I miss my dog :(

As nice as it's been the last two months without Sophie (our dog), I've been thinking about how much I miss having a dog. I'm just so wishy washy over the whole thing.

I loved having the companionship, but hated having her under my feet all day. I kid you not, I couldn't even leave the living room to go to the bathroom without her coming with me to the bathroom. I've got children who do that...who wants one more family member in the toilet too?! Then there was the hair...and the barking to come in...I couldn't stand it. I know the remedy for the hair, but having a dog that doesn't bark...it would be heaven! The other MAJOR concern would be how Christian behaves with a dog. With Sophie...kicking, hitting, you name it...it happened to her. I got so tired every day of having to tell Christian to stop hitting her and what not...I have to get on him enough during the day for other stupid things, I don't want to have to do it even more.

On the other hand...I feel like if we were to get a puppy instead of an almost fully grown dog, that he would know to be careful with it. I've seen how he was with my Mom's dog's puppies (at 2 years of age, not 3) and he was great. He pet them nicely, loved them, always wanted to hold it...it was awesome, he was awesome. Also, I could train it not to bark, or it wouldn't feel like it had to. It would know it's place and I wouldn't have to worry about it following me every where!

There's also the fact that Shane really wants a dog. I told him I wanted a small one, so the shedding was minimum and he said he really didn't care...he just wanted one. The only thing is that he's going to be gone a lot this summer and we're planning on leaving for California for a while too and I don't want to have to ask anyone to watch our pet. So maybe we should just wait to get a dog until the end of summer when the kids and I come back from California. That would make the most sense. The kids would be older, Shane would be home more, I might not be as anal about the dog hair or cleaning up messes.

I wish that my life was like it was when I lived at home, someone to tell me whether or not I could get a dog and then help me take care of it. Poor brain...so undecided.