We have a new baby in the house, she's furry, has four legs and a tail. We got her on Saturday from the Meet your best friend at the zoo event, she is a shepherd/terrier mix, she's 9 weeks old, 4.5 pounds and mostly black with a little white fur on her chest and paws but if you look closely she has brown fur mixed in as well.
We're having a slight bit of adopters remorse....I was hesitant to do the zoo thing because I was afraid we would just grab any old puppy just for the sake of getting one, or the fear of leaving empty handed due to someone else getting one we wanted. And sure enough, Nalah's cage was the only one we visited. I have no idea if there were any other puppies we may have liked better because had we left her cage, we would have lost her for sure.
I love her, she's cute and all, but we were hoping for a mid to large size dog and she may end up being pretty small, and as of now she looks nothing like a shepherd. But, she is so cute and fun. I go back and forth between I like this, it's cool having a dog....to, what have we done? I also underestimated how much work it would be to have a puppy and a 14 month old baby. Emily is very close to walking, she is cruising the furniture like a pro, so she's over here getting into stuff, Nalah is over there chewing on the remote, looking like she's going to pee or poop on the carpet any second. Some times everyone is peaceful and it is great, but other times when everyone is whining and getting into shit they're not supposed to, it's a headache.
I spend my time worrying that she is pooping over in the corner of the room, and then worrying that she's been in her crate for too long so I can get something done so she doesn't poop in the corner of the room. But....it won't always be this hard. Hopefully she'll potty train quickly, and she won't be a puppy forever. Emily loves her....most of the time. She of course gets a little rambunctious and jumps all over her and licks her face, but for the most part they get along. The cats hate her of course, but they hate everyone.
That's the other issue, I am like 75% cat person and only 25% dog person, so despite loving her, I don't always love having a dog. I'm really thinking we should have just fostered. I felt like it was cruel to do with Emily, I didn't want her falling in love with all these dogs and then having them leave. But, I guess if that's all she knew, she would get used to it. Besides, we could have just taught her that no matter how much we love them and it's hard to see them go, we gave them a loving home until they could find a forever family. Oh well, what's done is done. I really do love Nalah, I guess I just wasn't prepared for the work.
But I will say, it has kind of cemented in my head that maybe we're done with kids now. Obviously a puppy is not a baby, but it's a time commitment that takes my time, energy and attention away from Emily. At the very youngest, Emily would be not quite 2.5 when a sibling could be born. That's still very young and she still needs my full attention. I know plenty of people do it, and with even younger children, but I am just not sure I am one of those people.
Maybe if I were younger, maybe if I had less reasons to be high risk, maybe if I could put 4 or 5 years between kids....but maybe not even then. I have to wonder, how much of me wants another kid because I truly want one, and how much of it is the thrill of announcing another pregnancy, finding out the sex, getting to use one of our names we have picked out, that awesome moment when you first lay eyes on your new baby.
I am sure everyone that has more than one kid, those reasons factor into it. But for me, I wonder if those reasons are over shadowing everything else. I know at the end of the day, parents love all of their children, and they're worth it...but day to day, cleaning up after them, referring fights, trying to deal with two car seats, a double stroller, bottles and toddler food, a new baby crying and waking up the toddler or vice versa....I just wonder how much of their day is spend happily, and how much of it just eats away at them because they are so tired, stressed, and frazzled.
I know certainly not all parents are like this. I am sure there are plenty of parents out there that LOVE having more than one kid and would not have it any other way, but I just wonder between another stressful pregnancy, the stress of having a newborn again but now also having a toddler and just the day to day stress, if it is worth it. Emily can be a handful sometimes, but for the most part she is such a great kid, so loving and funny, that I worry instead of cherishing those moments, I will just be run ragged trying to keep up with a more than full load.
If I could say, I'll have one if I want one, and I won't if I don't, I could live with that. But I feel like next March is a deadline, and I have to be in or out. Going back on the pill wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, but it would if my intentions were to someday have another kid. I already have fertility issues, I do not also need to deal with getting my cycles back on track after going off the pill. And I am not going to spend the next how ever many years until menopause just hoping and praying we don't have an oops. I mean fine, 36, 37, even 38 with an oops, shit happens. But what about 43? Could I deal with the emotional and physical stress of possibly having a baby at 43 if we don't do some kind of permanent birth control?
I guess it comes down to this....I think we could very well be done. I am happy with Emily, I am over the moon in love with her and I don't NEED anything else. If we tried and I couldn't get pregnant again, I don't think it would devastate me. Anything over and above having Emily would just be a huge bonus. But to actually say, yes we're done, and doing something permanent about it? That scares the hell out of me. Yeah, I guess vasectomies could be reversible, and I get having one and having it reversed like 5 years later or something, but it makes no sense to have one, and then potentially reverse it just a year later. I don't know, I am praying I come up with a clear cut, no mistake about it answer before next March. I want to either know for sure I want more, or know for sure we're done.
Emily has been so funny lately. She's pulling up on everything, and it's so easy for her now. She's still not doing a traditional crawl, but she is much more comfortable with her movements now. She can go from laying to sitting, from sitting onto her tummy, and when she pulls up now she uses her knees instead of having to pull herself from sitting on her butt. Yesterday she pulled up onto her activity table, which before would not have been stables enough for her, but now she does most of the work and just uses the table as help. When I came back in the room she was over at the TV...between the table and the tv is about three or four feet, and the only thing there was her push toy.
So she either used the push toy as support, or she walked freely from the table to the TV. Even if she used the push toy, it's much lower than the table so it wouldn't have been the most stable thing to cruise, so she still did a very good job of getting from point A to point B. I just wish I could have seen it. She's now standing up in her crib when she is done with her nap, and tonight at bedtime I watched her walk all over her crib when she was supposed to be sleeping. Thankfully she does not have anything to stand on to try escaping. But we can always lower the mattress another notch if she starts trying.
We went out to dinner tonight as a reward for doing well on our diets this week. In the past I would have given myself a whole cheat day, but now we're just doing one cheat meal...just something to boost our morale and enjoy ourselves without doing too much damage. Yesterday marked our first week finished of Nutrisystem. I lost 8.5 pounds and Ryan lost 5.5. I am really looking forward to losing more so I can have more energy to keep up with Em. The plan was to have all the weight gone by now, so I've got to hop to it.
There were a lot of kids out tonight, and we could hear the parents yelling at them and telling them to sit down, to stop this and that, they were crying and screeching. Emily just sat there, eating her cheerios and smiling. She screeched a couple times, but not so that the whole restaurant could hear her and it was just cute baby noises. We're so lucky we got such a good public baby. It's nice to be able to go places and not worry that she'll melt down all the time.
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