Doo Bug, Oh Doo Bug, Oh Do You Remember Me?

...(sung to the tune of Do Lord, Oh Do Lord, Oh Do You Remember Me?)

My girl, my baby girl, has been on my mind lately, so I thought I'd do a post about her - it will probably make me feel worse, not better, but so it goes. October 2001, I became a mommy. I didn't think so at the time, but looking back, I know it's true. That's when we adopted our gal, Dixie. And when I say adopted, I mean it in the literal sense of the word. Nine page application, home visit, eleven page contract, the works. It takes less effort to put a child in foster care (and I know)! Becoming Dixie's parents really rocked mine and Mitch's world. We'd always wanted a dog, but had always lived in an apartment that had a no pets rule. So when we bought a house in the summer of 2001, we set about finding a dog. We wanted a bulldog, but getting a puppy was way out of our price range and we visited a breeder and it was just creepy - the idea of having her dog create a pup just for us seemed cruel and unusual, so we landed upon the Rescue Idea - Mitch found a rescue group near Athens and we filled out an application. It took a while, but the first weekend in October, we got our girl. She was already named Dixie - she'd been in rescue for about 9 months - waiting for the perfect home (one where she could be the queen bee, no other pets and no kids). And she was the Queen (and we treated her as such)! She was cranky and stubborn and barely passed obedience school (we had to stay after class several times), but she was our Bug and we loved her like crazy. She attracted attention every where we went - strangers would stop us and ask if they could take her picture. When we got pregnant with Mason, everyone asked if we would keep her - which seemed crazy to us - what else would with do with her - she was part of our family - of course we would keep her and teach our child how to live in a home with her. And that's what we did.