because what we really need right now is a puppy...

 Just like there is no good time to have a baby, there is definitely no good time to get a puppy.  Especially when your entire house (life) in under renovation and there just aren't enough hours in the day (week, month, year) to begin to make a dent in the to-do list.

We had a dog for 14 years.  He died seven years ago. We have had seven years of doglessness (note: not petlessness which is an entirely different category). Two of our three children have been pleading for a dog. For years.  As the years go by the pleading gets more creative, with letters to Santa and the Easter Bunny. We have said:  no, no, no, no, no, no, NO, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, NO, yes??

Which of course teaching them that the more persistent you are, the more you can possibly finally wear down your parents.  Great life lesson.  But I digress.

Actually, we have had two close calls...  My helpful Mother actually brought a puppy to last June's birthday party.  We said NO and made her take it back.  That was fun.  Then we went to Puerto Rico in November and found four puppies born under the neighbor's truck.    The mother was a starving stray, very skittish and we couldn't get near her never mind catch her.  We took the puppies to the animal shelter who tried to save them, but they didn't make it.  It was absolutely heartbreaking.  We considered adopting a different dog from the PR shelter, but we were too sad. Then we found out they fly the dogs to Massachusetts and a number of them end up at the shelter in OUR HOMETOWN!

If that isn't the universe speaking, then it certainly is a lot of puppy-related coincidences.

In December, our Elf on the Shelf, Jolly received a letter stating "I would really like a puppy for Christmas, but if you can't I understand..."  followed by a phone call from the big guy himself (AKA Santa) and finally we agreed, that in the summer, once school was out and I had 8 weeks off of work we would rescue a puppy, hopefully from Puerto Rico.

So, this spring I did what any potential future dog adopter would do, I began stalking the adoptable puppies at the local animal shelter and saving them to my Pinterest board (note: all these puppies pictured have been adopted).

Follow The Pigeon Wants a Puppy on Pinterest.

I discovered that the puppies usually arrive on Monday or Tuesdays.  They are spayed/neutered usually the day after they arrived, and then they are available for adoption at the end of the week, usually on Thursdays or Fridays.  Most were adopted within hours of being available!  Those puppies go fast!  I had no idea there were so many other crazy people out there looking to rescue a puppy.

Anyway, last Friday we decided to go a look at the puppies.  This was a bad idea.  You cannot go and look at puppies and play with puppies and then go home without one.  What was I thinking?   I blame it on my subconscious. Of course we met the sweetest puppy who loved playing with the kids, who didn't bark (not once until we got home and she saw herself in a mirror), who seemed very friendly and who came home with us that day...five weeks early.

The husband has not quite forgiven me yet.  He wants to know what happened to our summer puppy agreement. The last time he checked, it was still spring.  I need to encourage him to get these things in writing.  So I am in trouble.  Again.

In time he will come around.  I am sure he will, and until then, well...perhaps I can give distract him with a bathroom to renovate...

The birds have been busy this spring!

The kids have discovered two nests with eggs in the yard. This one is at the top of the slide near their swingset. They put a wooden shelf that they made up there and some bird brain decided that would be a good place to build a nest and lay eggs.

If you look closely you can see a piece of the tarp from the shed that made it into the nest materials (it's blue near the bottom).  I wonder if the bird is rethinking her choice of a home since the kids disturb her about once a day to peek at the eggs.

The kids also found a second nest on an old tree out back that is covered with grapevines.  There were four eggs in this nest.  The eggs are also a fabulous aqua blue color, but bigger than the ones in the swing-set nest.

Imagine their surprise when they went to check on the eggs and instead found these alien creatures.  Baby birds are quite freaky looking, but they certainly know how to eat!

The three fuzz balls.  More wisps than feathers.  About 1 day old.  It was nice of Momma bird to put this nest at eye level!

If you look closely, you can see the fourth egg that has yet to hatch (or not).  

Another long night...

I had another one of THOSE nights...but I think I might know why...

I was so angry with the husband.  Really, really angry. Furious actually.  I don't have any idea why, but he did something bad.  I was so angry that I propelled myself out of bed, still asleep and I recall a lot of yelling.  I remember walking around the end of the bed and approaching his side (why? when I could have just rolled over) and then I caught myself, suspended between the dream, confused about the anger, and no idea what I was trying to do.

Sheepishly, I bent down and patted the cat, then walked back to my side and got back in bed.  The husband snored on, none the wiser.  I fell back asleep only to be awakened a second time, equally furious, and again jumped out of bed.  I yelled, "That's it.  I've had it.  I will not sleep in here!" and stomped off into the hallway.

Here I remember pondering which bed I should go sleep in.  I am a bit like Goldilocks.  I chose the Baby Bear's bed.  He happily snuggled into me and we went back into a nightmare-free sleep, until I woke in a puddle of wet.  Yup, it had been over a year, but I managed to choose the night when there would be a bed-wetting.  So at 3:30 am, after a change of clothing and a trip to the bathroom, we both headed back to my bed.  The husband probably thinks it serves me right.  Maybe it does.  I really should stay in my own bed.

The next morning I asked him if he remembered being yelled at during the night.  He said no, that he was tired and he slept.  

Then two nights later, it happened again.  Only this time I had only been asleep for a little while and I KNOW why I was so mad at him.  I am reading this book (he gave it to me) and the main character has Tourettes and is very OCD.  The husband came into the bedroom and didn't follow the correct tapping ritual for walking through a doorway.  The thing is, this ritual, if not followed, had some pretty dire consequences (don't ask me what they are, but they are bad).  The worst part was that he was not following it on purpose and he was smirking.  I think he was trying to see what would happen if he didn't follow the rules.  Or maybe he was pushing my buttons to see if I would react.  (Reminder, none of this is real).

So now I have to make a tough decision, do I discard this book that I am about 3/4 way through and opt for something safer, or finish the book and deal with the sleepwalking?  It doesn't seem to happen every night when I read it.  Perhaps I can get the husband to sleep in some sort of helmet to be on the safe side...