From the category archives:

dogs

Baby the Bittersweet

8 August, 2010

in at home,commentatrix,dogs,the social round,we are family

Centripetal Emotion

07082010The baby is a cementer, changer and concluder of relationships, and the baby’s needs a force around which the day spins in a variety of sometimes-predictable ways. We are initiated via experience into all kinds of secret societies. There is the witching hour, which runs any time from four until ten p.m. in our house, when the young cannot be pacified, entertained or settled and mothercraft becomes indistinguishable from chance and magic. There is the fallacious phrase “leg guards” concerning the nappies of a baby not much bigger in size than a newborn. There are the long moments and short hours of a life running entirely on hormones, in which holding a contended baby is the sweetest fix of all. The erratic sleep, strange dreams and rapid mood swings are like being a teenager in love, with the accompanying rising and setting of the emotional sun. Then there is the maternal body that, in spite of the habits of a lifetime, continues to shrink. This last point is in itself neutral were it not for the general bagging and falling down of jeans that were bought to fit. Money is tight, and I’d rather spend it on her (save for buying blue cheese, which never loses its deliciousness after a long abstention).

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The Young Master

2 August, 2010

in dogs

Tom the puppy (seen on the left of the image)

keeps company in his new home with a cat (‘pon her owner’s knee)

and a dog, his great-grandsire (seen at far right).

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Dog and Baby Show

13 July, 2010

in at home,dogs,we are family

It is well known by his admirers that my old boy Arthur is a terrier of surpassing manliness, in an anthropomorphised world where, yes, this house attributes gendered values to its animals for fun. Truly, he is the Thomas Wyatt of Norwich Terriers: hunter, wooer, courtier, diplomat and poet (the last one wholly metaphorically). Whoso list to hunt, he knows where is an hedgehog.

That is the first fact.

The new baby takes happy comfort from a pacifier as she makes the transition from feeding to sleeping, or winding to sleeping, or staring at shadows and bright colours to sleeping. However, she can also with mighty power spit the pacifier distances both large and small.

That is the second fact.

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House dogs and mother’s work

11 July, 2010

in at home,dogs,we are family

Fern considers this strange, hairless puppy whom she met toni... on TwitpicOur dogs are gradually rejoining the new household.  The harvestparents had a double burden of care, not only with the unexpected arrival of the harvestbaby, necessitating a rapid transfer of the dogs to them, but also by all the bitches coming into season within a few days of each other (as is the way with cohabiting mammals of the same species).  The return of Arthur and Eddie took the nearby household arrangements off crated rotation, and now Fern has rejoined us for good.  She has filled out greatly following the weaning of the puppies and now has that cobby look for which Norwich Terrier breeders strive in the just-shy-of-eugenics manner that is the anxious mode of the dog fancy.

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Claiming the Lore

8 July, 2010

in at home,dogs,we are family

There is so much lore surrounding little babies that it is hard to believe all of it is based in truth, or at least experience, and of course, public health educators have the heavy task of updating the world as to what has been superseded by new knowledge.  So the last three weeks (three weeks!) have been an education of their own in experiencing first-hand some of what is talked about obliquely, indirectly, and with those kinds of knowing ciphers (that word again) in which parents speak.

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