Well, we got a couple good weeks of homeschooling in, I was feeling good, and then, for some reason, we decided to totally turn our lives upside down.
We got a puppy.🐕
A dachshund puppy.
Our first ever indoor dog; actually, first indoor pet of any kind since we got married. 👫
I have mixed emotions about it.
I did it for the kids.👧👦
The last few months have been hard for them; they've really been feeling the loss of their Grandma. Plus Sophie has still been very sad about losing her special cat Milo, who just didn't come home one day, and she didn't get to say goodbye. And before that, Milo's brother Otis, Nathaniel's special cat, got sick and we had to out him down, which was heartbreaking for them. I wanted to give them something that will hopefully be a little more permanent than a "free range" outdoor pet. I wanted to bring some joy into our family's life, especially to Sophie and Nathaniel, and have an adventure together.👨👩👧👦
Being a farm girl and having had many pets of all kinds, and generally being a person who likes animals and also likes the idea of a family dog growing up with the kids, I thought I was prepared to take on a puppy.
I was prepared for a challenge.
But I was not prepared for the complete experience of inviting a puppy into our home and schedule and life....
Honestly, roll their eyes a little at people who have tiny dogs, in sweaters, inside of their purse? I mean sure, it's cute, but it's also ridiculous, right?
Yeah...I have a whole new perspective now.
Growing up on a farm, (which I feel so grateful to have experienced), can kind of leave you a bit jaded and detached when it comes to animals. You find out that animals die...alot. You just are around life and death and everything in between and you can only deal with it by distancing yourself a little bit from it all. That's not to say I didn't have special pets, because I did, alot of them. Calves, dogs, kittens, cats, chickens, goats, rabbits, ducks, rats (from the pet store!) and a horse. Our family had an alpaca for awhile, and a guinea pig and I'm sure there's more.
🐶🐱🐎🐄🐀🐇🐐🐔🐣🦃🦆
My point is that you realize after awhile that animals come and go, live and die, and between the abundance of creatures to love on and the temporary nature of their existence most of the time, you just learn to love them in that way- somewhat temporary and impersonal.
Well... That doesn't work with a puppy that you welcome into your household. You have get up with it all night. You have to bathe it and feed it and take care of cleaning up after it, or training it to "go" somewhere more appropriate than wherever it happens to be standing. You have to be all in.
Basically, it's ALOT like a new baby.
She is a new baby.🍼🎀
She is sleeping on my lap right now.
This puppy, we took her home when she was 7 1/2 weeks old. And she is super tiny. Which brings me to the sweaters...she has no body fat, and we take her out to potty and she shivers like crazy and I need to find her a sweater for when it gets really cold. And I've researched purses/bags so I can take her places because she can't be left alone for very long yet.
In some ways, human babies are easier than puppies:
-They wear diapers.
-It's socially acceptable to take babies everywhere with you. Restaurants and most grocery stores don't want animals near the food.🍽
-You bond with your babies; they grow inside you, you birth them, and then devote yourself to their lifelong care. This is a natural process. Dogs, or puppies, just aren't the same as your own baby and it feels like alot to have to devote yourself to an animal's care in much the same way as your own baby's care. Also, I feel reluctant to give a dog a piece of my heart like that...
Anyway, I was not prepared most of all for the total loss of freedom. Our kids are a little older now (7 and almost 6) and we have been really enjoying doing all the fun things we can together- beach days, roller skating, swimming, long walks at the parks, going out to eat, grocery shopping, all of it- and now we have to plan everything around our new puppy's schedule. I feel like I can't even step into another room sometimes.
It's temporary I know, but it was really getting to me, especially because we didn't have a dog crate right away and I had to watch her every single second of the day and then she was still having accidents in the house...
And, like, the rest of life goes on....I still need to homeschool and grocery shop, and go to appointments and church and family stuff and make meals, and pay bills and clean the house and take care of my own health needs...
It was really upsetting me because I felt like I had wanted to bring some joy to my kids' hearts and I was ending up with not enough time to do everything, which made me feel like a bad mom. Oh motherhood! So conflicting and emotional.😏
Brian has been doing an amazing job taking care of everyone.❤
He gets up with the puppy in the middle of the night for most of the potty breaks so I can sleep as uninterrupted as possible because:
1. We have learned the hard way that if I am awake consistently between 12am-4am, it really takes a toll on my physical and emotional health, in a pretty short period of time.
2. He falls asleep in like 2 minutes, which is about 200 times faster than me.
3. He is just super awesome and he loves me💘
Sophie and Nathaniel have been doing their best to help with our new pup, but there's not alot they can do unsupervised with her yet. I have to teach them and the puppy the rules.
BUT, this little puppy is really such a sweetheart and she is very smart and wants to snuggle all the time and if we are ever going to have an indoor dog who is part of the family, she definitely has the kind of personality we were hoping for.
What really helped me (besides getting a crate the right size for her) was accepting the fact that she is going to disrupt our lives, but it's only temporary, and treating her like she is part of the family.
I told Brian, after a few rough, tearful days, that I realized that maybe I should treat her the way I've treated our marriage: divorce is not an option.
I had been telling him that I "didn't want this dog anymore, it was too hard, I couldn't do it, it was making me crazy"... But then I realized that maybe the reason it was so hard (or part of the reason anyway) was because I hadn't really fully committed to having a family pet, the kind that she is intended to be. Which is pretty much a member of the family. I'm not used to thinking of animals like that.
It was easier to not have her, that's for sure.
But I realized that I had already made that commitment to my kids when I brought her home.
And I have learned so many times that the hard things are what make you grow...
Lol This puppy is just another part of my sanctification! Dying to myself and how I think things should be and what I want, and doing something for someone else and doing it in a way that glorifies God.
And you know what? Ever since then it has gotten better. I still feel like I could part with her and not be heartbroken. Maybe because I can still taste my newly lost freedom. But I think that I will probably feel differently in a year.
Right now it's all just overwhelming and frustrating and hard, but I know it will get better and it makes me happy to see how much the kids and even Brian love her already.
Also, we had been toying with the idea of getting a dog for awhile but we were really not prepared and then the opportunity to get this little girl presented itself and we went for it, but seriously...things might have gone better if we had been set up and ready before we got her. And more educated.
Do not bring home a puppy without a crate/carrier in the appropriate size, and decide about the potty training before as well. And don't make any plans for the first month.
Well, that's our new adventure. I will post pictures soon, once I get some good, clear ones. Kinda hard to take nice pictures of a wiggly puppy. :)
So here's to puppies and doing hard things and opening up your heart to new adventures and love. ❤ Don't stop doing that, because even though love hurts sometimes, a life without love will hurt all the time.
We got a puppy.🐕
A dachshund puppy.
Our first ever indoor dog; actually, first indoor pet of any kind since we got married. 👫
I have mixed emotions about it.
I did it for the kids.👧👦
The last few months have been hard for them; they've really been feeling the loss of their Grandma. Plus Sophie has still been very sad about losing her special cat Milo, who just didn't come home one day, and she didn't get to say goodbye. And before that, Milo's brother Otis, Nathaniel's special cat, got sick and we had to out him down, which was heartbreaking for them. I wanted to give them something that will hopefully be a little more permanent than a "free range" outdoor pet. I wanted to bring some joy into our family's life, especially to Sophie and Nathaniel, and have an adventure together.👨👩👧👦
Being a farm girl and having had many pets of all kinds, and generally being a person who likes animals and also likes the idea of a family dog growing up with the kids, I thought I was prepared to take on a puppy.
I was prepared for a challenge.
But I was not prepared for the complete experience of inviting a puppy into our home and schedule and life....
Honestly, roll their eyes a little at people who have tiny dogs, in sweaters, inside of their purse? I mean sure, it's cute, but it's also ridiculous, right?
Yeah...I have a whole new perspective now.
Growing up on a farm, (which I feel so grateful to have experienced), can kind of leave you a bit jaded and detached when it comes to animals. You find out that animals die...alot. You just are around life and death and everything in between and you can only deal with it by distancing yourself a little bit from it all. That's not to say I didn't have special pets, because I did, alot of them. Calves, dogs, kittens, cats, chickens, goats, rabbits, ducks, rats (from the pet store!) and a horse. Our family had an alpaca for awhile, and a guinea pig and I'm sure there's more.
🐶🐱🐎🐄🐀🐇🐐🐔🐣🦃🦆
My point is that you realize after awhile that animals come and go, live and die, and between the abundance of creatures to love on and the temporary nature of their existence most of the time, you just learn to love them in that way- somewhat temporary and impersonal.
Well... That doesn't work with a puppy that you welcome into your household. You have get up with it all night. You have to bathe it and feed it and take care of cleaning up after it, or training it to "go" somewhere more appropriate than wherever it happens to be standing. You have to be all in.
