For months now, my younger son has been begging for a dog. That’s all I want for my birthday, he said, and then to drive his point home, he left notes all over the house. 

At first, I’d pooh-poohed him. There’s no way, I said. We don’t need more dogs. We already have two. 

But then I started thinking. We had allowed each of the girls to get their own dog once they were able to financially support a pet (and while Francie was our family dog, she was my older son’s charge, more or less), and as the youngest child in a rapidly-emptying house — and semi-socially isolated, thanks to Covid — he, of all the kids, was perhaps the one most in need of a pet. Plus, he’s the one who actually plays with the dogs, racing around the yard with Coco, and then climbing trees when her back is turned for hide-and-seek (and seek — and find — she does!).  

So I ran the idea by a couple friends. Am I crazy to consider another dog? I asked. Get it, they said.

And so I started shopping. Daily, I checked the classifieds and Craigslist. I put in an application to the SPCA. I contacted dog-owning friends. I messaged people who knew people who had dogs. But no luck.

For his birthday, we ended up just giving him a leash and some money — and the permission — to get a dog. It was a bummer, having the birthday without the gift, but he handled it well, and, birthday over, the search continued. His preferences were clear: a lab mix, female, and a puppy. But still, there was nothing. With each passing day, I grew more and more frustrated. Where were all the dogs?

And then I found an ad on craigslist for a chocolate lab mix. Problem was, it was six months old, and a he, but I contacted the owners anyway, just to see. They sent photos and explained that there’d been some changes in the family and a doubling up of jobs — they just couldn’t keep up with a puppy. 

My son was interested, but hesitant. Look, I said. It’s a gorgeous dog. It’s sad to miss the first cuddly months, but they’d fly by anyway, and six-months old is still very much a puppy. Plus, he’s free and he’s fixed and he’s a lab.

Can I meet him first and then decide? He asked. 

So Saturday afternoon in the middle of an ice storm, we hopped in the van and set off to see the puppy. Once he met him, of course he said yes.  

My son considered keeping the pup’s original name but, after a number of prolonged discussions, he finally came up with one he liked: Danny Boy, from a book I recently read to him for the second time (and no, Schitt’s Creek fans, this has nothing to do with funerals and Moira). 

Gangly and big — he’s bigger than Coco already — Danny Boy is still very much a pup. He doesn’t know his strength, plus he’s clumsy, so he occasionally crashes into walls and people. He tries to climb into our laps. He bounces and falls over, and he gets distracted while eating. He’s eager and rammy and enormously energetic and super people-friendly. 

And because he’s a lab, he’s awfully much like Francie: the same gentle, intelligent eyes, the same heavy tail thump-thump-thump, the same wiggly eyebrows. He even sleeps in the same spot where Francie slept: curled up on the mat right outside the door.

I snapped a picture and sent it to the older kids. Does this remind you of anybody? I asked. FRANCIE, they both wrote back immediately.

Already he’s quite attached to my son. He slept on my younger son’s bed the first couple nights, but now he sleeps in the crate at the foot of the bed. (Once it’s warmer, he’ll join the other dogs in the kennel.) 

We’ve never gotten an older dog before, so it’s a bit of a learning curve. Danny Boy’s old enough that he’s got some habits that require retraining — barking to be let in, drinking from the toilet, jumping — but young enough that I don’t think it will be too terribly difficult to fix.

Complicating matters is the weather: it’s so icy and cold that it makes it hard to exercise the dogs. Plus, Danny Boy doesn’t know limits, or how to play with other dogs, and his persistent wrestling matches with Coco often threaten to devolve into a flat-out fight.

And then the kids bellow at the dogs to behave and I yell at the kids to mind the dogs and, well, it’s all a bit much.  

But that’s okay, because once again we have a lab.

Which is pretty darn awesome, I think.

This same time, years previous: the quotidian (2.17.20), in my kitchen: 11:50 a.m., the quotidian (2.17.14), Monday blues, chicken pot pie, snippets, creamed chicken with cheese biscuits, tortilla pie.

I’d never heard of The Great Courses (that I know of, anyway) until we got an ad for it in the mail. I glanced at it briefly, chalked it up as junk and made to throw it out — but my husband stopped me.

Have you looked at it? He asked. It could be worthwhile. 

