Over the weekend we welcomed a new addition to our clan – a strapping, 18-pound baby boy.
After living in a predominately estrogen-ruled household where pink prevails – especially in the laundry basket – daddy finally has his little man.
Like many conceptions, our new bambino was the result of a little too much vino... well, kinda.
After a couple glasses of merlot one evening, daddy – all glassy-eyed and merry – looked at me from across the dinner table and said the four little words I'd been waiting to hear.
"Let's get a dog!"
Before he could take it back, our two daughters, Molly 5, and Zoe, 3, leapt out of their seats, jumping for joy.
"Yay, we're getting a dog, we're getting a dog," they both cheered in unison.
"I'm not talking about right away...," stammered Daddy, as the reality of his verbal slip up sunk in.
"Maybe in a few months...or, like next summer?"
And so began our hunt for the "perfect" pooch the very next day.
Friends suggested we go the rescue dog route, which meant filling out applications and meeting various furry fellas to see if they'd be the right fit.
Our first meet-and-greet didn't exactly go as planned. Bentley, a handsome one-year-old golden Lab/basset hound, was just a little too frisky for Zoe's liking.
All he wanted to do was give kisses, jump up and do what young male dogs love to do to legs, teddy bears, pillows – I'm sure you get my drift.
Sadly, his size and energy level terrified our canine-shy preschooler.
During the meet-and-greet, in an unrelated matter, we also discovered that the police were about to pull a car containing a dead body from the shore, adjacent to the dog -walk park. It looked like a crime scene straight out of CSI.
"You might want to get your kids out of here right now... it's going to be a gruesome scene," said a police officer, who ushered crowd of spectators away.
That afternoon we left without a dog, but promised a tearful Molly that we wouldn't give up on our search.
"Honey, maybe the grizzly police scene at the park was some sort of a sign that he's not the one?" whispered Jason on the drive home.
"Maybe," I replied, holding back tears myself.
Even before meeting Bentley, I had fallen in love with his photo on the rescue site.Realizing he wasn't the right fit for our family was a tough bone to chew.
We applied for a few more dogs, but would find out that they had already found their forever homes.
The whole process was emotionally exhausting – I was ready to take a break from our dog hunt, but then we found him.
Jason was at work when my mom and I took the girls to a farm out in Langley to meet with two puppies that were up for adoption.
"Are you sure you want a puppy?," asked my mom on the drive over. "They're a lot of work... you guys can't even keep your goldfish alive."
To be fair, they were beta fish and we had been really good about feeding them and changing the water in the bowl.
After flushing our eighth Sophia down the toilet and dealing with the devastation from our daughters, we were more than ready to upgrade our family pet from a fin to a fur baby.
They say that you don't choose your dog, they choose you – and I couldn't agree more.
While one of the puppies ran and hid from us, the other leapt into my arms, showered me with kisses and then tucked his teeny-tiny face under my chin.
"I think you found the one and so did he," said my misty-eyed mom, who was already head-over-paws for her new granddoggie.
Before making a final decision, we asked Zoe and Molly if he was the one.
Both girls had their arms around him, giggling as he jumped up to gently greet them.
"I'm not scared of him mommy. He's the perfect baby brother for us," said Zoe, who was also clearly smitten.
At that moment I whipped out my phone to take a photo and send it to daddy at work.
"It's a boy!," I texted.
Aside from a penchant for pooping in mommy's office, Tucker is a perfect little pooch.
As he gets more comfortable with his new surroundings, I'm sure he'll get up to all kinds of trouble, which will make great fodder for future Pink Laundry columns.
Kristyl Clark is a work-at-home mom who writes monthly for Black Press and is the founder of the family blogazine ValleyMom.ca. She's also a host of the online show Fraser Valley 5. Follow her on Twitter at @shesavalleymom