Ollie

A couple weeks ago, our Sunday was such a great day. There are not many days when I can say that an entire day was great, but that day was one of them! The whole day-- great. 

On Sunday two out of the three boys agreed to haircuts. Great!

On Sunday I bought paint AND was able to paint Jonah's room a beautiful blue that he picked out. Great!

On Sunday we met our Ollie. We've been searching for Our Dog for so long, and we know Ollie is It. He is a two-month-old Shih Tzu puppy, who is the cutest thing I have ever seen in my life. He's like a little walking Ewok teddy bear. He has the sweetest personality. He loves to be snuggled, but will just as happily rest alone in his little puppy bed. He is so little that no one is scared or intimidated by his size. Even Ella has wants to hold him! Shocker! I'm not having any allergic symptoms because he has hair instead of fur. No one has had a meltdown because of barking because Ollie doesn't bark! Unless he wants to play. He did whine a little on the ride home because he wasn't sure about his crate, but then he just quieted down and relaxed. Sheesh! We've never had such a great, stress- free First Day Of Puppy Ownership!

Jonah is in heaven. In fact all the kids are just so happy with their new Ollie. Ella said this afternoon that she was going to ride her bike. I said she needed to stay on our driveway. She said ok, she was just going to follow "her boys" who were outside too. I said "your boys?" She said "Yeah, Jonah, Aidan, Ben and Ollie. My boys." She always calls her brothers her boys, but now Ollie apparently has joined the crew. 

Ollie is the only one who can get Aidan to willingly stop playing computer games. Ollie will pester Aidan until Aidan looks up, smiles, and says "Aww, Ollie, do you want to play with me?" And then the two of them are off on a puppy-boy adventure. It's awesome.

Ollie is so snuggly, he will let anyone hold him anytime. He doesn't wiggle, doesn't whine. A couple times on Sunday Jonah held Ollie while Ollie napped, and Jonah just pet him and smiled quietly. Obviously outrageously content. I knew once we found Our Dog that this is how it could be. That Jonah would be so content. It's great to see our boy, who is so frequently irritated and agitated, sitting calmly, just happy.

Aidan, Ben and Ella are tickled pink with Ollie too. We've spent a lot of time playing with him in the back yard. The grass is almost taller than him, on his 2-inch little legs. He has to sort of hop around, he's too little to even run. He is playful and curious, and very sweet. Aidan looked at me on Sunday at one point, with the BIGGEST smile on his face ever, and, with eye contact (!) said "Mom. I am SO happy we got Ollie today." Ahhh, love it. Everyone is happy. Ella keeps saying "Where's our doggie? I want to play with our doggie. I'm happy we got our doggie. He's a KEEPER."

There has only been one small snafu with our Ollie. Ella is very perturbed that we couldn't buy the pink leash, pink collar, pink doggie bed, pink blanket, and pink food bowls. AND she's very upset because she wanted to name our new puppy "Sugar" (which she pronounces 'Soogar' because we're still working on the 'sh' sound in speech therapy). Or "Donut." She insisted that the dog is a GIRL and the dog's name is Sugar. Or Donut. So we compromised. We told her the puppy can be called "Ollie Sugar Newsom." Sugar can be his middle name, like Marie is Ella's middle name. Ella reluctantly agreed to this. Maybe we can tackle the whole "I want Ollie to be a girl" issue a different day. At least we agreed on his name.

Of course there is the extra work of puppyhood now, cleaning up accidents and things like that. But little Ollie is a great addition to the family. And it's wonderful to see my kids light up about something. It's fun to spend time as a family, playing with our new dog together. It's great to know that no one is freaking out because of sensory overload from the new addition to our family. Now the kids have a good reason to be up even before their normal wake up time of the crack of dawn. They have a puppy to feed and take out and play with! 

Sunday was a great day. It is great to see my sweet kids so happy. Welcome home, Ollie.