WHEN THE CHILDREN LEAVE HOME

This is the first one. Cute as a button. Colic for months. When she got her first cold John came home from work and found us both sitting on the floor wailing because one of us felt lousy and the other felt lousy for the one who really felt lousy. That tiny nose all plugged and red, the raspy cough....

Smart as can be. Vocabulary you wouldn't believe. Afraid of "deadly longlegs" and tornadoes, not that I blame her on the latter.

Wonderful in school. Happy, funny, lovable, hugable, loved kitties, loved school, honest as the day was long. And then came  the next one. "The Germ".

Tons of hair. Tough birth. Colic. Temperamental. But in between, happy happy happy. His sister was not. She did not laugh for about a week after we brought him home. Her Grandparents came to help, and showered her with attention. It didn't matter. She was mad. Then to make it worse, I got sick. My temp soared. The new one wouldn't nurse. He screamed and screamed. I sent the menfolk to buy bottles and Similac. I had been told the baby would never take a bottle once he had taken the breast. Those people were wrong wrong wrong. This kid was so hungry that he would have eaten McDonald's. So these are the two. And I loved them (still do) passionately.

And they grew and prospered. And moved out. One went to college and then the other. By then we had two dogs, a Basset and a Belgian. (We also had cats.)The older the children became, the more interesting were the dogs. The room downstairs that had had the TV and the couch and the stereo and we called the Kid's TV room, now had crates and a grooming table and some brushes and dog beds in it. It had morphed from the Tv room to the Kid room to the Dog room.

One child married and moved.
The other graduated and moved several states away.
We got another dog. By then, I was showing.The dog room sported crates, blankets, a tack box, ribbons, show photos, the grooming table, extra crates for the new car and the shows...folders with vaccination records. The bookcase contained the AKC Book of Standards, Dogs In Motion, DogSteps, The Winning Edge....Winnie The Pooh and the others were upstairs. The clothes in the closet had become blazers and dress pants, skirts and non-skid shoes. Vacations were planned around dog shows, Nationals and new puppies.

Kids came to visit and discovered only Dad and one of the dogs at home-- Mom was two hours away trotting around a ring in the pouring rain.

We moved the good couch upstairs and covered the old couch with blankets, throws and pillows. The floor space was speckled with dog hair and taken up mostly by dog beds. Shortlegs were everywhere, underfoot, in your lap, snuffling ears and even more private places. They stole sandwiches, drooled on your clothes and leaped on you with muddy paws. The Caveat: "Don't wear good clothes" became an accepted litany.

This is the horrifying truth. When I left home, my brother was already long gone, and my Mother took my bedroom. They had no pets. They threw huge parties, catered with bartenders. They had maids come in to clean.

There's not a maid alive that would come past the threshold of our home.

The terrifying truth is that when the children leave, the parents are free (more or less) to play. AND THEY DO. And then, suddenly the children look around and think "My God! They have lives separate from us!!" And altho they also have lives separate from their parents, they are shocked, maybe a little jealous. What they forget is that they came first, once upon a time, and they will continue to hold that spot in our hearts no matter how many dogs there are. It is written in the parental contract: children never really leave home....