Puppy Love

We have had many toys come and go throughout the past 4+ years. Living on base with garage sales and gracious neighbors handing down gently used toys, as well as birthdays and holidays where grandparents and aunts and uncles and friends supplying us with new ones has kept our playroom filled with fun adventures. With all the different toys, it seems our stuffed doggies have become the favorite "lovey" for both kids. Zoey has her Buford, and along with him comes his twin Bo, Baby Buford, Murphy, Valentine, Cherry, and many other little ones with ever changing names. Max has Burrito, who has a replaceable twin hidden in the closet in case of emergencies, and Puppy. I am very thankful for Buford and Burrito, because they bring great comfort during stressful times like doctor visits and airplane rides. The dogs are quite well travelled as they have been on every trip and every doctor visit. However,they can also become the source of stress when we can't find one or Max and Zoey won't leave the house without them and thus I am forced to carry two kids and two dogs and a bag everywhere I go... Up until recently we never had a conflict with the dogs. They each clearly had their own dog/dogs, and neither was interested in the others. That is until these two came along...



Grandma and Papa brought us these dogs as Valentine's gifts for the kids. Max initially didn't care. He was happy with his Burrito and never showed an interest for another dog or lovey. Because of Max's indifference, Zoey took them both. We told her that only one was hers, but for now she could have both and she lovingly added them to her collection. Then one day Max adopted the solid color pup above and named him "Puppy" appropriately and he soon became just as important as Burrito in our going to bed routine. He still didn't seem to care about the other one. I am not sure if Zoey just had him hidden with her other dogs, but either way, he was out of the picture for awhile. Max is very attached to Puppy now and he knows that Zoey's dog looks almost like him, so whenever he sees it, he steals it away from her bed and lovingly hugs all Three of the dogs. This puppy love is beginning to be a problem because Max steals Zoey's dog and Zoey gets very upset. The funny thing about it is Max is relentless and sneaky and knows exactly what he is doing. If he wakes up in the morning before she does (they share a room) and he sees the dog, he sneaks over and grabs him and RUNS out of the room. The other day Zoey got sent to her room and was crying, so Max got up and walked in the room to see what was going on. He went up to her to give her a hug, which Ross and I thought was so sweet, and then, he eyed the dog, stopped hugging Zoey and grabbed the dog and RAN out the room... of course only bringing Zoey to more tears. Well, all of this comes with the territory of siblings I suppose. With all of the pups in the house, you would think we would get a real one right? Well, Zoey does ask, and she is an absolute dog lover, but I think we will hold off for now... Too much poo for this gal