Angels Among Us

Hello! Hi! Howareya? Ready for another scrappy-storytime adventure? Of course you are! Otherwise, you wouldn't still be reading would you?

As you may already know, I spent the tail-end of July and the first half of August in Georgia. Okay, so some of that time I was in Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee as well, but we were probably talking about Georgia at the same time, so I'm counting it. My son was also with us. Having spent three years and three months staring at the same four walls and nothing exciting happening at home, I decided he needed an adventure as badly as I needed a job. As an added bonus, my good friend, Mel, is qualified and educated well in the ways of zee three-year-old child. What could possibly go wrong?

... If you're wondering, nothing went wrong.

So many things went right.

I'm not saying I got a job, which was the main point of being in Georgia, but I still experienced so many things just going right.

Case in Point, Angel.



She's a beautiful black lab puppy with loads of energy and intelligence to match. Of course, if you ask Mel, they named her Angel (hoping to prepare for adoption to another family) because "Satan" just wasn't going to sell her. If you ask me, she was named perfectly. Angel had her crazy-strange moments, but there is no doubt that dog runs on love...and several treats... and evidently a little peanut butter stolen off a child's spoon.

Being a black lab, Angel is also huge. My son has a tested history with huge dogs. They want to love him, but they often only end up knocking him down, or smacking him in the face with their tales. Often, my son can be found running away with tears in his eyes or a whine in his throat. Angel, on the other hand, was some sort of miracle. For two days, they shared a back seat and a hotel room.



Our biggest issue was that Angel would stretch her paw over to "his side" of the back seat. Really, it sounded more like a brother tattling on his sister. Angel would even look at my friend as if to say, "Honest Mom, I didn't mean to! I'm not even touching him!" When we finally got to her home, my son squealed with delight to watch the dog play tug-of-war and fly over the furniture.

They played in the back yard.




For the first time ever, he actually, and EASILY, pet a large dog -- any dog, really -- without fear. He even tried to share his dinner with her several times.




By the end of the trip, he was carrying on frequent lengthy conversations with her as she chewed on her bone.



I think I'm to blame for that one just a bit. I started giving Angel a voice in these conversations; which only fed his interest in talking more. *sigh*

These were all choices I have never seen him make with another dog, for as long as he has been around them. It was equally astounding and comforting. For two weeks, I held hope that he'd finally become comfortable with larger dogs. In our family, this is actually a fairly big deal because my Mother-In-Law has a large German Shepherd, Rowdy. He's accurately named. Rowdy also loves my son, but it has been unrequited. The afternoon after we came home, however, my Little Man was absolutely calm around him. Even after Rowdy turned and thwacked the boy in the face with his tale, the worst that came of it wasn't a crying fit. It was a simply statement of , "Oh, Rowdy!"

For that, I am thankful. While my friend may believe her dog is not all that accurately named, I truly believe she was an Angel among us. To keep her in my son's heart, I made this page:



It was inspired by a PageMaps sketch



and I finally got to use some pet-themed paper that I was pretty sure would never see the light of day. I do so love Basic Grey and the paper they design! The little black dog in the lower right is thanks to a set of Cosmo Cricket black board that's been sitting in my stash for approximately a year.



I pulled out the set to use on a 2-page LO (that I'll share later) and immediately felt a need to use the puppy dog, too.

Thank you for reading and looking! I do have so much more to share -- stories, pages, and crafts -- and look forward to doing so in the weeks ahead.