So yesterday the girls come running into my office laughing, saying we have a visitor and that there's a dog in the house. I laugh too and tell them he better not pee anywhere. W says, "no, really, a really real dog. Come see." I'm still joking around with them, since they pretend to be puppies all the time. I walk out of my office and stop dead at the site of a large black lab mix with no collar in the middle of our living room.

The girls had left the garage door open and apparently this lost dog had come into our house. Luckily he was very friendly and well behaved. We ended up taking him to Humane Society after searching the neighborhood on foot and by car for his owners.

So Wednesday night I send this email out to everyone in Classical Conversations: Did anyone find a small gold stuffed puppy with a collar and tag today? This is A's very special, most favorite baby and she didn't make it home...

Then the next morning I had to send out this email: Thank you all for your prayers...in the middle of the night A had an epiphany....she realized that Gold had made it home and was stuffed inside a toy cookie jar on a shelf...


Gee, why didn't I think to look there?

A just told me "If W was lost, I would run and find her, because I am very fast. That's why I work out so hard."

A woke up crying this morning. I ran downstairs to make out that she was saying in a heartbroken voice "I lost my leopard, Mama. Mama, where is my leopard?". I start to go through her blankets when suddenly she says cheerfully "Oh! It's under my bottom! Sorry, Mama!"