Backing up, I'll clarify some of our changes. The "family member" we lost was our dog, Sage. 
Thankfully, she didn't pass away, but rather, we had to find a new home for her. Sage was our German Shepherd. In October of 2005, we got her from a family that couldn't keep her. They were getting a divorce and having a very large dog with so many unknowns in their lives just wasn't working for them. She has been an excellent companion to our other dog, Casey, for nearly 3 years. They loved to play together: wrestling, tugging, running around the neighborhood, eating garbage...all the things dogs love to do. She's a gorgeous, obedient, lovable 110 pound dog. The only problem we had with her is that she was kind of jumpy. Not jumpy in the sense that she would jump on people, although she occasionally did that, too. Imagine 110 pounds of huge beast jumping at you. Frightening and funny at the same time. What I mean is that although a very gentle and loving dog, she got scared easily and her instincts kicked in. Once a few months ago, Tevin came in to the living room crying that Sage had bit him. He had a scratch on his forehead. I didn't know if he was being completely truthful or even knew what happened. It looked more like a scratch from claws than from teeth. We were more cautious after that, but still couldn't watch him all the time. Then, right before Memorial Day, he was playing dinosaurs. He was walking up to Sage making growling dinosaur sounds. What I speculate happened was that he stepped on her tail or paw, because she yipped and then nipped at him. This time, she got his nose. That was the point that we could no longer deny that she needed to find a new home. I cried SO much in those few days. It was so difficult knowing that we had to get rid of her, but we knew it had to be done. Thankfully, the story does have a happy ending. The people we got her from had gone through their divorce. I had kind of stayed in touch with Lori, the "mom". Her daughter is the same age as Samantha. When I told her that we had to find a new home for Sage, she said that now that things have settled down, 
she might be able to take her back. The following week, after a visit with the new roommate and dogs, Sage went back to her first home. It was bittersweet. I had always kind of felt like Sage was their dog in a way. Giving her back to people that I knew would take care of her and love her and accept her quirks was much easier than giving her to strangers. The last I heard, Sage was happy in her new/old home. And we're down to just 2 fuzzballs...Casey and Shasta. I think Shasta's happy to not be chased around the house anymore. And, although Casey is lonely sometimes, he does like the benefit of being the only dog getting pet. And the only dog eating the dog food. He's gained quite a bit of weight in the last couple months. Hopefully, after we move and I'm recovered a bit more from childbirth, we'll add more walks into our routine.
Thankfully, she didn't pass away, but rather, we had to find a new home for her. Sage was our German Shepherd. In October of 2005, we got her from a family that couldn't keep her. They were getting a divorce and having a very large dog with so many unknowns in their lives just wasn't working for them. She has been an excellent companion to our other dog, Casey, for nearly 3 years. They loved to play together: wrestling, tugging, running around the neighborhood, eating garbage...all the things dogs love to do. She's a gorgeous, obedient, lovable 110 pound dog. The only problem we had with her is that she was kind of jumpy. Not jumpy in the sense that she would jump on people, although she occasionally did that, too. Imagine 110 pounds of huge beast jumping at you. Frightening and funny at the same time. What I mean is that although a very gentle and loving dog, she got scared easily and her instincts kicked in. Once a few months ago, Tevin came in to the living room crying that Sage had bit him. He had a scratch on his forehead. I didn't know if he was being completely truthful or even knew what happened. It looked more like a scratch from claws than from teeth. We were more cautious after that, but still couldn't watch him all the time. Then, right before Memorial Day, he was playing dinosaurs. He was walking up to Sage making growling dinosaur sounds. What I speculate happened was that he stepped on her tail or paw, because she yipped and then nipped at him. This time, she got his nose. That was the point that we could no longer deny that she needed to find a new home. I cried SO much in those few days. It was so difficult knowing that we had to get rid of her, but we knew it had to be done. Thankfully, the story does have a happy ending. The people we got her from had gone through their divorce. I had kind of stayed in touch with Lori, the "mom". Her daughter is the same age as Samantha. When I told her that we had to find a new home for Sage, she said that now that things have settled down, 
she might be able to take her back. The following week, after a visit with the new roommate and dogs, Sage went back to her first home. It was bittersweet. I had always kind of felt like Sage was their dog in a way. Giving her back to people that I knew would take care of her and love her and accept her quirks was much easier than giving her to strangers. The last I heard, Sage was happy in her new/old home. And we're down to just 2 fuzzballs...Casey and Shasta. I think Shasta's happy to not be chased around the house anymore. And, although Casey is lonely sometimes, he does like the benefit of being the only dog getting pet. And the only dog eating the dog food. He's gained quite a bit of weight in the last couple months. Hopefully, after we move and I'm recovered a bit more from childbirth, we'll add more walks into our routine. Adding the new family member, I've talked about. Miss Cadence will be 3 weeks tomorrow and is doing pretty well. She still loves to eat. She's having a bit more awake time lately, although she still wants to eat whenever she's awake. She sleeps well, although she likes to snuggle up with us more than she likes to be alone in her bassinette. When we're tired at night, I usually just give up and let her sleep with us. Thankfully, it seems Matt and I were both built for co-sleeping. He's generally acutely aware of where everyone/everything is in the bed with us even when he's in deep sleep. I don't move a muscle when my children are little and sleeping in bed with us. I toss and turn like crazy any other time, but when we're co-sleeping I'm very still. To the point where I wake up stiff and sore every morning. But I guess it's better than being awake all night with a baby that won't sleep because she doesn't want to be alone. Her bilirubin also started dropping when she was a week old. We had to have her heel pricked one more time last week, but all is good and we're done with that. Her skin is looking a more healthy color and the whites of her eyes are very nearly back to white from the yellow they've always been. We're not sure on the color of her irises yet. Some days they look like they may change to brown, others they look like they may stay blue. I'm not so secretly hoping that they stay blue. Sam has brown eyes, Tevin has blue. Matt has brown eyes and I have blue. I'd like a blue eyed girl and for our fourth child I'm ordering a brown eyed boy. lol It doesn't work that way? Oh, well, I can hope, right?
Matt went back to days last week. It's been an interesting week. I think I'm handling it much better than expected. We are generally 5-10 minutes late every morning, but I don't think that has anything to do with the third child. It's more just my nature. I'm a procrastinator, so I wait until the last possible minute and then invariably the older kids dawdle and we don't get out the door on time. Tonight he's covering one night for the overnight manager. It will be interesting not having him around for the first night since Cadence was born. I just hope Tevin doesn't wake up. That's the challenge. I can't feed her and comfort him at the same time. I'm sure we'll live, though.
We're going to Michigan tomorrow to look at houses and get aquainted with the area. I really hope we find a house. We can't afford the time nor the money to go there again before we move. And in 3 weeks, Matt will officially be a co-manager in Michigan. Yikes!
Tevin isn't taking the life changes well. I guess I'm not sure if it's the stress or the age, but he's been SO sassy lately. He's talking back to everyone, not listening, hitting Samantha...blah. But then he'll turn it off and he's my sweet boy again, apologizing for being naughty. I hope when life settles a bit he gets better. Sam has actually been better for the most part. It really makes me consider homeschooling her. I guess we'll see what area we move to. If we move to a crummy school district, I very well might look into homeschooling. One step at a time, though.
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