He barks every time the house creeks or a car drives by or I shut a cabinet door. Our house is so big that things must sound weird to him when he hears them from a distance. And he doesn’t bark once, discover everything is fine and then drop it. He keeps barking and there is nothing we can do to get him to stop.
He also barks randomly in the night. We can’t just ignore him, because he is super loud and one of our youth staff has her apartment right above the part of the basement that his house is in. So we have to run downstairs and tell him to hush. When the sun starts to rise there is nothing we can do to get him to shut up, except let him come upstairs and sleep on the end of our bed. It has become a habit, so every morning we have a dog in bed with us. Very annoying.
But last night, Chester really topped off his annoyingness. I was taking him outside to do his business. I didn’t have my hand through the loop on his leash and he saw a cat in the woods. He took off and the leash slipped right through my fingers. So there was our stupid beagle running through the wooded hills in the middle of the night with rain drizzling down. Obviously I’m helpless in a situation like this, so Chris had to chase him. It took my poor husband forever to get him back. He was only in sandals and had no coat and he was chasing a dog through the freezing woods. He despaired a couple times, but he prayed and finally managed to step on the end of the leash and grab him. Chris had to take a hot shower to get warmed up again.
It’s a good thing Chris was home when this happened. He had taken our youth to a Battle Cry conference in Detroit over the weekend. I’d have died if Chester had taken off while he was gone! But I will say this for Chester; he was sorry. If that makes up for anything. He was kind of mopey all night because he knew he’d been a bad boy.
Chester is young, but I already have plans for when he goes to his final reward. Granted, I’ll probably miss him more than anyone else, but I say our next dog will be a “purse dog.” Something small that I can control and can go on a plane as a carry on. And something that will cuddle. Yes, that would be nice.
Other excitement? Leah rolled from her belly to her back, so now she can go either way! She tried oatmeal and loved it! She’s also eaten banana and that was a big hit too. She’s working on her hand-eye coordination and likes to grab at stuff (like Mommy’s cell phone).
Isaiah is working on his ABC’s. He can sing the song, but some of the letter names don’t sound quite right! We have flash cards that he loves to go through with me. His counting just keeps getting better. We’ve always practiced counting items by me holding his hand and helping him point to each thing while he counts. Last night he pointed to each thing by himself and counted perfectly!
Pastor and Clara took us, and everyone visiting from CA, to a play of Willie Wonka in downtown Pittsburgh. It was done with a cast of only 7 people and very creative. The set was simple, but the props were done artistically so that it worked. The actors played multiple parts and sang and danced really well. Isaiah was a little bored until they got to the part at the factory. Then he was intrigued.
Pittsburgh is quiet on Sunday. It’s a little big city, I think. Parking was only $6, which is much nicer than the $10-$20 that we paid in CA. There were a lot of cool looking areas that we need to take time to explore!