Butters

Good ol' Butters. At 8 1/2 years old Butters is very content sleeping on the couch, eating lots of food (whether that is her own food or the kids food) and being left alone. She is approaching senior citizen status but yet continues to be the best family dog; always letting the kids climb all over her and being a good sport if they try to play with her.

Once upon a time, when she was just a puppy and Evan and I had all the time in the world (before children) I took Butters to obedience training at a kennel club here in town. We started in the puppy class and worked our way up to the advanced level. Butters was a very good student as long as I had a treat in my hand or pocket. Classes were always slightly stressful as there were usually 8-10 other dogs there and since she was a goofy puppy she assumed that class time was playtime. Most of the time she would try to meet or play with the other dogs which really wasn't encouraged and most of the time she would then get mad that I wouldn't let her run around and be free. She was a challenge to this new dog owner in every way.

I recently ran into one of her teachers of the puppy class and reintroduced myself. I told her it had been six or seven years since we were in her class but that we had a yellow lab, well more white in color and....that was it. That's all I had to say because she said, "Butter??? I remember Butter! I always wondered what happened to Butter." I was sure it was due to her bad behavior with me that she remembered our crazy lab but I was wrong.  I reminded her that she always used to pick Butters for her demonstrations of the new trick and I was sure that it was because they were hoping that she would be a goofy puppy so they could show the class how to correct their dog when they misbehaved. She immediately corrected me by saying, "We always picked Butters because she was the smartest one in the class! She always did what we said and made us look really good."

I was shocked. After all of these years I never knew.  I really need to give her more credit for being such a smart, good dog.

The mind of an almost 3 year old

Caroline is now getting to that stage of saying really funny things.

The other day after numerous potty accidents I, out of frustration, told her how disappointed I was in her for not keeping her undies dry. She looked at me and said, "I like peeing in my underwear."

In Sunday School at church during their lesson she interrupted the teacher to tell her that "we are out of cottage cheese at my house. Cottage cheese is white like little clouds."

She currently tries to tattle on Liam as much as possible but has not figured out that Liam actually has to do the thing she is trying to get him in trouble for.

Many times I will call her "baby girl" to which she always replies, "I'm not your baby girl! I'm Daddy's baby girl!"

The other day she asked us if she could punch Lucy. Carefully. We said no.

It was nice of her to ask though. 

So much change in such a short amount of time

Looking back through my blog I noticed that Lucy got her first tooth approximately 5 weeks ago. Since then she has:

1. cut her second tooth

2. worked at pushing herself from laying down to crawl mode

3. worked at crawl mode to scooting herself forward in a modified crawl

4. pushes herself from laying down to a modified sit (leaning on one arm)

5. just last week she started sitting up straight without the use of her hands to support her (due to her dislike for the feel of grass)

6. when in her sitting position she will do a gradual fall back to her belly or back

7. deciding that peas are ok. peaches are yummy and pumpkin is not bad either

8. I swear in the short time we have been doing baby sign language she clearly showed me that she was "all done" after her meal.

I wish I could say that with all of her newfound mobility we helped her get there. But that's just not true. She has done it all by herself. Tonight she was pushing herself up to a stand on a pack of diapers. I mean really. This girl is SO STRONG. She is determined. I cannot slow her down.