Polly Dog

As you know, we point out everything Liam sees lately and tell him what it is in hopes that one day he will say it back to us. Well, we realized recently that we were contradicting ourselves whenever we would point to Polly and say "Dog". I mean, Liam hears us call her Polly all day long, yet we are telling him her name is "Dog". So, as of this week, we are renaming our dog, "Polly Dog" (or "Polly Puppy" if you ask Josh but that just creates all sorts of problems).

Polly Dog is one of the sweetest, most gentle giants you will ever meet. She is a 100 lb golden retriever that wants nothing more than to be loved on, run, or protect Liam from mean old mommy who tells him "no" some days (or heaven forbid tries to change him while he is crying). Polly is 2 1/2 years old and for the first 2 years of her life she slept on the floor in our bedroom next to me. About 6 months ago, she decided that she needed to protect Liam when he would cry out in the night and she now sleeps outside his door (which is great until she decides to shift positions and it sounds like a 100 lb thud followed by a large moan which in turn scares the bejesus out of Liam). Liam has always liked seeing Polly and would always smile at her but it is only within the last month or so that he truly freaks out when she walks in the room. Without any other siblings, I believe he now considers Polly his play mate. So, as of the past few weeks, a new routine has ensued and I was finally smart enough to catch it on camera.

Whenever Liam wakes up (either in the morning or from a nap) and I enter the room he either sits up or looks up and after giving me a quick 2 second grin he then begins to look around for Polly. He does not want to get out of the crib until she walks into the room. I usually start calling for Polly and seeing as she is super lazy at home it can take her awhile to get in there. This whole time Liam is just staring at the door and intently listening to see if he can hear her tags clinking. When she finally comes in the room it is like Christmas morning. Liam gets so excited that he usually squeals or as you will see in this video puts his head down and starts flailing his arms and legs. I get a kick out of it every day and I hope this is something he never grows out of :)