Bye Bye, bunny...

Oh boy...what an evening in our household.

John brought home a ton of the notarized documents. Great! They just had the chick's signature, the date and her stamp, though. Nothing like, "I, me, say these documents are true and I know these signatures are true," which is what I sort of have come to expect from every other notarized document I have ever seen. I went to Maryland's website on this, though, and apparently, that may be fine. I emailed our caseworker and the MD secretary of state, and will call them tomorrow to see whether or not they can be authenticated.

Tomorrow is our appointment for our interviews with Bethany. I am going to bring all the home study stuff for them. Upon checking into that stuff, I realized that AA suggests pictures of the decorated room for the dossier. Ummm...I have no decorated room. Nor do I have plans TO decorate a room for several more months. I'm a believer in not putting the cart too far in front of the horse, and I figure I can at least get our dossier in before I start painting pink walls. John joked about calling friends of ours to photograph their baby's room--just for a sample, and I told him to give Dave a call. He then tells me to give Nanci, Dave's wife a call. I sit here, every day, typing documents, researching, preparing, etc...and he tells me to call. For PETE'S sake. Then John starts questioning me about why we have to have pictures like that in the first place. Let's see...I DON'T KNOW but that's just the way it is. I swear...it's bad enough that I have to sift through all this mess, question it, stroke it, get it all done. Then I have to turn around and justify things I don't even understand myself to John when the bottom line is that it doesn't matter WHY--it just IS and if we want a baby from this country through this agency, we DO. PERIOD.

So, five minutes or so after that lovely exchange of words (words I realized I would not be able to say anymore once the baby is here...actually, it's not the words so much as it is the tone of voice I use with those words) I hear John saying, "No, Dixie! No, Dixie!!!" I ask him what's going on and he tells me Dixie has found some baby bunnies. I JUMP off the sofa and run out there...just in time to see one sweet looking little (I mean little) baby bunny hopping as fast as her little bunny legs would take her and Dixie tossing another one up in the air and catching it. And as if that wasn't horrific enough, the sound effects that went with the air toss were heart wrenching. AND sounded exactly like Dixie's squeaky toys. Which has prompted my decision to throw ALL squeaky toys away. John doesn't want that, but I don't care. I'm serious--that poor baby bunny sounded identical to her pink squeaky ball and that is just not a sound I want to relive.

Worst of all, it was after the vet closed, and the closest emergency vet is an hour plus away. So John said he needed to put it out of its misery. With...his BB gun. Un-freaking-believable. I was SOOOO mad at Dixie, and she knows it. John says it is just instinct. HELLO--Golden Retrievers DON'T EAT BUNNIES. Pit Bulls may. Shepards may. Heck, even Labs may. But goofy, lovable Golden Retrievers don't eat babies. In Dixie's defense, I don't think she was trying to kill it--she just thought it was a toy with a new dimension added to it--the LIVE dimension. Those squeaky toys ought to be banned.

So, somewhere out there tonight a little bunny is missing his or her brother or sister and a mommy bunny is missing her baby. I know, I know...circle of life, yada yada. Dog's instinct, blah, blah, blah. Whatever. It still broke my heart and was very traumatic. It was something I would call my mom and cry about. Which, of course leads me to the remembrance of her. Five years ago today my whole life changed. I'll never forget Linda Stipe pulling me off the charter bus bound for Raleigh for a field trip and telling me I couldn't go. I was freaking out because I had just gotten in touch with our assistant superintendent about some things going on at the school I was not happy with and I thought I was in trouble. Little did I know that when she uttered the five words, "Your dad just called me..." my world would crash. That's all she had to say and I knew my mom was gone. And my life hasn't been the same.