And baby makes three...errr, seven?

It's hard to believe, but it's been more than five and a half years since Mr. Zookeeper and I moved in together. It was the last weekend of May in 2005, and my parents showed up with a couch and other odds and ends crammed in the back of their Ford Ranger pick-up bed. In between numerous trips to Target and K-Mart, my dad and Mr. Zookeeper had an opportunity for some male bonding. "It's okay to play house," my dad told Mr. Zookeeper during (what I imagine was) a pretty awkward ride to the new digs, "but no pets, and no kids. Got that?"

Over the years, he has often repeated that refrain: "No pets and no kids."

Like when we called on Valentine's Day in 2007 to tell him we had adopted not one, but two cats from a local shelter.



And then again in early 2010 when we e-mailed him a picture of Diesel, our Basenji mix from the SPCA.

And a few months later when we told them about Dodge, the lab mix with a sad history who so desperately needed us.

I'm pretty sure he even whispered it in my ear as we swayed along during the Father/Daughter dance at my wedding...

So in hindsight, it probably wasn't best to fall in love with a house that had less than 1,100 square feet to its name when I had so recklessly abandoned dad's simple request. But hindsight isn't 20/20 for everyone -- I needed bifocals when I was 10, after all -- and I'm still so in love with this place that it's hard to imagine squeezing our brood into any other home. Even now, when we are faced with the prospect of adding a HUMAN to our zoo, it still seems to fit.

I took a peek out at the yard this morning, and it's a barren wasteland of brown grass, muddy holes and trenches, and stuffed animals thrown about as though the pups were trying to create a minefield. And I couldn't help but smile as I was gripping my mug and staring out the window because next year that minefield will include some Fisher-Price walker toys and maybe a Tonka truck or two.

It might not fit the Martha Stewart version of happiness, but it sure as hell fits mine.