The boys want this bike so, so bad.

If only it was not, you know, $2500. But don’t think that has stopped them from coming up with a myriad of ways that they could pay for the bike and work for the bike and make us buying the bike worth our while. One boy has this idea to weld a rack onto the back for hauling stuff around the neighborhood. And someone (ahem) starting thinking how awesome it would be to pick up Henry from school every day next year with Isabel strapped in the front seat. Maybe I could convince the company to sponsor us? We were pretty awesome advertising at Costco this morning.

We went to Atlanta today for a graduation party for our godson/nephew Davis. As an aside, if you are a Texas A&M alum (I met a bunch of y’all when I was in Houston a few months ago) be on the lookout for this guy, Davis, who will be your kicker on the football team next season! Gig ‘em Aggies!).

So we got home and there was a message from our neighbor Cathy that she would be having a giveaway on her porch come Monday and if we wanted a preview sale we should wander over.

Cathy has nice stuff. A few months ago she gave away stuff and I wandered over to procure an entire set of leather Aigner wallet accessories, a Vera Bradley purse, some pink (PINK) wicker baskets for Isabel’s room, and a The Sak makeup bag. Of which I absolutely needed none of these. But still, good stuff!

For a minimalist, I am strangely attracted to stuff.

So today we wandered over and I had myself a fine little time. It was my own private yard sale, with a dash of antiquing thrown in. I walked home with: three high quality bath towels; two Williams Sonoma mini-spatulas; a collection of wooden spoons (to replace the ones our dog ate); two stainless steel bowls; a Made in Italy plastic crayon tray (wha? Yes, random and AWESOME); and about three other objets d′art that brought me great happiness.

I can’t remember the point of this post! I am just really excited about the random stuff I got. It was so sweet of Cathy to offer a pre-sale chance to grab stuff (and, as an aside, she wasn’t charging anything for any of this. She was giving it all away!) She said it was just time to purge. Her porch was filled with stuff — nice stuff! — and I hope our other neighbors find the same joy that I did.

In other news, all this stuff! Who knew I had such a weakness for it! Oh sure I like to boast a good game about purging and having less and all that jazz. But you put the word “vintage” in front of anything and I’m ALL ABOUT IT. Bring it.

1. Streamlining our cup collection inspired me to buy one of these tumblers for each child (are the Tervis tumblers popular where you are? They are all the rage here). We got a first initial, except for the boy who shared an initial with his brother — we opted for the last name initial. And then they were out of “I” cups for Isabel, so we went with a pretty flowering dogwood. It’s fun to see what words you can arrange:

As reader Anne pointed out in the comments from the dog post, I think I should (and will) make a list of all the things about life with a dog — things you should consider if you are feeling iffy. This will be the post for people who find themselves googling the phrase “should we get a dog?” If you have to ask, I think you already know the answer. Then I’ll try to counter with information from a hardcore dog lover to balance. Maybe something like, “You know you’re a dog lover if…” Do you have an answer for that? Please feel free to leave in the comments!

3. With the puppy gone, we are back to doing things like playing with toys. I didn’t realize how much life was “on hold” around here until yesterday. With the dog gone, we could take out toys! And play with them on the floor! Henry is currently enjoying his train set, and it’s so fun to hear him playing and talking quietly to himself. “I’m very social,” one train just told another.

Until now, our free time in the afternoon involved either sitting in the fort at the swing set (so the dog couldn’t jump on the littles) or having them on my bed with the ipad. That’s just no way to live. It’s not.

4. Isabel isn’t feeling great today; she spiked a temp and I’ll admit I loaded her up with motrin before heading out. I had a date with my mom — her first shopping excursion since December! — and I was just too excited. I know that’s selfish and I realized that wasn’t smart or safe, so I told my mom Isa had a low-grade temp. I’m pretty sure it’s allergies (her eyes are watering profusely) but my mom can’t risk getting sick.

5. On that note, after Monday my mom will only have ONE chemo session left. Thank you Jesus! Each time my mom has her chemo, I have made a poster for her with the number of chemos she has left (dad, will you send me a picture of one to include here?). This Monday I can’t wait to make a poster with a giant ONE on it!

