In just a little over a year, we’ve had to say goodbye to three dogs. First, we lost our precious Sasha to cancer. Then, we were fostering Russ through his heartworm treatment, and we lost him to distemper.

This past Thursday, we said goodbye to the third, but under a much different set of circumstances. Our foster dog Bailey found a new home up in New Jersey, so we went down to Little Rock to see him off on the P.E.T.S. transport that will deliver him and about a hundred other dogs from the South to their new homes in the Northeast, which they do every week. (They currently have an 8-week show on Animal Planet, airing on Saturday nights.)

It was hard to say goodbye and we will miss him greatly, but fostering all the way through to the send-off is rewarding as well. He arrived today, and his new mom wrote how much they adore him and how much sweeter he is than they ever could have imagined. She thanked us for loving him and taking care of him until he could be theirs. They have been counting down the days until he would arrive! Fostering definitely fills a need in the animal rescue world. We are honored to have been a part of Bailey’s story, and we hope to do it again in the future (after we have our own dog(s), according to David—he says he can’t do this again unless he has a dog to come home to!)

Here are few pics from send-off day:

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Anna graduated! I’m so proud!

Ok, so it was from “Mother Goose on the Loose” story time at the library. Since she’s 2 now, she’s supposed to move up to “Toddler Time” for the next year. So after story time today, they held a little graduation ceremony complete with certificate and refreshments. (No graduation speaker, thankfully.) I’m sure the kids didn’t have a clue what it was all about, but there were lots of proud parents there!

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Oh my goodness, could this child be any sweeter? I don’t think so! I know I’m a little biased, but she’s just the most precious thing ever. She smiles so much and is happy most of the time. She is smart and picks up on everything. She says “thank you” when we give her something and “bless you” when we sneeze (it comes out more like “ba-bash,” but that’s what she means). She tries to do so much for herself now, and we try to let her. Her verbal skills are developing, and she’s starting to communicate with us more and more that way (although she has understood us for a long time now). She sometimes sings along to her lullaby CD now—it started out as just random syllables sung in a sweet little voice, but lately the syllables are starting to resemble the actual words.

There’s a lot more I could say, but I’ll just leave you with some pictures from this afternoon.

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It was a gorgeous day today (a fact that was apparent to the rest of central Arkansas as well), so we thought a great way to celebrate Anna’s birthday was for David to play hooky from work and take us to the zoo. It’s so great that he can take off and make up the hours whenever! Anna loved it so much she cried when we left, but I promised her we would come back. She did a few of her animal sounds, and a lot of the animals made “a mess” and needed “a bath” (see earlier post). She also enjoyed climbing on every single park bench when she was out of her stroller.

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We had a little birthday party for her last night. Small and simple—just the grandparents, a taco dinner, balloons, a couple of presents, and cake. I’m SO thankful I’ve been feeling better the past couple of days; I was afraid I’d be too sick to enjoy the party. I “outsourced” the cake this time, and I’m glad I did because it was super cute (thanks, Mom!). Anna had fun being the center of attention, getting some new goodies, and eating her “ye-yow” (yellow) cake!

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Anna, our late-talker, has been stringing 2 or 3 words together for several weeks now. One of the first instances I can recall was at dinner one night when she kept saying, over and over, “Mama eat!” and “Dada eat!” She was quite proud of her new accomplishment.

Lately, though, she’s also gained the ability to retell things that happened in the past. Her favorite right now is, “Dixie… a mess… Dixie… bath!” While Anna was at my parents’ house last week, their little dog Dixie, unbeknownst to my mom, started going after a crawdad in a patch of mud. Apparently she was just a horrible mess and had to be hosed off out on the deck. Anna thought it was hilarious. It’s fun to hear her tell her “story” over and over!

UPDATE: Ok, so we were at her weekly “Mother Goose” time at the library today. We got to the part where the teacher pulls various animals out of a bag and we practice our animal sounds. The dog just happens to look like a little Pomeranian (like Dixie). So now, instead of “woof woof”, my child says, “A mess! A mess!”

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On Saturday we decided to get out and enjoy the beautiful weather, despite a cold that was making me feel crummy. It would have been a good day for the zoo, but I needed a shorter, closer-to-home trip, so we visited nearby Cadron Settlement Park. Several friends had mentioned that even their little ones had done the trails there, so we thought we’d give it a try. Anna did great going up and down those hills! We just hiked a little way, then turned around. I’m sure the older she gets, the more of the trail we’ll be able to do. She’s going to be a good little hiker!

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Ok, I finally let Anna go out and play in the snow. It’s cold, wet, and messy. I don’t like cold, wet, and messy. But I eventually felt guilty enough about ALL the other kids except Anna playing in the snow; I knew she would love it, and she did! So did Bailey—he ran around and frolicked in it, and Anna got a big kick out of him.

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Anna’s little twin boyfriends came over to play today!

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Our little Anna had a minor surgery a week ago. She had a small cyst removed from her left eyebrow. It wasn’t very noticeable and wasn’t a threat to her health, but it would likely get bigger as she got older and would need to be removed eventually (and it might be harder to remove once it got bigger), so we decided it was best to do it while she’s too little to know what’s going on.

We first took her to an ophthalmologist here in Conway, but we just weren’t happy with the consultation. The doctor came across as a bit cold, uncaring, and totally out of touch with kids (and their parents). Although he probably would have done a fine job, there’s no reason to put up with that, in my opinion.

We ended up seeing Dr. Wade Brock at the Baptist Eye Center. I went in thinking, “ok, he’s a surgeon, so he’s probably going to have that surgeon’s personality (or lack thereof), so don’t expect too much.” But I was wrong—he was SO good with Anna and knew how to interact with her, was very personable and easy to talk to, and was on the same page with us about our concerns.

When we got to the surgery center, I was very impressed with the nurses and the anesthesiologist as well. Everyone knew how to deal with a small child and make it as low-stress as possible. They went very slowly, gave her toys and stickers, let her play with stuff like the stethoscope before they used it, and did everything they could to make her smile. They gave her a sedative so she didn’t care in the least about being taken from us (the part I was most worried about); the anesthesiologist held her close to him while she fell alseep (isn’t that sweet?); they even put the IV in after she was asleep.

Aside from a black eye that is still healing, she’s been fine. She really hasn’t seemed bothered by the swelling or the stitches too much. The first couple of days her eye was swollen almost shut, but she just kept on playing and going about her business as usual. The swelling is almost gone, but there’s still a bit of bruising. But no one has called Department of Human Services on us yet, so we’re good. :)

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