Don't you want one of your own?

I've never really had any kind of urge to have children. People have asked me about it. Especially now that I'm getting to "that age" where apparently you need to find some way any way to have a child right now this minute or just forget about it.

After my brother had his newest child and I got to hold the little bundle of joy, several people asked me, "Don't you just want one of your own now?" This was when I pointedly handed the child over and said, "Ummm.....I have one. Thanks."

This is when they would look at me like I was a little bit crazy.

You see, I do have one. Not a child, so to speak, but a dependent none the less. Actually, I have two. The cat is pretty self-sufficient, though.

The dog, on the other hand, might as well be 2-legged, pink, and screaming for all the baby he is.

He recently got his little nose into trouble. Literally. Not sure what he got into, but it made him itch his nose so much that now it's a big, red, bloody mess and he has to wear a clear plastic head collar that makes him look like a satellite dish.





He's handling it ok. He's putting up with me shoving antibiotics and steroids coated in peanut butter down his throat. He's putting up with running into everything because he's much wider than he remembers being. He's putting up with me drugging him into stillness with Benadryl so he'll stop itching his nose on every visitor's pant leg that walks in the door and flinging bloody snot all over the place.

Pleasant, huh?

I don't think I'd be allowed to drug a child into stillness.

But I do it for the dog. I do it because I'm his mom and I have to take care of him. There are those I know who say, "He's a dog. In the wild he'd get over it or he'd die." But he is not in the wild. He is not a hardened mongrel that stalks his prey and must fight every day to stay alive.

Sometimes he snaps at moths, but that's about it.

And it gives me a bit of a purpose to take care of him. When I get home from work and all I've been doing all day is staring at the computer or dealing with paperwork or trying to figure out how to be the best boss possible (hah!), it gives me some weird satisfaction to have the dog come rub his bloody nose on me and look at me with that look that only dogs have that says, "love me love me love me love me and make my nose feel better".

It gives me satisfaction to know that even on the days when I'm not sure I know what's going on with MY life or that I can take care of MYSELF, I can take care of the dog. And he will wag his tail. And he will love me. And I will feel like something makes sense in the universe.

I suppose children might inspire this same feeling in parents, too.

I don't think it would be quite the same, though.

Kids don't have tails to wag.