Merry Christmas Eve

So last night, in addition to getting the computer up and running, I got to sleep - for the first time in nearly a month - in our own bed! Oh, talk about refreshed and happy! I love and appreciate the futon, but I think I know why we found it sitting out - the thing sinks ever so slightly in the middle, so when five people pile on in the morning, woe is the mama who rolls deeply into the ditch in the middle and gets buried by the masses of bodies. I awoke this morning on a flat, level plane. Mmmmm, Merry Christmas, indeed.

Zorak and I are like a couple of kids at, well, at Christmas. We are totally psyched. We'd decided a while back that this would be The Year For A Puppy. (Did ya hear that, Aunt Bonnie?) James has had to have his dreams of a family pet put off repeatedly, as each new stage turned out to be not-what-we'd-expected. He's been so good about it. John doesn't really think it will ever happen at this point. Smidge? Well, hey, he's two, so we'll just have to find another way to mess him up later on.

So we began our search for a lab mix, or a coondog mix. Whatever it was, we knew it needed to be a mutt, a male, and a puppy. It needed to need a home full of love and adventure and security. And it needed to be Just The Right Dog. As of yesterday, we had begun to give up hope of finding him. But then, as Zorak turned to leave the pound, he met a lady with a puppy... a mutt puppy, an abandoned puppy she'd found in her yard, a little mellow male puppy. He'd been refused at the shelter because they are full, and Zorak, who has a very strange (yet positive) effect on women, ended up leaving with the puppy, toys from another woman and her daughter, a photo of him with the puppy, and some email addresses. Someone mentioned a "Christmas Miracle", and I'm pretty sure someone got teary-eyed. To be honest, I can't even imagine how that one played out. Those things don't happen to me. But they do to Zorak, and Our Puppy has found us.

He took the pup to Ben & Claudia's to stay until this evening. I went over last night to visit with him, and left absolutely floored that Zorak had found Just The Right Dog at Just The Right Moment. He's perfect. He's going to be big. He's got a great personality. I am in love. Zorak is in love. The boys are going to be completely in love. And what's so great about all this love is that we have the space, the time, the resources, to spend on this little guy in welcoming him into the family and making him a part of our lives. How absolutely cool.

LB asked me if I was sure I wanted to take on a new puppy and a new baby within just a few weeks of each other, and I started laughing (perhaps a bit maniacally). It's not like we haven't passed into the realm of the absurd several months ago. Might as well get all the big changes over at once, right? Besides, this will lessen the boys' disappointment in not getting the infrared nightvision goggles (John) or the pair of breeding elves (James) they'd asked Santa for.

My only concern at the moment is that we are going to throw Smidge into a series of epileptic fits from which he may not recover. Everything this child sees sends him into spasms of joy and pleasure. The lights, the ornaments, the cookies, the trees. Even the plain, undecorated trees will get him quivering. Throw a strand of lights on it and he's visibly vibrating. Break out another strand and he's paralyzed with the trembles. I don't know that he's going to make it through Christmas morning without going into a four hour grand mal fit. I have never, in my life, seen someone enjoy the sights and sounds of Christmas the way Smidge does. But this year, I know how he feels.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy