a special day

Today is a very special day. Beane turns 3. For those of you who don't know who Beane is, he is our dog (but Shannon's dog when he's bad.) His birthday was tonight at exactly 10:30.

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I remember the first time we got to see him. The Vandeburgs brought all 9 of their puppies to my grandparent's, and Beane (then Earthy--all the puppies were named after the planets) was not my first pick. But when Dad went to pick a puppy for Shan's b-day, he picked the cuddliest, sweetest, most lovable puppy there. All you had to do is walk up to him and he'd roll over on his back and beg you with his eyes to rub his tummy. If he got excited, he would (and still does) wag his little stub of a tail so hard that his whole backside would shake.

As he grew older, he became very protective and didn't like boys very much (which my dad thought came in handy what with his having four girls. . .) He is also very pompous and struts his stuff when we take him on walks. He has a definite element of surprise about him, like the time he layed me out flat on my back when we were playing at my grandparents house, and the time he made Whitney trip over him as she was walking by and sweetly waving to the town policeman, oh, and the time he made Mom fall flat on her face in a puddle when he decided to suddenly halt his brisk trot (directly in front of Mom) to sniff an invisible something. We have a dog with personality. He's not too stupid. We teach him hand motions for all his tricks, and when trying to teach him to roll over, we pointed our index finger down and made a circle in the air. His response? He walked in a circle.

We love our Beane, and (I think) he loves us. I hope we have a lot more years ahead with this other member of our family.