iety and frustration. They are puppies, of course, and therefore they like to chew, leap off furniture, chase each other, knock over lamps, yelp, bark and nip. Obedience school did wonders for them.
Little Puppy, on the other hand, is calm, sleepy and snuggly. She wants nothing more than to be loved and held. Forever. I am happy to oblige.
Shawn pointed out that it's going to be awfully difficult now for us, if we decide we want children. Having three dogs is a lot of work. He wonders how we would manage a baby. Another feeding schedule, more laundry, more mess, more work, less sleep.
I have to agree with him that we've set ourselves up to be exhausted. When I said I needed to wait until I had a full time job so I could get a proper maternity leave, one of the Somalian women told me that I must not wait for anything. She said that where it comes to children, you simply find a way to provide for them because you must and it has nothing to do with benefits and leave time and paperwork.There is a story about an African family that was so poor the mother could scarcely afford to feed her eight children let alone herself. She fed her children rice and when they were finished eating she would scrape their clay bowls and eat whatever was left herself. When she had her ninth child she was asked how she could possibly do such a thing. How would there be anything left for her to eat now? The mother replied that now she would have more to eat because she would be scraping nine bowls instead of eight.
This approach to motherhood is one that I saw everywhere, people who felt so enriched by the experience of parenting their children that they did not feel any sense of poverty or sacrifice in spite of how little they had. They were not proud of their houses or cars or belongings. They were proud of their children.
I think if these woman can commonly manage nine children, then surely Shawn and I should be able to manage one - even with the three dogs.
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