Peanut Butter Puppy
Christina Weigand
Things in my life have gotten a little hectic in the last few weeks and I did not have time to write a post about another author. So I am going to take a break from the series and share a life story. Keep in mind that the two young girls, two and four years old are now 15 and 18, so this happened several years ago.
Never fear in two weeks I will be back with another
interesting author for you to learn about.
Image by Sally Wynn from Pixabay |
Recently
my 21-year-old daughter purchased a puppy, much to the chagrin of my
husband. In spite of his
dissatisfaction, I think it was a good purchase. My four-year-old daughter and her two-year-old
niece are learning some interesting lessons.
The four year old, Ana likes to help feed and walk the puppy. The two years old, Andi likes to give the
puppy treats. In fact, she would give
the dog treats all day long, if we let her.
Both
of the girls like to play with the puppy and the puppy likes to play with the
girls. The problem is none of them knows
how to communicate how they want to play.
If Ana and Andi run across the yard, the dog, Daisy, thinks the girls
want to play tackle and will run after them and tackle them. Not quite what the girls had in mind. If Ana waves her arms or fingers in front of
Daisy, she thinks it’s a chew toy for her to chew on, again not what Ana had in
mind. If Ana’s skirt it blowing in the
wind Daisy thinks it’s time to play tug of war and latches onto Ana’s skirt,
again not what Ana had in mind.
If
Daisy jumps up and wants to wrestle, the girls squeal and panic, not quite what
Daisy had in mind. If Daisy lies down
and the girls descend on her thinking she wants to play, again not what Daisy
had in mind.
Trying
to housetrain has been real fun. In fact
we have successfully outdoor trained her.
She will go outside if she is outside, but as soon as we bring her in
the house, she finds a place to go to the bathroom, usually on the carpet in my
family room. So now we have to figure
out how to reverse train her.
Then
there was the bath. We hadn’t bathed her
since we brought her home; so to say, the least she was becoming a little
fragrant and my husband wouldn’t let her in the house to play with the
kids. We decided the time had come for a
bath. Katie went out and purchased a
spray hose that we could attach to the tub faucet. Katie and I, who are two grown women, could
not figure out how to attach this hose to the spout. Katie decided to go on
without the hose. She puts the dog in
the tub with Ana and Andi in attendance.
Quickly the dog jumps out of the tub and tries to take off. Katie catches Daisy and puts her back in the
tub. Quickly she washes and rinses Daisy
and finishes just as Daisy jumps out of the tub again, this time shaking off
the water all over the bathroom. Now
Daisy is running down the hall with two little girls chasing her. Trying to catch a wet puppy is like trying to
catch a greased pig, nearly impossible. Soon Daisy is caught though and Katie dries
her off and puts her in the family room to watch a movie with us. Daisy finds an adult lap to sit on and curls
up on it until bedtime.
The
next day, Daisy is resting on the patio while the girls innocently play on the
patio. Keep in mind that with a two year
old and a four year old nothing is ever really innocent. I am in the kitchen preparing dinner and
Katie is nearby doing something. Ana
strolls casually into the kitchen and takes a jar of peanut butter that was
left on the counter and goes back to the patio door where she meets Andi and
Daisy. I glance over, see them sitting
on the step quietly, and don’t think anything of it. So they are eating peanut butter from the
jar, what are they hurting? Soon Katie
comes out to the kitchen and starts screaming, “What is all over my dog!” Notice now that it has become her dog any
other time it is just the dog. She runs
outside and realizes the girls are covered with peanut butter as well as the
dog. The girls have decided to make a
peanut butter puppy. I start laughing as
Katie runs to find a hose so she can clean the dog while I am left to clean her
daughter as well as mine and put the peanut butter away. Soon the mess is cleaned up and we have a
good laugh about it.
We
have had the puppy for a little over a month now and she has been a lot of
fun. The little girls are learning about
responsibility and I am learning patience and how to bite my tongue. We have had fun, I’m sure that as the dog,
and the girls grow and learn we will have many more fun times if we can live
through them. We must remember to keep
our sense of humor through it all. The
world will not end because we have a peanut butter puppy or some water on the
walls. Soon they will be grown and gone
and peanut butter puppies or skirts that look like tug of war ropes will be a
distant memory. They are the stuff that
life is made of.