Our Dogs...

I love my dogs, still.

Yesterday afternoon was teed up rather nicely. We were able to mix in a pediatrician's visit for Mia, a chest x-ray at Children's Mercy and a blood draw, and Elise even got to go to her Bible Study. I felt accomplished b/c I filled up the minivan with gas. We both ate BackYard Burgers.

As it neared 2 PM, we drove home from the hospital with a sense of victory; of parental conquest. And it was only to get better. The girls were hungry, they were tired, and they were short on naps. I turned to Elise as we exited onto Johnson Drive and whispered, "Honey, we might get them down AT THE SAME TIME!"

You know, I keep seeing my life as if it were an American Express commercial, the narcissist that I am. Like the one with Tiger Woods where you see him tirelessly practicing his iron game outside in a monsoon. Narrated in his own voice, you hear him conclude, "My life is about never settling. That's why my card is American Express."

In my commercial, I'm tiptoeing away from the crib. I'm picking which floorboards to avoid. I'm thinking how great it would be to finish the dishes. I'm wondering if I should get dressed and then I wonder why. I'm cheering the sun on to melt the snow in our driveway so I won't have to shovel it. I second guess whether the CD in Mia's room is loud enough or if the baby white noise -trickling-brook-machine in Bri's room is too loud. I grab half empty bottles and bibs and toys and soiled clothes on my way down the stairs. I fear that the slightest sound down each step will cause our other daughter to stir. I wonder if Elise wants to play Speed Scrabble.

And I think, "My life is about warmed bottles and well-timed naps. That's why my card is American Express."

Anyhow, as I said, yesterday was shaping up to be a banner afternoon. Bri and Mi went down like Shatto. So we figured we had at least 45 minutes to ourselves - which, I'll have you know, is really not "to ourselves" - unless you consider dishes, laundry, and food prep as foreplay. But we made one fatal error. We did not lower the blinds. We did not pre-empt the bark. We did not anticipate the outside-afternoon-walker. Heaven forbid, a neighbor decided to go for a walk. With their dog. In front of our house. Right in front of our raised blinds.

A firestorm of barking erupted from the living room. Elise ran in from her laundry piles and hushed them. I held my breath at the sink. One second...two....three...four...a glimmer, a hope, maybe we're gonna make it, I think....

Brianna began to cry, then scream, and then demanded an unconditional release. Mia soon followed with the terms.

Like I said, I love those dogs. But this doesn't mean that I didn't want to shoot them. And the neighbor. And whoever put sidewalks on our street. I mean, who would have the GALL to go for a walk right in the middle of the afternoon! Naps are a sacred thing. They are holy. They are like salt water pearls. They are like In 'n' Out fries. They are like Spring Training. Naps are THE American Express Card to sanity.

Keiffer and Bower are the work of 2 more babies. They cry and claw at you for attention, they throw their balls and dolls at you, they push their empty bowls around the kitchen floor, they demand to be held. Notice, in the picture above, the splintering veins in my forehead. This is no accident. It is metaphor. It is Robert Frost, where two roads diverge. One road with dogs and the other without.

Later that evening, hope had resurged. Since they now were lacking TWO adequate naps...we were primed to get the girls down and down for good. We were also hoping that Mia would have a bowel movement on her way out - since she had been stopped up for nearly four days. The Miralax had first worked its magic earlier in the day while I had her at the pediatrician's - which was timely since they had also been waiting for a stool sample (Is this too much information? I'm quickly learning that Parents lack the discernment to know b/c, to us, it's ALL important). We were hoping for more since she was considerably backlogged. Well, the moment arrived in the late afternoon. And it was serious... so I ran her upstairs, into the bathroom, and started her bath. I changed her diaper, disposing of it temporarily in the waste basket. We got her cleaned, changed, and was transitioning down for the night when I found Keiffer in the bathroom. She was being quiet. Unassuming, like. Turns out she had fished out the diaper that smelled like a toxic lagoon. And she was licking it with joy.

I screamed through my teeth. Then I exhaled and said, "Alright. You get a bath too." Which, as much as she hates a bath, it still is a rather humane form of punishment for a dog. I didn't have the heart to tell her what they do to misbehaving dogs in China. Two words: Butcher Shop.

As an aside, they're all small dogs. China is a small dog country. I don't know what that means but I also asked if they had a "one dog policy" but never got an answer. And, yes, they do clothe them. See below a picture from Nanchang:


So I wonder which dogs they decide to clothe and which they decide to --uh hum. Is one a prelude to another? For that matter, is one fate even worse than the other?

In any event, Keiffer had it off easy. I gave her a shampoo but it was no massage, I assure you. It was more of the Paco variety. And then I went back to the business of getting the girls down. And wouldn't you know it, Keiffer went BACK to the diaper. She had fished it out again. And joy had become her. So I babywiped her mouth. Fitting.

And after all that, she even tried to get into the Diaper Genie that I was in the process of emptying for trash day but had been distracted. My slipper missed that dog by an inch.

Finally, the girls were down. The trash was to the curb. A dear friend's meal was warm at the table. My hands were washed. And I sat down. I sighed. We held hands and prayed. We talked "highs and lows." My high was seeing Mia poop. My low was her slow blood draw. Elise's high was that Mia's tests all returned negative. Her low was how I yelled at the dogs.

"Besides," she said innocently enough. "Diapers don't go in trash cans."