6. Having said that, I will be out of town for her very last chemo! So I’ll have to have a special ZERO lined up before I go. Where am I headed? Are you ready? To… ITALY!  With MY HUSBAND. I’m having kind of a big birthday this year and Paul is really showering some love upon me. (Any suggestions for us? Please share!)

7. I’ll close with this lovely photo from my backyard, one small area where I feel like I’ve actually got it together (aside from the spray painted chair, thank you Henry!)

Hiya, Jen! I’ve been praying for you girl. Love you.

First off, (let’s launch right in shall we!) I realized in the course of my musings on our sweet Enzo, that there were some key pieces of information missing, assumptions left about the situation that if you inferred incorrectly, made me out to be kind of monsteresque.

For that, I am very sorry.

When I referred to a dog not being like a child (which I still stand behind one hundred percent) what I was NOT saying was a dog was like a bag of trash or some worthless object to be tossed aside. I did not mean that at all. I guess I wrongly assumed that you all could hear my sniffles through the keyboard and I guess I’m glad you could not. I spent pretty much all of the day on Wednesday crying. I was very very sad for a variety of reasons not the least of which was I had gotten myself and my family into this predicament of having to consider whether I could continue to manage having a puppy. Something I should have thought through long before I brought a puppy into our home.

I didn’t. I also didn’t consult my husband on bringing a puppy into our home and I also kept this information on the down-low from some of the friends in my life who I know would have talked some sense into me. I told my friend Susie today that I’ve learned my lesson: anytime I try to hide stuff from her, I should probably reconsider what I’m up to. (I did this one other time with a big life issue that all worked out well, but I made sure she didn’t catch wind of it which kind of makes me laugh. Maybe she’s my conscience?)

The last few months have been very hard around here (please, no eye-rolling, but you know, I started this conversation so I guess I need to end it too). I don’t really want this to be a woe is me essay, but again, I told you part of the tale so here goes the rest. Why am I sharing this? A writer writes. Always. Also, I started thinking about other women who might be in the same boat I got myself in, who did something they thought would be a good idea and then had to deal with the ramifications. And here, through my experience, is what I have to say to you.

So things have been hard, and if you had pointed out to me that the dog was a part of that I would have said, “well, sure. But how bad can a dog be?” Well, a dog is a very big deal. Dogs are sweet and wonderful and bring so much joy. They are also relentless and a lot of work. They are there every step of the way, which can be really quite beautiful in certain seasons of life.

I have a list of stressors in my life, things I could list here but I don’t really want to launch into it. The bottom line is things are moving at a fast pace, just like (I’m sure) just about every one of my readers. Life is fast. And it’s good. But some seasons are more of a challenge.

So recently I’d been noticing just an overwhelming sense of stress. I called Paul one day a few weeks ago and through tears told him I couldn’t handle my life. (Not in a suicidal way, in a stretched too thin way). I said this but with a few added words. This was about as taxed as I had ever felt, beyond the first few weeks of having a new baby. Those are uniquely and mystically challenging.

Without going into the thinking infrastructure of how it came to the forefront of my mind, I arrived at this knowledge early this week that a huge part of my issue was The Dog. That wonderful, sweet, cute creature that I went out and sought to bring into my home to care for and have with us until his old age.

And I realized (again) that I had made a mistake. A very big mistake. I messed up. That’s all I could tell Paul when I knew what we needed to do. I really messed up. I brought this dog in and we love him and here’s where it gets tricky and you’re just going to have to bear with me — he is like a part of the family but a part of the family that doesn’t necessarily have to stay with the family. When it’s all said and done he is a dog.

My neighbor Cathy came over after I wrote about my inner angst. She is so sweet. She has two little boutique dogs, white fluffballs that run around the backyard and put Enzo in his place. They were the pride and joy of Miss Charlotte, and watching them with those dogs was part of my learning exactly what God had in mind when he made pets. They bring something very special, God really does show his love through animals.

