My husband and I have only been married seven months, not quite long enough to begin producing human children. We do, however, have a child of the hairy, four-legged type. This blog is named after him.
And while we have long joked about the dog being our "son" and us being "mom and dad," I'm not sure we ever enjoyed a genuine taste of parenthood until Saturday, when I awoke from a sound sleep at 4:30 a.m. to see little Chickenbone at the foot of the bed, gasping and hacking and generally causing a great big throaty commotion. Even in the dark, I could see the barf dribbling down his favorite blue blanket. Gah.
So I threw back the covers, howled at my husband to turn on the light and reached over to pluck the dog off the bed. While dad soothed the sickly hound, I frantically scrubbed the blanket in the bathroom sink, saying a prayer of gratitude that we decided to get a SMALL dog, whose SMALL stomach only produces a SMALL amount of tossed cookies. Anyway, I go back into the bedroom and we all decide that everyone is OK and it's cool to go back to sleep. As we are drifting off, I say sleepily, "Boy, it sure was considerate of Chickens to barf ONLY on the blanket and not on the freshly washed duvet cover!"
(pause)
I bolt upright and inspect the bed closer. Even in the dark, I could see the FIRST great big barf stain.
Now we decide that Chickens isn't just a little bit sick. He must be really sick. I mean, two barfs? That is friggin' sick. And while I'm dragging the duvet off the bed and flooding the stain with Shout, we decide that he probably needs a walk, because maybe he also needs to poop. This might be a good time to explain that having a dog means you talk about poop. A lot. Chickenbone's dad and I trade information on poop at least several times a day. Did Chickens poop? How much did he poop? Was it a good poop? Or was it a bad poop? Maybe it was a hard poop! Those are the worst poops of all. So it makes sense, then, that our natural reaction to his sick tummy was that he obviously could use a nice, healthy poop.
Now it's nearly 5, and we're strapping on shoes and coats, and Chickens is looking at us like we're nuts because guess what, barfing? Not that big a deal to dogs. This thought occurred to me way too late. I mean, I have watched my dog EAT barf. Someone else's barf, even. So it is seriously not the end of the world to cough a little up now and then. But drag him outside we did, on a mission to help him empty his little system of whatever else needed emptying.
And I'm really sorry if you thought that was the end of the disgusting bodily-fluid-filled evening. Because when we opened the stairwell door that leads out of our condo, we encountered two enormous puddles of diarrhea left by some thoughtful homeless person. Isn't that a wonderful new chapter of this story? Aren't you glad you kept reading? Anyway, luckily Chickens was too disoriented by the middle-of-the-night walk to notice/nibble on/roll around in that mess. The best part is, HE DIDN'T EVEN GO POTTY! We walked him around the entire block, and nothing. Which was kind of disappointing, since a little pee would have made the night some kind of crazy and impressive parenting trifecta.
And while we have long joked about the dog being our "son" and us being "mom and dad," I'm not sure we ever enjoyed a genuine taste of parenthood until Saturday, when I awoke from a sound sleep at 4:30 a.m. to see little Chickenbone at the foot of the bed, gasping and hacking and generally causing a great big throaty commotion. Even in the dark, I could see the barf dribbling down his favorite blue blanket. Gah.
So I threw back the covers, howled at my husband to turn on the light and reached over to pluck the dog off the bed. While dad soothed the sickly hound, I frantically scrubbed the blanket in the bathroom sink, saying a prayer of gratitude that we decided to get a SMALL dog, whose SMALL stomach only produces a SMALL amount of tossed cookies. Anyway, I go back into the bedroom and we all decide that everyone is OK and it's cool to go back to sleep. As we are drifting off, I say sleepily, "Boy, it sure was considerate of Chickens to barf ONLY on the blanket and not on the freshly washed duvet cover!"
(pause)
I bolt upright and inspect the bed closer. Even in the dark, I could see the FIRST great big barf stain.
Now we decide that Chickens isn't just a little bit sick. He must be really sick. I mean, two barfs? That is friggin' sick. And while I'm dragging the duvet off the bed and flooding the stain with Shout, we decide that he probably needs a walk, because maybe he also needs to poop. This might be a good time to explain that having a dog means you talk about poop. A lot. Chickenbone's dad and I trade information on poop at least several times a day. Did Chickens poop? How much did he poop? Was it a good poop? Or was it a bad poop? Maybe it was a hard poop! Those are the worst poops of all. So it makes sense, then, that our natural reaction to his sick tummy was that he obviously could use a nice, healthy poop.
Now it's nearly 5, and we're strapping on shoes and coats, and Chickens is looking at us like we're nuts because guess what, barfing? Not that big a deal to dogs. This thought occurred to me way too late. I mean, I have watched my dog EAT barf. Someone else's barf, even. So it is seriously not the end of the world to cough a little up now and then. But drag him outside we did, on a mission to help him empty his little system of whatever else needed emptying.
And I'm really sorry if you thought that was the end of the disgusting bodily-fluid-filled evening. Because when we opened the stairwell door that leads out of our condo, we encountered two enormous puddles of diarrhea left by some thoughtful homeless person. Isn't that a wonderful new chapter of this story? Aren't you glad you kept reading? Anyway, luckily Chickens was too disoriented by the middle-of-the-night walk to notice/nibble on/roll around in that mess. The best part is, HE DIDN'T EVEN GO POTTY! We walked him around the entire block, and nothing. Which was kind of disappointing, since a little pee would have made the night some kind of crazy and impressive parenting trifecta.
2 comments:
I LOVE toilet talk. This post was right up my alley!
But I'd like to point out that my cat always barfs in sets of two. If she barfs once, you know a second round is to follow in moments. Double the cleaning pleasure!
Also, if there is an object to barf on, it will happen. For instance, if you tossed your expensive wool pants on the floor by the hamper because they need to go to the dry cleaner, your cat will make sure to barf ON the pants.
I am pretty sure that our mutual love of toilet talk is at the heart of our entire decadelong friendship.
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