So I gave the glossy magazine a once-over, read about the discount — 25 dollars a course for 5 courses — and then thought, Why not? It might be fun and if not, it wouldn’t be too much money down the drain. 

I told the kids to pick out the classes that interested them, and then we all sat down together and chose the ones with the greatest overlap: Spanish I, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Native Peoples of North America, Western Civilizations I, and Building a Better Vocabulary. (And then we opted to pay ten dollars more for each class to get the version that came with a DVD.) 

I had my reservations. You can learn just about anything online (via YouTube and Khan Academy, etc) and there’s the public library and all sorts of fun TED talks and podcasts. Would this be any better than all that free stuff? 

My older daughter took the Molecular Biology DVD with her up to Massachusetts, but my younger son sneaked in a few lessons before she left. He was glued to them — completely absorbed — and when I asked if he was understanding any of it, he laughed sheepishly and said, “Some.” (And then one night at supper he regaled us with a long tale of science-y information, the details of which I no longer recall except for the fact that he was so thoroughly excited about it that he was bubbling over.)

Biology, in her new digs.

The two younger kids are watching the Western Civilization lectures with my husband. My daughter takes notes (it helps her focus and retain), and my husband hits pause every now and then to summarize or elaborate or review, or he might pull out the atlas to help them get their bearings. But mostly they just watch. My husband says the class is good — comprehensive, engaging, and informative.

I’m doing the Spanish DVD with the two younger kids. Each lesson — there are thirty in all — takes us about four sessions (or days) to complete, and we break them down like so: 

• The lectures: we watch them together, with me hitting pause frequently to give them time to formulate answers or repeat phrases. 
• Speaking exercises: I hit pause constantly so it takes awhile. 
• Workbook: we photocopy the lessons and they each work their way through the written work, after which I check it and have them read everything out loud. 
• Practice, above and beyond (but necessary): I make flashcards and randomly yell at them to conjugate “ser,” or to rattle off the pronouns, or to tell me the present tense ending to -ar verbs. 

It’s a lot of information, and excellently presented — like, really excellent (and I’m learning/relearning an awful lot) — but I do wonder what it’d be like to try to absorb all of it without any background in Spanish. Even though my kids’ knowledge of the language feels minimal, thanks to their months in Guatemala and Puerto Rico, they’re already familiar with the sounds and cadence, which has gotta be a big help. Plus, it helps that I know enough Spanish to be able to coach and correct. In any case, the kids are absorbing a tremendous amount of Spanish in a way that will stick with them better than any other language learning program I’ve seen (not counting their immersion experiences, of course). 

Update: We just got a letter from The Great Courses with another discount (pricier than the first but it applies to all the courses, not just a select few) and my husband is urging me to buy more. Even though I like that the kids are being exposed to college-level lectures, that the material, like any college course, digs in deep enough to get a good taste for the subject matter, and that I don’t have to source the content (but can supplement as much as I want), I probably won’t. We’ve hardly made a dent in the courses we’ve already purchased, and I don’t want to take on too much right at the start and then stall out. 

But I am tempted. There is that mental math course that my younger son wants to try…

This same time, years previous: collard greens, Thursday thoughts, Jonathan’s jerky, the quotidian (2.16.15), buses, boats, and trucks, oh my!, cornmeal blueberry scones, just stuff.

Quotidian: daily, usual or customary;
everyday; ordinary; commonplace

The boy eats.

Extras from the bakery: bag of gold. Which I used to make….

Baked French toast studded with jammy blueberries for our V-Day breakfast.

Look what I found! At the local grocery! For three-something!

Care package for the far-away wean.
(“Wean,” thanks to my current Scottish read.)

And quiche Lorraine for the boy and his mates.

Wind break.

He loved this.

Behind the sofa: impeachment.

Choir auditions.

Studying for a pediatrics exam and lecturing me about the dental hygiene of infants.

Big-ass snowman.

Sorry-ass snowman.

Change of scenary (and some sunshine!): lunch and reading at the GP’s.

Because the rest of the time, it’s this.

This same time, years previous: kitchen sink cookies, the quotidian (2.13.17), the quotidian (2.15.16), it gets better, chocolate pudding, how we do things, sweet, the outrageous incident of the Sunday boots.