Meet Mollie!

The newest addition to the John Jewkes Family!

I know, I know!!!   I can harldly believe it myself.  After 25 years of John and the kids begging me for a dog, they had given up.  There was NO WAY I was having to clean up and take care of one more thing in my house.  Yes, this was ACTUALLY MY idea.  Let me tell you the story. 

For the last few months I've been having some strong negative feelings about the amount of time my kids were spending watching tv and playing video games.  I kept pushing those feelings away, justifying that "my kids don't play or watch as much as other people's kids"  or "what they are playing or watching isn't really bad at all, it's just mindless fun."   In the fall we had limited Isaac's playing of the Wii quite a bit and I thought that would be okay.  The boy is addicted to video games.   But a couple of weeks ago I was sick of being the "Wii police" and told John that in a moment of frustation, "I would trade Isaac the Wii for a dog!"  John looked and me and said, "Are you serious?"  I had to think for a minute and realized, yes, I was serious.  I truly have been concerned about my cute 8 year old son whose life was starting to revolve around when he could next play Wii.  We took the proposal to the kids, that if we got a dog we'd take the Wii and put it on the shelf and only pull it out for parties and rare special occations with the family playing together.   We also called Dish Network and lowered our cable subscription and our kids have agreed to very limited tv and only on Friday nites and Saturdays. 

Johns started looking on KSL.com for a dog that he wasn't allergic to.  He can have a dog with hair, not fur.  We found that those kind of puppies were expensive and I was worried about having time until after the wedding in March to properly train a new puppy.  So I thought we'd wait and start looking for this new dog in March.   John called me yesterday and had found a 2 year old, female  Shih Tzu on KSL.com for only $150.  The dog is potty trained and very well mannered.  We have only heard her bark when we put her in the kennel to sleep last night.  And she only barked for about 30 seconds.   The woman selling her has a baby and a 3 year old.  She had bought the dog for her 3 year old, but has found that the child is way too young to help take care of the dog.   She gave us a kennel, a bed and a lot of dog food and supplies. 

The kids are thrilled with Mollie.  Even Gracie, who has been petrified of most small creatures is warming up to this cute dog.   Nichole keeps calling me to see if I am still "okay" with this decision, asking if I have buyers remorse.  She says she could be more shocked if I were to call and tell her that Dad and I were expecting another baby!   And I got a text last night from Nate saying, "I specifically remember you saying it would be over your dead body that we would get a dog!"   Maybe it's that I finally don't have little kids to take care of I feel the timing is right for us to join the ranks of dog ownership!  I am surprised with how cute I think she is and how much I already enjoy her.  I NEVER dreamed I would ever own a dog and even LIKE it?!   Wish us all luck.