Puppies!

Micah loves puppies. Who doesn't, really? We figured out years ago that puppies are as good at motivating the boy to use sign language as food is. (He's a boy, food is a given motivator.) The very first (and subsequently, only) sentence that he signed was Baby Puppy, Please. He has an inborn sixth sense in him that tells him when we have puppies in the house. The other three kids can be milling around the kitchen getting breakfast and be completely oblivious to the fact that a mom-dog is contentedly curled around her brood in the dining room. Not Micah. He wakes up even earlier than usual when a dog whelps and makes a beeline for the kennel containing newborns. We have several crates in the house, and yet he knows which one the unannounced puppies are in. It's a gift.

Micah will beg, plead and sign to hold those puppies. And his gentleness is unparalleled. I have never had to tell him to be careful. He just knows. As the puppies get older, they become even more fun. He can safely play with them because they're mobile. This is the stage where we start locking the kennel door.

This year we seem to forget about that handy little locking feature a lot. I think it's because Micah is in school all day, and we play with the puppies a lot in his absence. When he comes home, he doesn't immediately rush to the wiggly little tail waggers because he has a plan. His plan involves stealth and nonchalance. He will ignore those puppies for days on end, waiting for his chance. And then when the entire family is outside, or upstairs, he will take those puppies on a field trip.

Last week the puppies got to play on the trampoline. We're not sure how they managed to not jump off the edge. Or how he got them out there in the 2.3 minutes he was left alone, but there they were. On the trampoline.

Then they went on a ride in the dump truck. There's nothing like a portable pack of puppies on wheels.

I came in from gardening over the weekend to find this.

The others were upstairs taking a nap in his bed. Apparently the Puppy Train gets tiring.

Life with that boy is never dull.