Basically, it's ALOT like a new baby.
She is a new baby.🍼🎀
She is sleeping on my lap right now.
This puppy, we took her home when she was 7 1/2 weeks old. And she is super tiny. Which brings me to the sweaters...she has no body fat, and we take her out to potty and she shivers like crazy and I need to find her a sweater for when it gets really cold. And I've researched purses/bags so I can take her places because she can't be left alone for very long yet.
In some ways, human babies are easier than puppies:
-They wear diapers.
-It's socially acceptable to take babies everywhere with you. Restaurants and most grocery stores don't want animals near the food.🍽
-You bond with your babies; they grow inside you, you birth them, and then devote yourself to their lifelong care. This is a natural process. Dogs, or puppies, just aren't the same as your own baby and it feels like alot to have to devote yourself to an animal's care in much the same way as your own baby's care. Also, I feel reluctant to give a dog a piece of my heart like that...
Anyway, I was not prepared most of all for the total loss of freedom. Our kids are a little older now (7 and almost 6) and we have been really enjoying doing all the fun things we can together- beach days, roller skating, swimming, long walks at the parks, going out to eat, grocery shopping, all of it- and now we have to plan everything around our new puppy's schedule. I feel like I can't even step into another room sometimes.
It's temporary I know, but it was really getting to me, especially because we didn't have a dog crate right away and I had to watch her every single second of the day and then she was still having accidents in the house...
And, like, the rest of life goes on....I still need to homeschool and grocery shop, and go to appointments and church and family stuff and make meals, and pay bills and clean the house and take care of my own health needs...
It was really upsetting me because I felt like I had wanted to bring some joy to my kids' hearts and I was ending up with not enough time to do everything, which made me feel like a bad mom. Oh motherhood! So conflicting and emotional.😏
Brian has been doing an amazing job taking care of everyone.❤
He gets up with the puppy in the middle of the night for most of the potty breaks so I can sleep as uninterrupted as possible because:
1. We have learned the hard way that if I am awake consistently between 12am-4am, it really takes a toll on my physical and emotional health, in a pretty short period of time.
2. He falls asleep in like 2 minutes, which is about 200 times faster than me.
3. He is just super awesome and he loves me💘
Sophie and Nathaniel have been doing their best to help with our new pup, but there's not alot they can do unsupervised with her yet. I have to teach them and the puppy the rules.
BUT, this little puppy is really such a sweetheart and she is very smart and wants to snuggle all the time and if we are ever going to have an indoor dog who is part of the family, she definitely has the kind of personality we were hoping for.
What really helped me (besides getting a crate the right size for her) was accepting the fact that she is going to disrupt our lives, but it's only temporary, and treating her like she is part of the family.
I told Brian, after a few rough, tearful days, that I realized that maybe I should treat her the way I've treated our marriage: divorce is not an option.
I had been telling him that I "didn't want this dog anymore, it was too hard, I couldn't do it, it was making me crazy"... But then I realized that maybe the reason it was so hard (or part of the reason anyway) was because I hadn't really fully committed to having a family pet, the kind that she is intended to be. Which is pretty much a member of the family. I'm not used to thinking of animals like that.
It was easier to not have her, that's for sure.
But I realized that I had already made that commitment to my kids when I brought her home.
And I have learned so many times that the hard things are what make you grow...
Lol This puppy is just another part of my sanctification! Dying to myself and how I think things should be and what I want, and doing something for someone else and doing it in a way that glorifies God.
And you know what? Ever since then it has gotten better. I still feel like I could part with her and not be heartbroken. Maybe because I can still taste my newly lost freedom. But I think that I will probably feel differently in a year.
Right now it's all just overwhelming and frustrating and hard, but I know it will get better and it makes me happy to see how much the kids and even Brian love her already.
Also, we had been toying with the idea of getting a dog for awhile but we were really not prepared and then the opportunity to get this little girl presented itself and we went for it, but seriously...things might have gone better if we had been set up and ready before we got her. And more educated.
Do not bring home a puppy without a crate/carrier in the appropriate size, and decide about the potty training before as well. And don't make any plans for the first month.
Well, that's our new adventure. I will post pictures soon, once I get some good, clear ones. Kinda hard to take nice pictures of a wiggly puppy. :)
So here's to puppies and doing hard things and opening up your heart to new adventures and love. ❤ Don't stop doing that, because even though love hurts sometimes, a life without love will hurt all the time.
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