Dogtales

At some level, I did know that babies come with an overwhelming amount of shit. Not just the literal kind but the plastic and cloth kind. This weekend we found a wonderful mom on Craigslist.org who was looking to sell a used crib for an insanely cheap price. After agreeing to come look at it, she calls back and says, “you know, is this your first baby? I’ve got tons more stuff I need to get rid of if you want to look at it, too”. So one long drive to the backwoods later we come home with a car full of 1) disassembled babyjail that converts to a toddler bed, then to a day bed – with 4 different heights you can set the mattress to in order to thwart said child’s aspirations of recreating the escape from Alcatraz ; 2) Four really cool developmental toys of the leapfrog variety; and a half a dozen bags/boxes of assorted clothes from newborn on up to 2 years, including I shit you not, no less than 10 pairs of shoes and an Eeyore Halloween costume.

So began our weekend of sorting, laundry, organizing, playing with toys and cussing at pathetic crib assembly instructions. Which was fun. Picturing the River Fry in little fuzzy footed pj’s and miniature sandals was more so. But most fun of all? Tormenting the dog with the new baby toys!! You must understand. Jinx, like all good Black Labs, loves toys. Especially those that make noise. So when Curt was disinfecting the musical/talking walker type toy (similar to this) and it went off, you can imagine her fascination!. But it’s a big toy. Kind of scary. On wheels. And it smells funny. So she’s standing there outside the door to the nursery streeetching her head in to investigate the thing - ears cocked and an inquisitive look on her face. And Curt pushes a button so it plays Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. You haven’t seen a dog so startled since she somehow managed to get a bouquet of helium-filled, mylar birthday balloons wrapped around her hind legs.

But after much wagging of the tail, more furtive sniffing and apprehensive looks at me like “what is it? Is it OK? Can I play with it?” we finally coerced her into poking the buttons on the toy with her nose so she could play “Twinkle Twinkle” all by herself. And oh.my.God! the look on her face was priceless! By this time I was laughing so damned hard my gut was hurting. Then when she began poking and running, poking and running I totally lost it.

I guess the Fry will learn how to share his toys pretty young.