Should we rename the dog "Cinnamon"?

May 4th, 2012

I was in the kitchen making lunch, so I sent my three kids out to play in the driveway so I could make lunch without having Darby there to undo everything I was doing.  Somehow, before she exited the building, she grabbed the large container of cinnamon.  I do not know how I did not notice this.  I guess between the wild stampede of children trying to be the the first to get outside, our black lab, Molly, the rush to put shoes on, and the slamming doors and yelling children, I failed to notice Darby calmly walking over to the pantry with a smirk on her face, grabbing the cinnamon, shoving it under her shirt and slithering outside, unnoticed.  At least, that's how I saw it playing out in my head, since I still do not know how she got that outside without me noticing.

Several minutes later, Tate came inside to rat his sister out.  "Mom!  Darby put cinnamon on Molly!!!"  Me, "What?!  Cinnamon?"  I did not at all compute that he was talking about the stuff you bake with for a split second.  Then, I thought, "Well, big woop!  It'll just be a few sprinkles.  Why is he even tattling over cinnamon?"  I walked out into the garage with Tate to find that fully one-half of our dog was no longer black, but rather, well...cinnamon.  And, also the entire driveway surrounding her.  Actually, when she stepped up, there was an outline of our dog on the driveway (think CSI-outlined a human body on your driveway, only it was a dog print-yes.  THAT much cinnamon).  My poor dog was humiliated.  She sorta just looked at me with this, "Are you mad at ME?" look.  "Of course I'm not mad at you, Molly," I said, as I started to pat the cinnamon off of her.  The problem is that labs have two layers of fur.  The cinnamon had seeped clear down to the undercoat.  So, the more I patted, the more poofs of cinnamon that came up!  I patted and patted and brushed and brushed until she was relatively black again.  I left the "evidence" (ie. the cinnamon Molly print) on our driveway.

That night, Dallas got home, and we were all out in the driveway.  Dallas walked up to the cinnamon dog print and said, "What's that?"  I replied, "THAT...is a Molly print."  "What's it made from?"  "Cinnamon"  (who SAYS that?).  He was baffled, and really, so was I.  See, at this point, events like this were still not everyday events.  Maybe God just wanted my house (and my dog) to smell like cinnamon for a week...because that's exactly what happened.