In the Dog House

Every morning when Quilla wakes up, she greats me with the biggest heart-melting toothless grin. Then, after she has eaten and been dressed, I play with her.  Sometimes I sing and dance with/for her, or I kiss her toes and nose and belly while naming the body parts.  She squeals with laughter and encourages me to teach her more. I recently got her a Fisher-Price Rainforest Melodies & Lights Deluxe Gym.  Everyday she spends about two minutes on her belly in it while she learns to pull herself up on her arms and legs for future crawling skills.  Then she spends about 5 to10 minutes in it on her back smiling and waving to all the toys hanging above her.  It’s great fun for both of us.

I have two miniature pinchers.  Pica (the female) is 15 years old, and Jazz (the male) is 16 years old.  They have seemingly adjusted to having a baby in the house extraordinarily well … sort of.  They both “pout” a bit from time to time when my attention cannot be diverted from nursing my child at exactly 5pm to give them their dinner.  Pica is somewhat strangely protective of the baby and won’t let Jazz near her, which is hilarious as he is the more passive of the two little beasts.  I give them both as much love and attention as I can spare these days.  In general, though, they both seem to understand the fact that there is now a tiny fragile little person in the house that needs my undivided attention.

During our morning play time, Jazz discovered the Fisher-Price Rainforest Melodies & Lights Deluxe Gym. He kept trying to lie down inside of it. I really don’t want the doggies cuddling up in Quilla’s gear.  As far as dogs go, they are both pretty “tidy”, but they do lay on the ground in the sun outdoors whenever they want, so I prefer they stick to doggie gear only.  I kept trying to shoo him away gently from the gym with my foot as I was holding the baby, but the harder I tried to get my point across, the more stubborn he became.  I would finally get him to “exit” one side of the gym and he would then quickly enter the other side and lay down in it.  Finally, I said, “Jazz, No!” and reached down to push him away with my left hand as I balanced Quilla with my right arm. He got up, walked to the corner of the green gym blanket floor pad, and then lifted his leg on the yellow giraffe while looking up at me defiantly as if to say: “ I’ll go, but I won’t go quietly! ”  Yup - He’ll probably need therapy for the gym I never gave him when he was young.

Today's Forecast: Golden showers in the rainforest.