She’s thirty in dog years
… so it’s about time Lily hurt her back. After noticing her wincing up and down the stairs for a week or two, we found her whimpering in a corner of the kitchen last Thursday evening. I immediately took her to the puppy emergency room, driving like a maniac and all the while trying to imagine living without her.
The vet’s best guess was that it’s a herniated disc. Poor lamb. She’s on muscle relaxants and anti-inflammatory meds right now, and needs to be basically inactive for a few weeks. If we don’t see improvement, then we’ll take the next step, which is to get some x-rays of her spine.
Meantime, Cooper barks at (and eats) everything that moves (and doesn’t move). Sometimes I’m sure she was switched at birth. How could this be my dog? Is she not the spawn of Satan? But other times I think she’s adorable and full of life.
Speaking of adorable and full of life, let’s talk about Lina. Lina! She’s still in the developmental stage where she thinks we’re omnipotent. I like this. She thinks that all the dogs and buses and flowers we see are there because I’ve summoned them. From time to time she’ll demand more of something. “More bus, Mama! More bus!” and I’ll try to explain to her that, in spite of her current worldview, I do not create the buses. I only point them out.
Note: this is seen by some to be evolutionary evidence of a tendency to believe in an omnipotent and omniscient being. In a few years, Lina will realize that I don’t know everything, that I’m not in control of everything. (I, however, will not yet have realized that). But she will apparently be able to transfer my powers onto a deity, given the right amount of prompting. While there are many conventional deities to choose from, I see this as an opportunity to exert some parental control and introduce my daughter to the all-seeing all-knowing Hello Kitty. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Lina is talking up a storm, counting to four (sort of) and sweetly offering cookies to flowers. She is not yet doing any housework, but I keep trying. She pretends to like radishes out of the garden, because she really really wants to like them. And because they’re red and everything. She likes to put on her own shoes, which she almost always needs help with (but gets a good start on). This past weekend I heard her greet her feet first thing in the morning, as she lay in her crib. “Hay-oo feet!” Is that not adorable?
Time marches on. I’m mama to a two-year-old girl, a gen-x dog, and… another dog. Cooper is still finding her place in our family. And once she finds it, I’m fairly certain she’ll pee on it.