Puppies!
Do you remember the exhaustion you felt when your new baby was about eighteen months? When she was waking up at 4 AM ready to play, thrilled to be alive and expecting that you were in a similar frame of mind even though you had only gotten four hours of sleep?
We have a new puppy. So I guess that is all there is to say about that.
Her name on Saturday, was Little Bear. So very cuddly.
On Sunday, it was Bear. We were up three times the previous night.
On Monday, it was The Howler. She hates the car. Anneke and I ended up with splitting headaches in the five minutes it took to get home from the vet.
On Tuesday it was, for a moment, Bad Dog. But just for a moment, until I retrieved my Pashmina Scarf from her puppy clutches.
Wednesday, it was Cujo. She does not like the sound of the shower at all. I got a full view of her many itty bitty puppy teeth and what I think was her epiglottis, through the shower curtain, as I was washing my hair and blocking my ears at the same time. It was scary.
Thursday, her name was Good Puppy. She stopped howling after an ear-splitting 7 minutes in the car. The point was that she stopped.
Right now, she is again, Little Bear. She is sleeping. Her head rests on a Beanie Baby Bear, and honestly, she looks angelic. I could eat her up. I love her.
I don’t remember being so tired with Debs, our faithful poodle of twelve years. It seemed easier. Smoother. Quieter. Easier.
Oh yeah, that’s right. We were two parents back then.
This blog is a warning. Most of you won’t need it.
But for the few of you who are considering a new puppy to sooth yourself after a wicked break up (oh right, that’s what I’m doing) I have a few words for you.
1. I suggest a maternity-leave-type situation. This is WORK.
2. Earplugs. Bose sells Noise Canceling Earphones for a mere $299 and I am seriously considering a pair.
3. Your sixteen-year-old may love the cuddling…but she will be very un-fond of using the pooper-scooper no matter what she commits to ahead of time. Whatever you do, don’t believe her. Love her, but don’t believe her.
4. And finally, although you probably don’t need reminding, everything is harder with only one parent, absolutely everything.
Please tell me how it is, that after nine years, a boyfriend or two, and now a new puppy, that I am still surprised that ‘we’ are a ‘me’?
Little Bear, cute and cuddly and funny and full of life, reminds me that she is my responsibility, not our responsibility and that the buck stops with me.
I know I should know this by now, and I do. Most days, I am OK with it.
But I still don’t understand it.
Oh, I know how it happened, the day-to-day decline… But I don’t get THAT it happened. It makes no sense.
Maybe, it will never make sense. I expect that it won’t.
In the meantime, I follow this cuddly ball of fur around, Oxy Solution Carpet Stain Remover in hand, knowing that for a while at least, she occupies some of that space in my brain that tends to think just a little too much.
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