A Boy and His Dog

I believe I have only mentioned having a crazy dog in my intro. Our dog is indeed crazy, and fits beautifully into our family. Our little pup's name is Madison, Maddy. She was named by my husband while we were honeymooning. No, we did not have her yet, hadn't even picked her out. We did know that we wanted a female Shih-Tzu.

We lived in an apartment in a historic town near the Burlington Northern train line when we first got married. Our apartment building was in-between two Victorian homes, and within walking distance of many restaurants, shops, and the train line. Jeff worked in downtown Chicago at the time, so this situation was ideal. This town personifies 'yuppy', and was even featured in the Sandra Bullock movie 'While You Were Sleeping'; think 'Home Alone'. I had my first teaching job in that area, and would watch all the kids being dropped off in their fancy cars. We never had a problem getting parents involved, in fact, they were too involved in my opinion. I still love this town. It is the 'ideal' place to raise your kids. You are very close to downtown, there are many unique stores to shop at right in town, and most things are within walking distance. There was many a time we'd meet friends at the local German pub. The cool thing was we could, and usually did, walk home. No need to worry about drinking too much and driving. We loved the area, but we knew we wanted a home when we got married.

Fast forward to the spring of 98'. We looked everywhere in that town, and surrounding towns, for a home to buy. Well, yuppieville was, and still is, very expensive. And while I would have loved an old home there, the maintenance was a killer. Anything that we could have comfortably afforded needed a lot of work done to it. I am not into that, especially while working full-time. We did find a house we could afford, but it only had ONE bathroom. Uh, no. One thing that appealed to me so much about leaving our beloved apartment was the fact that I would not have to share a bathroom with my loving, but messy husband anymore. So that one was out. It appeared we were going to have to look somewhere else.

Somewhere else is where we are living now. Our town has all the conveniences, but less of the charm of our old neighborhood. You have to drive pretty much everywhere. It does have excellent schools, programs, and our neighbors are awesome. The problem now is that this town is turning into our old neighborhood in that everything is becoming so expensive. Our neighbors have said they couldn't even afford to buy their own home anymore. The good thing is that means our house has appreciated fantastically especially since we remodeled the kitchen. The bad thing about it is that it is hard to find a house that is priced at the next level. One mom in our group told us all that a house in her area, more ritzy than ours, was going for $700,000. Yikes! Jeff and I would also like our kids to stay in an area that is like the one we grew up in. Right now we have that. The problem with our house is that there are only three bedrooms, two bathrooms. We now have to move our office to the utility room; the basement is Steve's playroom. If both babies had survived this pregnancy, we would have had to have moved. Even though my house is on the smaller side, I do love it. And I hate moving! So I am glad we are going to be able to stay, cramped as we may eventually be.

Well, back to the dog. We bought our little dog Maddy the day after we moved into our house. I LOVE animals and wanted to have one ASAP. We picked out our little beauty. She only weighed 2 pounds when we got her, and is now a whopping 8 pounds! Madison is a dog that has a tremendous amount of energy! She is calming down a bit now that she's 6 years old, but she's still a nut! Oh, but a nut that barely barks; no yappy dogs here.

Steve LOVES Maddy! He has to give her a hug and a kiss every morning. He constantly is talking about Maddy. Today the most amazing thing happened. To preface, one of Steve's 'jobs' has been to let Maddy out when needed and give her a treat. I have helped him with this for awhile. Well, today Maddy was doing the 'I have to go outside NOW' whine, so I said to Steve, while upstairs, "Go let Madison outside." He proceeds to go downstairs, open up the door, and yell,"MAH,MAH. GO OUTSIDE!" Now Maddy was very confused at first, and just kind-of looked at me as if to say,"Is he serious?" I told her to go on, and Steve yelled to her again. This time she listened. I quietly went downstairs and peeked over. Madison had gone out, come in, and now Steve was giving her a treat! I swear I saw a newfound respect for Steve in the dog's eyes. Steve was so proud of himself, and so was I. Madison has been an excellent fit to our family from day one. She's goofy, spunky, and surprisingly flexible. She also thinks she is a German Shepard, which is so cute. She has no idea that she is a very small dog; she's big on attitude. And she is so wonderful with Steve. She was our first baby for 4 years, and she really has done a great job letting Steve take on that title. Now let's just hope Steve is that good about giving that title to the newest baby.