Her name is Maya

Day 1 at home with puppy:

Everyone was up early, excited for this new adventure.  We are all trying to figure each other out...she's learning that we are her family and are not leaving and we're learning how to take care of her.  The foster home told me that she may not eat for a few days because of stress and that was okay.  Do you know how this dog will eat?  Only out of the kids hands.  They circled around her and took turns giving her food and that's how she ate.  Give her a bowl and she won't touch it, but will gobble it up if they offer it to her.

Going into this, I was 100% aware that this was really my dog and I was taking responsibility for taking care of it.  I was 99% wrong...so far.  I have done pretty much nothing for this dog.  Alison is the one who has gotten her to go outside and taken her potty.  They boys have played with her and fed her and my only job has been getting the kids to leave her alone for a few minutes so she can take a nap!

She wants to be wherever the kids are.  If they aren't around, she cries until they all come back.  The foster mom had her on a nap schedule (crazy awesome, right?) and the only way I could get the kids to leave her alone long enough to sleep was to make them sit down and do school.  The puppy slept at Alison's feet all morning and Alison was content to sit there and do whatever work I gave her as long as she could pet the dog with her feet.

When Ben got home, he decided he was going to take the dog with him to check the mail (it's a communal box down the street).  Ha!  It was so funny.  The foster mom suggested we get a harness to leash train her...we just didn't expect the harness would be used to get her to GO and not get her to stay back.

They made it to the driveway and came back inside.  Baby steps.  I guess I'd rather have it that way then a crazy dog trying to run everywhere.

Then we gave her a bath...a much needed bath.  Also funny.  Labs are supposed to like water right?  Yea, not so much this night.  As soon as the water hit her, she bolted across the yard and we were all trying to catch her and I felt like we were in a movie.  After two running escapades, I ended up holding her while Ben washed her and pretty much took a bath with her in our backyard.  Oh the things we do.

Her name.

We tossed around many names:  Butters, Nala, Morgan, Reese, Lily and Daisy were at the top of the list.  We decided to give it 24 hours to get to know her before we picked a name and by yesterday afternoon, I texted Ben at work and said we needed a solid name fast because the kids were calling her a million different names.  Poor confused doggy.

Why Maya?

• I read it on a name website and instantly liked it and it was the first name we all really liked.
• One of its meanings is "magic" and I feel like it was a little magical how she came to us.
• She was rescued by Mexico and my first thought of Mexico is our honeymoon in the Riviera Maya and we visited the Mayan ruins.