The decade has seen us weather the toddler to teen years, from kindergarten to high school. Facebook memories from 2009 portray an exhausted mom who yearned for adult conversation and bubbly. A fairly big chunk of the 2010s included diagnosis, treatment, recovery, and the never-ending aftermath of breast cancer. The past few years, Lees agonized over standardized testing, essay writing, and the sleep-depriving anxiety that accompanies high school admissions. Stevie navigated divorce, dating, neuropathy, migraines, college application stress for three children, and got cancer. More recently (because God is good) he’s experienced the miracle of new love and marriage. Steve wrote about all of these moments candidly and with humor. More often, I just complained about cardio. Our shared bloggy pursuits even went viral twice this decade. As 2020 begins, there is more good than awful in the accounting, but we’ll take “boring” for the next 10 years, please.

Boring, it won’t be. In the dark days surrounding the solstice, the Lees felt keenly bereft of joy. The stress of the holidays piggybacking onto an overly long and expensive home renovation project and three (minor, but still) car accidents and midterm exams plus a brief but serious consideration of a new job and move was enough already. Taking a hard look at all of the hard work all of us were doing—board meetings, conference calls, Latin declensions, concussions and cross country meets, fundraising, editing, international meetings, and too much travel that did not include umbrella drinks– we realized there wasn’t a lot of FUN happening. And so in what appears like the Lee Family’s Most Impulsive Move, we got a dog.

Decidedly not boring.

After years of insisting that I “am allergic” and “refuse to pick up poop” and “will never budge,” we got a puppy. A tiny, sort of hypoallergenic (y’all are really overselling this notion), absolutely adorable mini Bernedoodle is sleeping at my feet right now. Is this just more work? Maybe. But with teenagers doing the lion’s share of puppy play and taking the night shift, so far it seems like we adopted a big dose of joy in the softest, cutest, littlest package. And Hero is his name.

My boys went back to school today. On the 2^nd, because their school is totally finger horns metal when it comes to the calendar. When Brodie brought a whimpering puppy to me at 4:30am, asking me sweetly to take over, I did this happily… but I’m still drinking coffee in jammies and have been up for FIVE HOURS. Am I counting the minutes until they get home? Maybe. Is Hero checking couches for napping humans because so far that’s all he’s seen us do? Yup. But those of you who are likening this stage to having another baby never experienced Brodie as a baby. This is hardly the lonely and exhausting time suck that was stay at home parenting with a newborn. And I could probably take Hero with me to get a pedicure. Perspective.

It was thought- and conversation-provoking timing to get a tiny new family member as the decade closed on such a huge portion of my boys’ lives. Will it be so sad to leave Hero when they go to college? Will Hero be alive when they get married? What will life look and be like in 2030? For the first time since my boys began high school, and now a handful of their friends started college visits and dove deep into application stress, we’re looking at the future with more what if/what’s next optimism. As my boys focus less on have-to’s and more on could-be’s, Bernie and I are clearing the calendar of stuff that doesn’t really need to be on it. We have a sleepy, fun, soft, love me love me love me puppy to Instagram. Together. And that makes him a Hero, indeed.

Please note my utter RESTRAINT in only posting one puppy pic