“Rachel,” said Cathy in her genteel Southern drawl, “I am willing to take two of the boys to go to obedience classes with Enzo.”

And I knew, when she said that, it was time for me to just cowboy up. The bottom line was I just couldn’t keep this dog. Even if he was well-trained. Even if all he wanted was to just wander around following me, to sit at my feet, to be a part of this family. This season in my life was making this beautiful wonderful smart and near-perfect dog feel like just another responsibility.

And Enzo deserved better.

So I cried. I admitted to Cathy that I just couldn’t do it. I felt so overwhelmed and I felt silly for feeling overwhelmed. Do you know how many people I know with dogs? People who have as much crazy in their life as I do in my life? People who deal with all that and then turn around and deal with their dogs — even when they proclaim how much their dog drives them nuts. But the difference is they say that and then still keep the dog. I was at a point where I just couldn’t say that. Not anymore.

And then Cathy, she is so sweet and compassionate and not willing to heap coals upon my head which was nice since there were already plenty there (so lovingly deposited by yours truly), she said something about my mom and the stress that might factor it.

“Your mama wasn’t sick when you got Enzo,” she said.

“But I’m not really caring for my mom,” I explained. I don’t want to play the cancer card to get rid of our dog.

Cathy just buried her mom not long ago, and she said it didn’t matter whether you are the primary caregiver or not. Her mom had round-the-clock care and it still took a toll. It’s hard to watch our loved ones suffer.

But even with that, I know the bottom line is with me. With all the other things going on, with my children and husband and my mom battling cancer, with all of things going on in my life — even with Enzo being a near perfect dog, because of whatever it is, the dog was the tipping point.

Several months ago, a family in our neighborhood had watched Enzo for us when we went out of town. They are “dog people” and so happily welcomed him into their home. (Our initial plan had been to just keep Enzo over here and they would come check on him and they ended up just bringing him to their home and falling in love with him). When we got back from our weekend away, the husband said Enzo was one of the best puppies he had ever seen.

“If you ever decide you can’t keep him,” he offered, “we’ll take him.”

I assured him this wouldn’t be the case but thanks for the offer.

So there, in the midst of all this, that thought popped into my head. I touched base with him and asked him what he thought. He checked with his wife (smart man!) and their entire family (of all big kids) was excited.

When Paul brought Enzo over there the other night, we were all emotional. Trust me when I say telling my boys that the dog had to go was one of the hardest things I have ever done. Save your agitation for me; I have enough all on my own. It was terrible and awful and so sad. For all the dog lovers out there who would never, ever do this to their children, I am very happy for you. I’m sincere. I hate that I did this to us, that I put my family in this position of feeling hurt. By me. Hurt by my desire to do something fun and good for our family that I then could not handle.

Now don’t think that it’s all “oh it got hard so you just threw in the towel.” There was so much more to my decision than that. But the bottom line is I did what needed to be done, for my sanity which in turn is for the well-being of my family. I know you might not let a sweet little puppy push you to the breaking point. But that is what was happening to me.

I’m sorry if I sound a little defensive. I try not to be that way in my writing. But I realize I’ve upset some folks with their perception of my attitude and I just want to say (one more time) that this was a very difficult decision. But Enzo really is in a better place. I got a text the next morning and he was having a blast — at a home now with a bunch of people who love dogs and with a bunch of other dogs. He has a new pack and he is going to love it there.

The best part is he’s right across the way and if we ever want to go visit or take him on our family hike, we just have to pop in and grab him.

Here’s my bottom line, the reason I’m writing this and putting myself out there: for people in a similar boat as me, you really do have to do what’s best for your sanity and for your family. It’s up to you to decide what the balance is there. The comments from the last post were filled with people who could finagle impish puppy behavior. But what I’ve learned from this is you have to do what you know YOU can do. I made the mistake of looking at other peoples’ situations — friends with dogs, etc. — to make a decision about what we would do. I thought about getting a dog and said “if [so and so] can handle it, surely I can handle it.”

