Day One Hundred Eighty Six

Aging Parents - Lessons Learned

Andy and I are morphing into peculiar old people. He loves his dogs; I love my cats, yet we seem to make it all work. We are (embarrassingly) better parents to our four legged children than we were to our human ones. For example, we let our four legged kids learn from their mistakes. Our human ones were "saved" by us before mistakes could happen.

Before my actual children knew how to swim, they wore every conceivable apparatus to prevent them from drowning. Just throwing them into the water was, in my opinion, tantamount to murder. So there they were, slathered in sun screen, wearing ear plugs, nose plugs, goggles, water wings, an inner tube and flippers. They could not walk or talk, let alone swim. Miraculously, our son learned how to swim - probably at a pool party, unsupervised and unencumbered by safety equipment.

Despite our precautions, our daughter nearly drowned one day while we were on vacation and not paying attention. She was underwater right next to my husband!  Thankfully, her brother saw this and brought it to our attention. From then on her trust in us went down the tubes and she taught herself to swim, thank you very much.

As for the four legged children, well, we hope they don't fall into the pool. But if they do, we're ready with a towel and sympathy. I do not feel the need for a tranquilizer after the fact.

We used to run our human children to the doctor if they farted. At one point, their pediatrician said to me, "Mrs. Matchett, why don't you pray for them every day, and trust they will be okay." I shook my head as though he was the smartest human on Earth. What I wanted to do was take him by the lapels of his lab coat and yell, "You idiot! I do nothing but pray for these kids!" That did not seem prudent. Anyway, they survived childhood, but I still worry when they fart...

My attitude with my four legged kids is a bit more laissez-faire. I still worry, but not over every little thing. For example, Eli has a large patch of fur missing. The old me would have him in for every conceivable test, only to learn he licked it down from stress. Now, I figure, hey, if you want to lick all your fur off, who am I to stop you? I will simply clean up your hairballs.

Similarly, Jack licks his feet. No, Jack rips the pads off his feet. Stupid, right? He knows he shouldn't so he will go somewhere to do it surreptitiously. My thoughts? If you are so stupid as to render yourself crippled from licking your pads off, then I guess you'll just have to suffer the consequences - sore feet. Oh, when he gets really manic about it, I give him Benadryl.

Now, there are those getting ready to dial Animal Control, to report us for abuse. Let me set your minds at ease. We are very responsible pet owners. I will submit my vet bills as proof. We are just at the stage in life we should have been thirty five years ago. We would have saved a lot in doctor bills, therapy and anxiety meds, if we had just been a little less stressed and a lot more "let's wait and see."

Although, there was the time we tried that with our son who insisted his arm was broken. We both told him to "shake it off." His arm was broken. NEVER again did I let him out of my sight!