Fur parenting fail

On April 7th, our little girl pup was born.  Seven weeks later, we took her home with us.  Three weeks later, we had to give her to my in-laws… where she still remains today.  What happened you say?  I’ll tell you… it’s called fur parent fail!  There, I’ve said it.  I’ve been ashamed to admit it, but I can’t hide it anymore.  People are asking questions, neighbours are giving us weird looks.  They know the dog is no longer around… so where could she be?  Well… it’s time for the truth to come out.

Yes, it was my idea to get a dog. I thought it would be a perfect addition to our family. John and I always talked about getting a dog and Kyle loved dogs so much, it only made sense.  I figured the timing was right.  Kyle was a bit “older” and we weren’t yet expecting our second child.  I figured it gave us a good year in between kids and Kyle wasn`t as needy anymore.  All of this makes sense, right?

When we brought our pup (Corona) home, all was good.  At first a least.  However, at this point I was one month pregnant and suddenly, I couldn’t stand to be around her.  Her smell was bothering me so much, I couldn’t come within 10 feet of her.  That made it a little hard to take care of her.  Also, she couldn’t stop jumping and biting Kyle.  When she was still really small, it wasn’t a big deal, Kyle could handle himself.  But once she got bigger, she pushed Kyle over.  To say the least, he wasn’t a happy boy.  So Corona spent most of her time outside in our backyard.  Although being outside was nice, it wasn’t fair to her.  What’s more, Kyle was on a new sleep schedule, waking up between 5:30 and 6 AM, around the same time as Corona.  Since I was not feeling well (did I mention I was pregnant and super nauseous from Corona’s smell and super tired ALL THE TIME???), my husband would be the one who would wake up early each morning taking care of Kyle and Corona. His main objective became keeping Kyle and Corona separated and happy at the same time. At 5:30 in the morning, this was a frustrating task, and I was no help.  To say the least, my husband started despising my “great idea” of getting a dog.

To help us out, my in-laws offered to watch Corona for the summer.  They spent most of their time at the cottage, and figured she would love it up there.  And they were right, she did love it up there.  And what was supposed to be a short-term solution, ended up being for the long-term.  I was finally able to admit that we really couldn’t take of Corona, with our second child on the way and Corona still being a puppy when the baby arrives.  It took me a while to admit this, but I had.  For the sake of my husband’s sanity, and for our non-fur-children.

Where the signs there all along? Sure… there were some.  When we were seeking out a breeder, a few e-mailed me back saying that I would be hard pressed to find a breeder willing to sell us a pup with a two year-old son.  I just figured they were jerks.  At the time we researched this, I wasn’t pregnant, but I was by the time we went to pick up Corona from the breeder.  My first pregnancy was very tough (gagging, nausea and vomiting, and extreme tiredness).  So should I have figured out that things would have been the same this time around? Probably… but who have guessed that a puppy smell would have bothered me?  I didn’t!

The good news is that Corona is still in the family.  Kyle still gets to see her a lot and grow up with a dog near by.  It also made John and I realize that maybe we’re not dog people after all.  Instead, we realized we’re baby / toddler / children people instead.  At least, that’s our priority at the moment.  It also turns out that we’re not the first (or the last) to have made that mistake.  Our elderly, and much more mature neighbours, who have a dog, admitted to us that they made the same mistake when their children were still toddlers and they had to give their dog away.  Knowing this, and the fact that they still got another dog later on in their life, made us feel human again.  And the guilt that I was carrying around with me, somewhat lifted.  Did we fail as fur parents? YES!  But at least it was in the name of our children, the real ones, the human ones, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.

The Two Million Dollar Family

I’m always writing about some of the challenges that I’ve encountered to-date as a parent to one kid; now imagine four! Last week, my husband, son and I all flew to Edmonton to visit my brother and his family. They had just welcomed home their 4th child two weeks previously.  It also happened to fall on the Jewish holiday of Passover which made the dinners even that much more special. My brother’s kids are 6, 3.5, 1.5 and 0.08 :). However stressful and chaotic their home might be, my brother and his wife don’t skip a beat. It’s as if they’ve done this four children thing their whole life.

It’s not easy being a male baby model!

Of course every parent believes that their baby or child is the cutest, and John and I were no exception. In fact, the first thing that my husband John said when Kyle was born was “he’s so cute!”* over and over again.

When Kyle was around 3 months, my brother and sister-in-law were telling me about a friend of theirs who had her son with a modeling agency. I contacted their friend (thanks Jenn) and asked her what she thought about the agency and the overall experience. She said that it was actually a lot of fun! So I immediately went and signed Kyle up. It wasn’t long before we received an e-mail for his first photo shoot. It was a cover-shoot for a Harlequin romance novel, how could I say no 😉 For those of you picturing Kyle with his shirt off rescuing a girl baby from a burning building, it wasn’t quite that cool. He was wearing a sailor’s outfit though!  And it was a lot of fun.