Lesson learned. The very hard way.

p.s. we are doing fine now. I’m just making sure you all realize this was not an easy decision. But once it was made, it brought peace into our home that had been missing for a while now.

I am thinking way too much about it, but I am struggling with this whole “having a dog” aspect of my life. It’s one of those things, a detail you hear about someone else and you don’t give it much thought. “They have a dog,” you might think, “how nice.” And that’s the extent of it.

And then you get a dog. Maybe because you see all the other people who have dogs. Maybe because (in theory) it seems like something good. Maybe you want to teach your children responsibility (the WORST possible reason to get a dog) maybe because you want companionship (which is generally true of some folks but not of someone with six children, I am not really looking for more entities upon which to spread and share my love).

So that is the first question in your guilt-ridden mind: why did we get a dog? What was I thinking?

Here is the truth: I’m not really sure.

Last December, I was in the midst of Christmas and life and travel, a big trip to Boston to film The Gist. And this magazine comes in the mail, Garden and Gun (my favorite!). And somewhere in the magazine is a picture of past covers and it has this puppy on one cover and this puppy is just gorgeous.

“STOP. IT.” I can hear you saying this. “You did not seriously get a dog because you saw a cute dog on the cover of a magazine? Are you KIDDING ME?” Wow, you sound a lot like ME when you talk to me that way. Or maybe that’s me? Taking me to task?

So yes, I got it in my mind that this dog, this puppy, was just so cute and we needed this puppy in our life. Mind you, no other person in our household had any interest in a dog. Not at this point. Not before I introduced the whole idea to everyone. “Wouldn’t it be great,” I would say, “if we got a DOG?!” Um, sure, they would reply, before heading back out (again) to the basketball court. Or the backyard soccer field. Or out on their bikes to roam the neighborhood.

And then I’d go back to this vision of my sons with their dog, them sitting around in the backyard singing Kumbaya with Ethan on lead guitar, one of the boys petting the dog, everyone else seated around the dog just waiting their turn to pet the dog and love up on the dog and wait until the dog’s next feeding to be the person to measure out the kibble and feed the dog.

Wow! What a vision it was. I had an agenda — we NEED A DOG — and basically there was no convincing me otherwise.

Deep down I must have known how crazy I was. I hid my dog-searching ways from close friends, people who I knew would talk me out of it (or try to. HA HA! There would be none of that!). Because they knew my history and my clean-freak ways and also my inability to cope with chaos. That last one I don’t think is true and I don’t think they think that, but I do think for someone with five boys I have an amazingly limited ability to handle madness. I can handle five boys and a toddler girl. A dog? Not so much.

My history with dogs in our family is long and complicated and I thought “this time” would be different. I was going about this from a different angle, you see. That would be all the difference.

A brief recap: our first puppy ended very traumatically. I didn’t want to end on that note so I found another dog to take the first dog’s place. That ended badly because we basically got a feral dog. Then we got another dog (a few years later) that was not a good fit. Ironically I kept that third dog after it was the cause of Henry’s broken femur and seven weeks in a Spica cast — mostly because I was the root cause of that because I was the one who threw the ball that launched the dog that yanked the tether that broke Henry’s leg.

So all of that behind us, and this, THIS would be the time it all worked out. Right?

Except, here we are, six months in and I feel like I’m pulling my hair out.

And the worst part is: this dog? He is perfect. Like, if ever a family was going to have a dog, this would be the dog.

He is sweet and kind, he just wants to be with us. He thinks he IS us. In his mind he’s one of the children, just wanting to eat his food off a plate like everyone else. He wants to sit on the couch and watch How It’s Made like everyone else. He wants to get in the bathtub at bath time like everyone else.

And it’s driving me nuts.

Because here’s the truth, the deep dark secret dog lovers know but don’t tell you because honestly it just doesn’t bother them: a dog is like a child who will never grow up.

Today when Paul and I were hashing all this out on the phone, I told him, “Honey, it’s just that I am realizing this dog will  never learn to scoop out his own food or open his own kennel or open the door to go outside when he has to pee.”

Why do people get dogs? Because they love them. And I’m ashamed to admit that while I love dogs in theory, the practical side of owning a dog just doesn’t agree with me. It just doesn’t. You should see the look on my face as I type that. I am squishing up my mouth because the guilt and shame? It’s overwhelming.

What kind of a person doesn’t like having a dog? A selfish perfectionist, right? A non-fun-loving Mommy Dearest right? A tired-out overwhelmed woman with a bunch of kids?

I don’t know. The point of all this is not necessarily that we’re not keeping the dog. It’s that I have to make peace with my list of Pro’s and Con’s of Having a Dog. The one that looks like this

Con’s

• hair in house
• mud on outdoor cushions
• barking
• whimpering
• wants to get out of kennel the minute he hears me up in the morning
• follows me around everywhere
• we can’t eat dinner because he’s trying to jump on table
• yes, we can train him but that takes work
• I’d rather spend that time reading a book or painting my back door
• the back door he shredded because he is always trying to come inside
• and the list goes on

Pro’s

• Two of the boys really like having a dog
• Isabel tolerates the dog
• I can save face by not getting rid of the dog

We had a feast at my house the other night. It felt like a billion of my closest friends dropped by for dinner, but when I sit and actually count heads I realize there were only about twenty-five of us.

But still, twenty-five. Twenty-five is a big number when you consider all those people are your immediate family — your parents and their children and their children’s children. And that was with a few people missing.

When my family gets together it is animated and loud and exhausting. It’s also some of the most fun I ever have. We sit and laugh and talk and talk louder.

The occasion for this recent gathering was my brother’s surprise visit. He and his wife and their baby came in to see us all and they decided to surprise my parents. It was hard keeping that secret for so many weeks, tricky to be on the road to pick them up from the airport and not let on where I was headed when I pulled out of the driveway.

We surprised my dad at work and then drove the half-mile home to surprise my mom. I was in the car behind my dad and brother and by the time I rounded the corner towards the driveway my mom had already spotted my brother and was flying across the porch towards the car, her bright orange headscarf bobbing above the hedge.

I pulled in the driveway to see their tight embrace, my mom and brother hugging each other at last. This was his first time seeing her since she started her chemo and it was emotional and good.

That night we had the dinner at my house, those of us who were able to gather coming together. I sat there and looked at the faces of those around my table and realized this is what heaven feels like — being surrounded by the people you love so much, being filled with gratitude for the gift of these people in your life.

When I was younger, I had no idea I would grow up and consider my brothers and sisters as my friends. They drove me nuts, my younger siblings. I loved them, of course, but friends and siblings were two separate groups entirely.

And now, I count each and every one of these people among my favorites. I’m lucky because the people they’ve married are among my favorites too. Getting together with my family is some of the most fun I have.

But this doesn’t come naturally, and it isn’t always easy. When we were growing up, my parents worked hard to help us work on these relationships, to help sibling relating have the hope of friendship. It takes work and it takes training; a child must be taught communication tools and patience — but mostly love. It takes learning to have a heart of love for those in this great big world, but also right here in your own little home.

When I look at my brothers and sisters, when I think about the love I have for them and the love they have for me, I am excited and encouraged for my own children. I’m also committed to continuing the challenging task of training them to love each other, to be inspired by the way my parents taught us. My children — these boys, this girl — they have the opportunity to be among each others greatest allies.

Their best hope of that is to learn now to relate the way they should, to recognize the gift of family and the gift of siblings.

It isn’t always easy, it doesn’t happen overnight. But I look at the efforts of my mom and dad, how hard they worked to teach us to love and respect each other, and I know it’s possible. And I know it’s worth the effort.

This originally appeared in The Southern Cross.

I just looked out my study window to see Paul drive by in his truck. The back of his truck was filled with boys, about eight or nine of them, strategically wedged around a small dining room table. There was another boy on a bike bringing up the rear.

About thirty seconds later, another truck, another load of boys. This time, the freight was a small stacked washer/dryer with boys surrounding it.

