That odd little animal there is my warm-up for eventual motherhood. She is perfectly newborn-sized at eight and half pounds, which only furthers the illusion, as does her occasional willingness to ride around in a homemade sling. Brand me a madwoman, but when she stands on her back legs she looks like a person, with eight nipples and a barrel chest. The rest of the time she looks like a little goat or Duroc pig, or possibly a hybrid between an Eohippus and a Holstein. That post title? Somebody actually said that to me once. It pleased me more than she knew.
But really, and I hope parents of actual humans will not fault me for thinking this, she has been pretty good practice. When I got her she was about the size of a guinea pig, and could not stand to be left alone. Our first night together she slept on my neck. When I tried to take a shower, she cried so piteously I brought her in there with me and did a one-handed washing-up.
Nothing so evil-smelling could ever come out of a baby as what I found deposited around the house after she gnawed open and devoured a tub of Eucerin. She became a living lotion dispenser, frantically squatting to deliver squirts of the foulest dog feces suspended in a greasy base, which the worn floorboards readily absorbed. The lasting decorative effect was that of a brown paper bag of steak fries, only somewhat less appetizing.
Other useful lessons I have learned from her, that may serve me well as a mother:
-A life worth living revolves around poop. Others agree.
-Everyone in my house -- me, husband, dog, cat -- sleeps in the same bed. This has allowed me to hone my awareness to the point where I awaken just before the dog vomits onto my thigh, and swing her on over to the throw rug, where the pile of yakk lies until morning when I will clean it up by tracking it through the apartment.
-"Childproof" is a meaningless term when applied to the packaging of delicacies like Zithromax. The most sophisticated blisterpacks may be chewed through. The results? See Eucerin indicent above.
-Family members may deride me as overprotective for not allowing them to feed her entire barbecued cow legs, but when the resulting attack of pancreatitis hits, they're not the ones who have no way to alleviate the horrible pain it obviously causes her, who have to follow behind her collecting bloody diarrhea to show the vet.
-Same goes for my obsession with not leaving her unsupervised outdoors. She ran out the front door and right into the road, once, and was hit by an SUV, when she was a puppy, and through some miracle not only survived but suffered only a dislocated hip, which popped back into place when I picked her up. A couple of years ago, she slipped out of her harness. It was dark out, and this was a street where Lexus SUVs regularly reach speeds of Mach 4 in their quest to reach the Gap before the pink and magenta argyle vests either sell out or fall out of fashion. She darted into the street, I saw headlights, so I leapt in front of oncoming traffic without a thought, jumping up and down and waving my arms to stop the cars. They stopped (barely), I collected the dog, we went in the house, where my mother-in-law chewed me out with much love about how they didn't want to lose me. I don't especially wish to lose me either, but instinct is a powerful thing.
You know, between dog-centered life and this unpleasant business about the infertility, I've had ample opportunity to perfect my mantra for dealing with an unsympathetic public:
If they don't like it, fuck 'em in the ear.
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