toddlerspit

Hey!  Guess what?  We found Burley a new home.  I took him to interview a really nice couple in Westminster last night, and Burley seemed to like them (and they, of course, think he’s great). 

I was really nervous the whole time.  On the ride over to their house, I gave him the please-don’t-pee-on-the-floor-just-because-you’re-nervous talk, and the be-as-cute-as-you-can-so-we-don’t-have-to-take-you-to-a-shelter talk.  He must have listened, because it went really well.  Burley’s new mom really likes him, even though he sheds, and his dad goes on walks or hikes every day and seemed to really be a dog person, which Burley will love.  I emailed his new mom this morning, and she said he did great after I left last night (sobbing).  So, phew.

Here’s the weird thing.  I was starting to feel despair that we’d ever find Burley J (The Boodge) a home.  But given my new focus on the positive (and yes, I’ve been brainwashed by The Secret) I decided to put some good mojo out into the universe, and so I made a donation to a local shelter in honor of The Great Gatsby, our dear friends’ dog who passed away a few weeks back.

No kidding, within seconds of hitting the “submit” button on the donation form, I got the first email from Burley’s adoptive mom.  Weird, huh?

Our house was awfully quiet last night, and I lay awake in the dark for a long time thinking about Burley, my first dog, my first baby.  But I’m just going to visualize him taking walks with his new friends, and getting lots of love and attention, and enjoying being unmolested by small children grabbing at his fur.  And I’m going to try not to be sad.

We love you, boodge.  We hope you have a good life, dear friend.

This is such an intense period right now, with so much begun but unresolved, and a little scary and a lot exciting.  I’m having a lot of nervous energy, which is making it difficult to sit down and grade the jabba-sized mound of freshman papers on my desk.  Really, we’re just doing a lot of waiting, and trying to keep all of our balls in the air at the same time. 

You know what I mean.

We’re busier than we’ve ever been in our lives.  Most days I can’t even tell you what day it is.  Seriously.

Addie drooled through four shirts today and was a bloody pistol to deal with.  Every four hours she needs to take her medicine, and every four hours we plead, cajole, demand, threaten, and lose our minds through the process.  Then, when the whim strikes her, she’ll down the medicine and look up at us, beaming.  “Yum!” she says.  “That tastes good!“  Right! we say.  Maybe you’ll remember that in four hours so we don’t have to take minutes off our lives going through this again.

I am hoping soon to go in to Addie’s room while she’s sleeping and to not hear a death rattle, to see her breathing through her nose.  I am ferverently (man is that a weird word.  I had to look it up) hoping for this.  But as of tonight, she is still rattling and snurgling away in there, as if the tonsils and adenoids have magically grown back. 

Nolie has a horrible cold, with a fever and a barking-seal cough that is just short of croupish.  We’re sort of pretending it isn’t happening, but the words “emergency room” did pass through my lips today, which made us both shudder.  No no Nolie.  Don’t get sick.  Wake up tomorrow and be much, much better.  It doesn’t help matters that she is doing her best to push that little tooth through.  And still she smiles and laughs at us, and is getting more adorable everyday.

Here she is asleep on Eric.  I can’t decide who is more precious.  It’s a dead heat.

We also started loading up our storage unit today, and our realtor comes tomorrow to get our price and list date, and to give us the low-down on some houses in Golden.  We’ve started spackling up nail holes and cleaning floors and hiding stuff behind cupboard doors.  It’s starting to feel really real, which also makes me feel a little like I have to barf.  Also knowing that we could have a long wait ahead of us is strange, given that we’re pushing so hard to get the house ready to sell.

The bad news continues to be Burley, who bit me today.  He had eaten some of Addie’s cheese, sending her into yet another drooly cryfest, and I moved the dining room chair to “invite” him to get out from under the table where she was sitting.  He viewed this as an “invitation” to bite me.  So now we’re considering the possibility of turning him over to a shelter, since nobody we know can take him right now.  Which sucks so hugely.  I just want him out of here, and also just want him to be happy in a new home.

But I’m not losing my mind yet, even though it sounds like I may be.  I’m hanging in there, and even enjoying the chaos here and there. 

I just can’t believe how fast it’s all going.

I’m feeling sick to my stomach tonight.  I don’t know if it was something I ate, or if I’ve got a little flu-bug, or what.  But I was in class today and thought I was going to vom all over the floor, in front of my students.  That would have been a memory they didn’t get from their other classes. 

I’m feeling even worse now because we’ve made the heart-wrenching decision that it’s time to find Burley another home.  Burley, who has been our dog, and friend, and protector, and walking partner ever since 9/11, when I saw Charlie Gibson on Good Morning America playing with puppies and talking about how having pets can help with mild depression.  That afternoon I found Burley’s picture on the Dumb Friends League website and Eric and I rushed out to adopt him.  I still remember how flushed and happy I felt when I picked puppy Burley up and he rested his chin on my shoulder.  He was the first dog I ever had, and he was our baby.

But since then, we’ve had two other babies–human ones–and Burley has had a tough time adjusting.  When Addie was first learning to crawl, she grabbed Burley’s fur a few times, and he gave her hand some good nips.  We called in a trainer and did our best to keep Addie a way from him, but still felt worried.  What if he bit her badly?  What if, God forbid, he bit her in the face? 

Then Nolie came into the picture, and our space seemed to get a little smaller.  Burley would want to lay down in between the two girls playing on the floor.  If one grabbed his fur or even brushed up against him, he would growl and snap at them.  Last week, he jumped over Addie and scratched her in the face.  Tonight he lunged after Nolie’s hand.

He hasn’t hurt either one.  No skin has been broken.  He is sweet and friendly with adults, and is not an aggressive dog.  But Eric and I looked at each other tonight, after Burley tried to bite Nolie, and knew it was probably time to put Burley in a safer environment, one without kids.  He’s a great dog.  He loves people and is incredibly personable and loyal.  He’s just not a good kid dog. 

So, now we begin the sad process of trying to find Burley a good home, where he will be loved as much as we have loved him.  And we deal with the guilt of saying goodbye to our dog; we promised to take care of him when we adopted him, but he now has to take a backseat to the safety of our kids.  I feel low.  Lower than low.  But also sure that this is what we need to do.