Just when I think I have it all figured out . . .

. . . something happens that makes me reconsider.

Some friends dropped off their dog last night for us to babysit while they go have fun in Park City for a few days. They didn't get to our house until after Noah was in bed so my curiosity about how Noah was going to handle the dog had to wait until morning. The few dogs that Noah has been around haven't exactly been received with open arms so I was less than optimistic about how the meeting was going to go.

When we went to bed last night the dog was a bit of a basket case. She barked every time anybody moved and we had to close the door to the boys room so that they could try to sleep through it. Phil would help her to settle down and then I would cough and she would get agitated again. It was a fun evening until Phil finally just took her to our bedroom when he went to bed and he closed the door hoping that if she didn't see me still awake she would just go to sleep.

I went to bed around 11:30 and as soon as I opened the bedroom door, the dog escaped downstairs. I figured that she would come back to her bed when she was finished exploring or doing whatever it was she was doing, and since she wasn't barking, I wasn't concerned about it.

Fast forward to this morning. Noah wakes up at his normal 6:30 and starts his yelling. Adam must have had enough because after about 3 minutes Noah went silent again and I drifted off for a few more minutes until I had to get in the shower and get ready for work. When I finally rolled out of bed, I noticed that the dog still hadn't returned and that the boys bedroom door was still closed so I just went about my business of getting ready for work.

Phil was resting peacefully, but when I started to head downstairs to leave I noticed that the boys door was now open. Adam was still asleep, but Noah was nowhere to be found. Hmmmmm . . . the dog is missing and Noah is missing . . . this can't be good. I was quite shocked that I heard no barking and no screaming though. Noah always comes into our bedroom when he wakes up so it was quite a mystery.

I mentioned the details to Phil and the response I got was wide-opened eyes. Had the dog completely escaped the house through the doggy door? Where in the heck was Noah? How late was I going to be to work?

I ran downstairs and within about 5 seconds, the mystery was solved. I walked into the family room and was greeted by the dog sitting calmly in the middle of the room with Noah, wearing nothing but a diaper, standing about a foot away holding his pajamas in his hand. He looked at me as he held out his pajamas and said "Laundry."

The evidence of some kind of blowout was in his hand and spread up his back. He couldn't have been less concerned with the dog, and the dog was showing no signs of anxiety whatsoever. In fact, she looked slightly bored with the whole scene. Huh. If you had told me the night before that Noah would be alone downstairs with the dog in the morning, I would have bet money that we would have awakened to something similar to that scene in ET where the little girl stumbles upon ET accidentally and they both start screaming and ET's head raises and their eyes bug out.

I took Noah back upstairs so that I could put him in the tub. Phil asked him if he had seen the puppy. Noah just said "Yeah" as if there is always a strange dog running around in our house. That's it. No drama.

There is one mystery from this morning that still needs to be solved though. How did Adam get Noah to stop yelling at 6:30 this morning so that we could go back to sleep? I don't know that we'll ever figure that one out.