Penny the Sleepy Dog

We go through a routine around here every night, and it has yet to lose it's comedic value so I thought I might share.

Penny's day ends at 8pm.  She curls up on the sofa and is sound asleep, snoring and twitching.  Curtis and I are up until 10pm, then it's time to wind the cuckoo, turn out the lights, and the run Penny outside one last time for the night before heading upstairs to bed.  This is how it has been every single night since we brought her home.

And yet, she insists that each night she won't be dragged outside at 10pm.  She is tiiiiiiiiired.  She doesn't waaaaaaaaaant to get up.  She Wants To Sleeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

Yes, she sounds quite a bit like me.

It generally goes like this: Curtis takes her out of an evening, so he tells her it's time to go outside.

She opens one eye, looks at him, closes the eye. 

He calls her from the door.  She turns her head away.

He takes her collar and gently pulls her from the couch, giving her time to catch herself and land on her feet.

She refuses to succumb to the fact that she's going outside, and flops gracelessly to the floor.

At this point she will usually get up and walk with him to the door, but on at least two occasions she has proceeded to close her eyes and fall asleep again on the floor, either right where she fell, or like last night, at some point in the 15 feet between the couch and the backdoor.

It hasn't ceased to be hilarious to us yet.

By this point in the nightly routine I head upstairs, but Curtis reports that upon reentering the house, she usually tries to get back on the couch or retire to the crate rather than brave a flight of steps to her rather cozy bed.

Her morning looks rather the same.  She is willing to go downstairs with me and outside, but as soon as she's back in the house she's curled up on her corner of the couch where she can snooze until a more decent hour (8:30am) and watch everything that's going on at the same time.

Happy Birthday Toby!

I can't believe Toby is 8 already.  8.  It hardly seems possible that my goofy little toddler has grown to the kind, sweet, loving boy I know today.  Each year brings new surprises and new challenges, but we are meeting them together.

He took oreos to school, because it is also Oreo's birthday, and because his best friend is allergic to milk but can have oreos :)

Toby is 52" tall now - only 11 inches to catch me.  He's in Level 4 swim class, and working to overcome his fear of the deep water.  He wants to take tennis again this summer.

He loves school, and does especially well in math and science - maybe not so much the memorizing of math facts, but he's good at problem solving.

He wants to be an artist when he grows up.  Or a bridge engineer :)

He loves legos, especially his new Lego Minecraft set he got for his birthday.  He also loves his SnapCircuits sets.  His birthday theme this year is science fun.

Toby and I are reading the Harry Potter books together - we started last year, and are working on the second book now.  He also loves the Magic Tree House series; it's the first books that really made him want to read.

His smile lights up a room, and his sense of humor continues to crack me up.  I don't know a lot of 8 year olds who understand sarcasm, but he does.  He also loves crafts, which makes a mama proud.

Happy birthday Toby.  We love you and can't wait to see what this next year brings for you!