Ah, the joys of pets! They play, they frolic, they roll around on the floor acting cute doing anything they can to get your attention and affection. They shed, they gnaw, they spill their food and water on the floor, they drink out of the toilet and get the seat wet so the poor unsuspecting soul who has to wee next get's a wet tush ... And then they invite their friends over for a pup-slumber party and things get even crazier!
Yes, we are dog-sitting this week. And yes, she is a good dog, plays nicely with Midnight, is primarily disinterested in the baby (which I deem a good thing) and really isn't too much more work than just having the one dog.
But here is the hiccup: She does not sleep at night. She licks, she pants, she scratches, she whines, she wanders the halls, does everything but sleep ... I guess she misses her home and her parents. It reminds me of when we were kids and had slumber parties and inevitably there was always one kid who cried and missed their mom and had to go home at like 1am and sort of ruined things for everyone else, especially for the parents!
Of course I'd never considered it from the parents point of view before, but for the family hosting the party they've all the sudden got to deal with a bunch of other people's kids who were raised with different rules, have different idiosyncrasies and could turn out to be whiny wimps when it comes to actually sleeping at someones house (something you won't discover until everyone is exhausted and it's bedtime). And then there's the poor parents who were duped into thinking they actually had the night off for a change until the phone rings at 12:45am and they've suddenly got to drag their butts out of bed and go schlep to pick up their kid. I applaud my parents for letting me have so many friends sleep over, you guys were troopers!
I guess Jeff and I will suck it up as most parents do and host slumber parties one day too. In the meantime, we've got one more night of doggie slumber partying to get through and then we will breathe a sigh of relief as all parents do when they close the front door after their guest has left and life returns to the normal level of insanity.
I've been watching my behavior over the last several weeks and I've decided that I'm a walking contradiction. On the one hand I'm obsessed with keeping the floors clean to the point where we've hired a service to come clean the house every other week (in addition to us vacuuming about every four days on our own). On the other hand, I'm somewhat okay with the box of random stuff to be sold/donated/tossed that has been sitting in our downstairs bathroom for a couple of months. Then there's the dog situation. On the one hand I absolutely cannot stand her hair getting all over my baby's clothes, hands and face when he crawls on top of her or attempts to chew/bite/suck/kiss her fur (it's so gross). But I'm perfectly at ease when he started chewing on her dog toys. I also found it cute and funny when the two of them took turns licking the graham cracker Asa was supposed to be eating as part of his dinner but I find it disgusting when the dog directly licks his face, ears, hands, etc.
So I think it's fair to say that when it comes to dirt, grime, fur and inter-species spit-swapping, I'm a bit schizo. Then there is daycare ...
Ahh, the daycare drop-off/pick-up: the greatest and worst part of my day. Asa and I do the daycare maneuver four days a week. After the initial shock of the first week wore off (back when he was about 3 months old and I would sob uncontrollably after dropping him off), we found a very happy groove where I almost never felt bad leaving him at daycare so I could go to work. And then, about a month ago he started "crying" when I would go to leave. No actual tears, just a sad look of shock and dismay that would spread across his little face and break my big, soft heart. Now I find myself torn between lingering longer and longer to watch him play and wanting to rush out the door as quickly as possible because I know it's all a tease and that I really can't stay with him all day, everyday even if I wanted to. But that's not the schizophrenic part of my story.
What's so crazy is that a very big part of me wants to spend every single moment with him all day, everyday, 24 x 7 to the point where I sometimes wish he'd wake up at 9pm to just hang out with us until we go to bed at 10. And then there's an equally big part that prays he stays asleep until 7am so we can get a good nights rest and for once not have to wake up at 6am on a Sunday morning. And there's the part of me that sometimes dreads picking him up from daycare because I'm so exhausted I'd rather just nap in the car alone. And the part of me that can't wait to pick him up from daycare because I know seeing him will be the brightest part of my day since I gave him his last cuddle before going into daycare. Do you see where I'm headed with this?
To recap, the bottom line is, daycare is wonderful and Asa and I are both better people because of it but guilt is powerful and I can tell you Asa never had to make that sad little face at me to trigger the guilt, it was already there. I'm pretty sure it showed up around the day he was born and will stick around forever just to be sure I toe the line and keep my priorities straight. And dirt, well, dirt isn't going anywhere. Neither is Midnight: love the dog, deal with the fur ... And in the meantime I'll just have to come to terms with being a total schizo on the inside and try my best to project a calm exterior.
As an addendum I'd like to share this 15 second clip from Baby Momma, which I totally relate to now that I have a baby:
