Happy Birthday, Gus!

Today marks Gus' 3rd birthday! Chris and I had been married for nearly a year, and we decided to get a dog. After all, you know what they say about keeping a plant alive, a dog alive, and a child alive. Well, we kind of broke the rules, because we killed the plants we had. But, we thought we might have some luck with a dog. A basset hound seemed like a good candidate for us, because we lived in an apartment at the time.

We bought Gus from a family in Grenada, MS. His parents were Fred and Lola. We were able to meet Lola, but Fred had been run over shortly after Lola got pregnant. We were, however, able to see the pictures of Fred and Lola's wedding. I mean, you have to explain the puppies to the children in a biblical manner...with a doggie marriage, of course...complete with a veil for Lola and a bow tie for Fred. We knew right away that Gus was the puppy we wanted out of the litter. He seemed to have the most personality, and the children had deemed him the favorite puppy. The family had named him Big Bubba, but we decided to change that to Gus. We won't go in to the reason for the name Big Bubba. :o)


Well, as you can see, we had more luck with the dog than we did with the plants. Gus threw us right into getting to see what parenthood is all about with all of his medical issues (complete with allergy shots), and he definitely showed us the importance of puppy-proofing your home. I won't even begin to tell you all the things this dog has eaten. I believe the entire container of onion flakes took the trophy. Or was it the pound of chocolate? Or the bottle of mint extract? I could name so many things. We definitely called animal poison control several times.

Gus enjoyed two years of indoor life before we moved into our new house, but the shedding and claws were not welcome inside our new home. Shortly after we moved in, Hayden entered the world, and poor Gus was not only banished outside but he was no longer the only child. The inhumanity of it all!

Along the same lines, Hayden has said his first word. I wanted to wait awhile before I deemed it his first word, because I wanted to make sure the association was there. He had been saying dada for forever and then added things like mama and baba and nana. He says those things, but the word association isn't there. In other words, he doesn't understand that Chris is dada or Missy is mama. Well, his first word is "Gu" or sometimes "Guk." That's right...I said it all along that his first word would be the dog's name. Hehehe.... Hayden's so cute standing there at the back door saying "Gu" over and over.

Happy Birthday, Gus or Gu or Guk. We love you, buddy!