I can imagine how having this little one is going to be for me, an inkling anyway. I know its going to be fluffy clouds, naps all day, a cooing, smiling, blue baby boy daydream. Mark my words.
I can even imagine how its going to be for Husband Dearest – just one more face to kiss before heading merrily off to golf, right?
But in thinking about how this will work for our furry children, I imagine it from their view and see this Braveheart-esque charge down the hill that is our front lawn. In comes 7lbs (hopefully) of noisy smell and the 500lbs of “necessities” that come with it. They haven’t seen much of their parents in the last few days, and can’t quite put their finger on why this isn’t like the other trips they remember from the past. Once their people come home, at least one is too tired to properly accept the usually-proclaimed upon greeting and the other is lugging the “necessities,” and everyone is yelling for the dogs to stop jumping around.
So, in my blog-grazing adventures, I came across the idea of getting a real-looking baby doll to get the dogs accustomed to sharing my lap and not jumping, etc. You know, just kind of easing the transition. Amazon Prime to the rescue! Now, as my purpose for this purchase was dog training, I was all for the economical approach to fake baby brothers…which meant getting the less expensive girl baby – a choice which, when photographed, got Facebook all atwitter. Regardless, today marks day one of carrying this tiny, plastic, baby-smelling thing around, calling it “The Baby,” encouraging easy sniffing and less jumping. It seemed to go fairly well for the dogs.
The thing is, it totally backfired – for me.
In the course of carrying it around, trying to put clothes on it, holding it awkwardly as I watch television, I realized that this tool I have acquired to calmly introduce my dogs to a baby had made me come to grips with the fact that I have no idea what I’m doing. None.
I had that baby’s arm almost off before I was able to put that tiny onsie on. While the fur babies settled on the floor and next to me on the couch, I sat there staring at this plastic, powder-scented girl-boy baby and thought, well now what? I hope feeding really does take the time everyone says it does because I was totally at a loss as to what to do with him-her otherwise. I was on my 12th trip to the bathroom when I realized I was no longer holding the baby and it was about 3 minutes later before I realized it was because I had left it on top of the toilet tank. I’m fairly sure that is not a good plan moving forward.
So, while I know women have been doing this for centuries, fairly successfully, I can only hope that, come December, maternal instincts kick in. Failing that, I hope the real baby’s arms move a little easier for putting clothes on.
Oh, and if anyone knows how to attach a crib to the back of the toilet, you know my digits.
Southbound35 