Almanzo

Our new puppy is here. He's literally right here, sleeping on my feet as I type. I've enjoyed him most when he's keeping my toes warm. If he's not accounted for he's probably off peeing or chewing on a chair leg. Warming my feet is very nice.

All five of the kids have loved this puppy to exhaustion every day. I keep wondering how adults manage puppies. I would be so busy playing with the puppy that I wouldn't be able to get anything done. If he's tired then he's being good. Even when he's being bad, he's so cute it's hard to be too mad at him. Kind of like Josiah.

Josiah was wearing his bathrobe around today and it was all I could do to muster a weak "no" when he clobbered the dog with a car. Then he found the water bowl. He dumped it out and looked at me saying, "Wawa." Too cute to be trouble.

The Puppy isn't his name. We had much deliberation over the name of this guy. It went down one night after dinner a few weeks ago. I told everyone to give me their top two names and we would make a list. It looked like this:
Aslan (Everett just read all of the Narnia books that week)
Caspian
Doodah (that was Sally voting for what Josiah was yelling at the time)
Anakin (also Sally, I don't think she know's who Anakin is, but hears her brothers talk about him)
Toenus (Everett said Mr. Tumnus but changed his mind. Ella repeated what she thought he said as her choice. I had to make up the spelling on that one)
Wolfie (from Eli)
Sludge (also from Eli, we've been reading Nate the Great)
Jim and Spock (from Seth, who said that if we didn't choose his names we wouldn't be getting a puppy anyway so why bother with the whole voting thing?)

Then we had to take a break and watch a video on youtube of Star Trek so our kids knew that they didn't want a dog named Spock who Spock was.

After that charade was over, I called out a name and we all just raised our hands if we liked it okay. Oddly enough, when I said Toenus, no one raised their hands. All eyes turned to Ella and Seth said, "Uh, Ella, that was your pick. You should at least vote for it." Then she half-heartedly put her hand up and said, "I didn't pick that name." Huh?

I picked the top three from that vote and told everyone that they could only vote once this go around. Then tears and sobbing began from Sally because Anakin didn't make the cut. Both of Everett's names did and that caused some contention. Neither Jim nor Spock were on the list...it got ugly.

The next day, we were reading Farmer Boy. I mentioned that Almanzo would be a funny dog name because we could call him Manny. All four voices chirped out, "Yeah, Manny!" So...here's the newest member of the clan..."Almanzo 'Manny' Puppy Stop Chasing Her Drop It NO!"

I think it's a delightful name. He looks more like an Aslan to me, but don't tell my kids I said that.