The menagerie approves...I think

One of the infant-centered features of our house is that Addie has five built-in playmates in our pets. I can say playmates now, but before we came home, I was afraid that these five playmates were going to be fur-covered missiles of doom. While I know that none of our animals (three cats and two dogs) are nefarious feline/canine super-villians bent on the destruction of children, I do know that they are all incredibly curious as to the contents of the little bundle we brought home on Friday, and that makes them slightly unpredictable.

Once Addie was discharged, Anna and I decided that our first order of business was to introduce Addie to our Golden Retrievers, Abbey and Mollie. I love our dogs--they're just not particularly graceful or coordinated. I knew that Abbey and Mollie would love Addie and protect her--I was just concerned that they couldn't really control themselves around her. Fortunately, it turns out the dogs are really gentle with Addie--the only thing is that they like to lick her as if there's no tomorrow. I don't blame them; I don't think they've ever smelled a baby before, and they're just interested--but it's been hard to keep them as gentle as I would like them to be. But, as you can see from the picture below, Addie has a new friend in Abbey.

The cats have been a similar story. Like you would expect with cats, their interest in Addie lasts for a moment, and then they don't really care anymore. Our oldest cat, the diabetic Miles, was the first to walk up to Addie to check her out. Anna and I prepared to intervene to protect Addie if necessary, but it turns out that Miles sniffed Addie for a moment and then promptly proceeded to step right over her like she wasn't there. Winston, our 14-pound fatso, is really only a concern if he accidentally sits on Addie. Despite any potential danger he may pose, Winston is pretty freaked out by Addie's crying. He maintains his distance, and I don't really see him approaching Addie for a while. It took Winston at least two years to let me pet him, so I think Addie will probably be a teenager before Winston makes up his mind about her. The offender I was most worried about was Fuzz, our Persian/Siamese mix. Since we set up the baby furniture, Fuzz has taken a liking to sleeping in the crib. Naturally, Anna and I were concerned, as we didn't want Fuzz to sleep on Addie accidentally. Fuzz seems to be okay--again, just mostly curious. I hope that all three warm up to Addie, so that they'll be alright when Addie's old enough to inadvertently torment them.

So, all seems well with our animals, which is definitely a good thing. Looking back, I'm just glad that we didn't bring Addie home to our pet situation a couple of years ago. When she was at Churchill Academy, Anna starting raising gerbils and rabbits with her science students. While it was a great learning experience for her students, we ended up taking care of a boatload of gerbils, most of whom were quite evil (trust me, one of them was named Spawn of Satan--long story--but that gerbil was beyond mean). Additionally, all of the individual gerbils required different care--some had to be alone, some could not be with others, some couldn't be with members of the opposite sex. It was like running a nursing home for the criminally insane. Given our pet history, I'm glad that Addie won't have the opportunity to become a modern-day Willard, commanding an unholy army of gerbils. Instead, all she'll command is a five-animal army of uncoordinated doofuses. The world is safe.

Entry the first...

As I sit typing this, my wife, Anna, sits in our living-room recliner, thirty-eight weeks pregnant. She is carrying our daughter, Addison Marie, due on the 28th of March. Addie (that's what we are going to call her) is my first child. If modern medicine is to be trusted, she will be living in my house within the next two weeks. To me, this knowledge is both awe-inspiring and panic-inducing. I've held approximately two newly born infants, and I don't feel as though I have this integral part of child rearing down. My knowledge of holding babies, prior to a week ago when I held a five-week-old, was limited to how a pastor will hold a baby during an infant baptism. Apparently, the pastoral grip at the baptismal font is not a particularly natural or nurturing way to hold a baby. One hand under the head and the other hand under the rear, thrust out in front of yourself holding on as if you were involved in a go-for-broke red rover game is--so it seems--not entirely comforting to a baby. My wife tells me that I probably don't want to hold our daughter that way. I think that she is slightly concerned about my lack of baby-centered experience. So am I.

With Addie soon to arrive, I've decided to start a blog dedicated to her and my sure-to-come foibles with new parenthood. I've flirted with the blogosphere in the past. At one point, probably a year ago or so, I wrote an entire first entry that I was quite proud of. Blogspot did not have a save now feature at that time, so naturally, I lost my entire post. I guess I didn't really feel like recreating my entry, so I dropped it, and haven't thought about it again until recently. Now, on the eve of my genes being able to look at me, I'm starting again. Maybe Addie will look back at this and be able to see a window into her childhood, or maybe she'll be horrified when I read these entries out loud to her first boyfriend (same diff)...either way, I think this should be fun (for you at least, apparently I won't be sleeping much). Stay tuned for more.