Broken Hearts and Busted Lips

             Yesterday was a really hard day for our family.  We have had a sweet little puff-ball of a dog for several years and yesterday, our little Harley had to move to a new home.  Harley is a Shih Tzu and he is loved by the whole family.  He loved to tuck the boys in each night and follow Anna Grace around the house all day.  There were many days when Harley would be in the middle of a tea party or would be dressed up in a tutu.  However, in the last several months, he has become more and more aggressive with Anna Grace.  I would see him get agitated with her and tell her to give him some space, but he would just follow her to the next room constantly under her feet.  He started growling at her from time to time and has been giving her what I think are warning bites- nothing hard, but the bites have been on the face.  It is impossible to keep the two of them separated without keeping Harley locked up all of the time and that is not fair to him.  We tried several weeks of increasing his exercise, but that did not help either.  He bit Anna Grace twice in the last week- once on the hand and once on the face.  I was so scared that he was going to finally bite her with more than a warning.  He went to a really loving home with no kids, but our family is crushed.  The boys and I were in tears for most of the day yesterday knowing that Harley was going to be leaving. 
          Cole and Alex decided that they did not want to be home when Harley's new family came to get him, so we agreed that Mike would stay home and I would take the kids out for supper- which leads me up to the "busted lip" part of the title of today's blog post. We were getting ready to leave, and I was helping Anna Grace with her tights after she went potty when her feet slipped out from under her on the tile floor of our bathroom.  She fell flat on her face, and there was an instant pool of blood.  I have never seen so much blood come out of a child.  Anna Grace is typically very tough, but she was crying hysterically and for a while we could not even tell where the blood was coming from.  It took about 15 minutes for the bleeding to stop and none of our neighbors who are nurses were home to help us figure out what to do.  We knew that Harley's new family was going to arrive at any minute, the boys were waiting to leave for supper, and Anna Grace needed to get to a doctor.  Thankfully, the neighbors who live behind us took the boys while I took Anna Grace to the Immediate First Care to see if she needed stitches. 
         Anna Grace did not need stitches, but her mouth is very swollen and bruised inside and out.  The tooth that had been pushed back a bit has shifted back into place this morning, and I think in a few days she will be better.  She just finished a big homemade smoothie for her breakfast.  We have reports that Harley is happy, but the boys and I are still feeling heartbroken.  We know that it was the right thing to do- for Anna Grace and for Harley, but we feel like a part of our family is missing.  Cole and I were talking last night as I was tucking him in bed about how sometimes doing the right thing to do is the hardest.  Please pray for us that in the coming days our hearts will start to mend and Anna Grace's mouth heals.