to be the car behind the one who paid for me.

I'm assuming that the man in that truck had made up his mind to pay for whichever car came behind him.  Maybe that's an inaccurate assumption, but I think it's probably true.  When we had merged from the two lanes into one, I had noticed him looking back at my van; and the thought crossed my mind, "I wonder why he's looking at us more than people in a check-out lane normally look at each other!"  Being married to Jeff has taught me a thing or two ;-) and I assessed the situation for danger and planned what I would do if I needed to get out of there in a hurry...which seems really silly now, but that's what I was doing.  And then to pull up and find out that the older man had paid for our meal--well, it caught me off guard completely.

No doubt about it, it was the biggest surprise all day long!  And I was so encouraged by it that I drove away thinking, "I wonder how I can encourage others today?"

So then I came home and gave a puppy to the Johnsons!  :)  It's a gift that lasts longer than a Big Mac!!!  :)

Wordless Wednesday {Once Upon a Time, We Had 10 Puppies}

The Exodus Begins

Today was the day.  Seven weeks and one day after Willow gave birth to 10 puppies while a historic snowstorm raged outside, the time came for the puppies to start moving on to their new homes.

It was a bittersweet day: bitter because, although we knew from the beginning that we would be giving these little puppies away, our hearts got attached to them anyway...but sweet because we got to give the first two away to people who are friends of ours.  Not only do we know that they will take great care of the pups, we're also fortunate enough to get to occasionally see pictures and hear updates from the families about how the puppies are doing!  That is a great comfort.  :)

Oliver, the puppy Tobin named, was such a popular little fellow that it was no wonder he was the first to go. 

But first, extra cuddles and kisses.

 We gave Oliver to our friend Jane and her family...

 ...and they were thrilled.

All evening I watched various members of their family post pictures on Facebook of Oliver (whom they renamed Finn) and gush about how much they love him.  He went to a GOOD home indeed!!

And then it was Koda's turn.  This little...uh, scratch that...BIG guy (at our most recent weigh-in, he was the heaviest again) was the sixth-born which means that I got to name him, giving him a name that means "friend."

 Jen and her family deliberated for a long time and carefully observed the puppies before making their final decision.  I was thrilled when they chose "my" puppy!  :)

 She, too, sent me pictures and updates tonight about how Koda is doing in his new home, and it's obvious that he will be very well taken care of.

I mean, who wouldn't love this adorable puppy anyway??  :)

I was dreading the emotions of this day (and truthfully, I didn't cry until I saw the sadness of some of my children--Shav, in particular, was mournful); but now that it's over, I can drop the dread like autumn leaves and simply let the rejoicing remain.  Because having such wonderful families to love on these sweet puppies is a cause for great joy indeed!!  :)

Bolt Grows Up

Every time I see Bolt, who is now seven weeks old, sleeping on his side like this...

...I remember this picture of him, taken about six and a half weeks ago, sleeping on his side next to Benjamin.

We all know that kids grow up fast, but at least they don't grow up as fast as puppies do!  Even though at times it's been a little overwhelming having 10 puppies in our home, I'm getting a little misty-eyed at the thought of saying goodbye to them soon, my consolation being that they're going to really great families.  This was an adventure I wasn't sure I wanted, but I've enjoyed it more than I ever thought I would.  Having these puppies around has made this winter fly by for me.  I can hardly believe they're about ready to fly the nest!  (Except they're dogs, not birds, and they can't fly.  But you know what I mean.)  ;-)