I caught a glimpse of the faces, these young boys and pre-teens and teenagers. And they were smiling, all of them. They were spending their morning helping move a newlywed couple into their newly renovated home and these boys were learning that service can be fun. Helping others is part of living communal life.

Community draws us out of ourselves. We all go through seasons where we don’t necessarily need anything. It’s easy to feel like you are an island, that you can get done what you need to do. This is often the case, and it’s a very fine feeling. I personally love it when I’m able to do, on my own, all that I need to do.

But trust me when I say there have been many seasons when despite that desire, it just isn’t the case. We have new babies or we move or we support family members that need us. And we rely on those around us to help us get done the task before us.

It feels so good to be able to help others. I love training my boys — my children — that this is part of living the way God has called us to live. We are more than just us and our own needs. We are here for those around us, and those people are here for us.

Y’all. I’m either lazy or busy or setting the world on fire or watching it fly by. I can’t decide. I won’t bore you with a rundown of events of late, but I’d like to. But then I’d feel compelled to include pictures, the likes of which are still on my camera and that would require me a) standing up from the computer and b) tracking down the camera and c) putting the little card thingy into the computer which (backing up) would mean removing it from the camera itself. And never mind all the clicks and saves to actually pick and choose a photo.

Sigh. Like I said. Lazy or busy. You make the call.

I will get my act (which I just spelled “ack” if that explains anything) together and share some amazing pics from the big Social dance which I have always, every year, sort of hemmed and hawed about and then I show up to the dance and it’s amazing and I’m so glad we spend all the time and money doing it. Also, there are pics from my brother coming in to surprise my mom and dad! And all the revelry that these events involve (among the highlights? My new house summertime drink called The Balducci Summertime Drink, also known as a Moscow Mule in some circles).

In other news, I almost got killed yesterday.

Seriously, I’m not being melodramatic. I almost got totally taken out at a stoplight where I had the green light and another car flew through his red light, didn’t even slow down at all.

I was sitting at the light, waiting for it to change. I was multi-tasking, on the phone with my friend Mollie and also filling out a deposit slip for the bank. I was going to turn left at the light to go to the bank. So I was talking and writing and keeping an eye on the light.

The light turned green but no one was behind me so I sat for an extra three seconds to finish writing and when I looked up this SUV was right there in front of me, flying by full-speed-ahead.

“Oh my gosh,” I said to Mollie, “I almost just got taken out.”

She asked what happened and I told her and then I tried not to obsess. But it was hard. I mean, if I had even inched out to turn that guy would have crushed me. Like ME. Not my van, not some random portion. It would have been the part of my van where I was sitting.

“How creepy,” I said to Mollie, “if we had been on the phone and I had been hit?”

I actually started feeling worse for Mollie, the thought of how traumatic that would be.

“And I wouldn’t have even known where you were,” she said and the two of us were getting not too worked up but just enough that it was kind of making me rub my temples and squint my eyes. Must. Get. Image. Out. Of. Head.

After a minute or two we went back to our previous conversation, the one we were having before the light incident and there you go.

This morning I was telling Paul about all this, getting fixated (once again) on how terrible it would have been for Mollie to hear that crash, how scary and traumatic.

“Well that definitely sounds like something that could be on that Oxygen channel,” said Paul, “or maybe Lifetime.”

So there’s that.

Imagine my surprise and glee when I opened The Southern Cross this afternoon to see The Gist ladies smiling back at me! We got a shout-out from our diocesan newspaper! How nice!

And now we move from receiving a shout-out to sending one. Our good friend Chris — one of Paul’s very dearest friends — has been in town this week all the way from California. He tells me his daughter is a big fan of this blog, which honors me so. Thank you, Jess, for being a loyal and faithful Testosterhome fan and give your mama a big kiss for me!

I was feeling all sheepish about how much joy this crossed-off To Do list was bringing into my heart. And then Sarah at Clover Lane posted a pic of her To Do list and I felt such glee for her that I realized, it’s just how some of us roll. (also, I whole-heartedly agree with her sentiments on the family dog. I was up early this morning having those very thoughts.)

Oh what a feeling!