Are dogs and babies the same?

It is a widely regarded assumption that having a dog prepares you for having a child. People often say that it is actually harder to have a dog. Well, I have had a dog, and I now have a child, so I am here to provide you with the ways in which have a dog and having a child are similar....but also to shed some light on how they are completely different.

Top 5 Ways Caring for a Dog is similar to caring for a Child:
1. Both require a lot of love and attention....and discipline.
2. Both are the hardest to care for when they are brand new babies, and then get easier as they mature.
3. Both require potty training.
4. Both rely on you for food, water, and shelter.
5. Both change your life completely.

Top 10 ways Caring for a Child is completely different that caring for a Dog:
1. You can't leave home without your child.
2. In that same vein, you would never go to work for 8 hours and leave your child at home unattended.
3. Although some seem to think this is ok, you can't put your child on a leash.
4. You can't "crate train" a child.
5. You can't put your child under the seat in front of you on an airplane and let them just snuggle at your feet for a 6 hour flight.
6. Dogs never talk back.
7. Dogs don't go to college, and take all your money with them.
8. Dogs reach maturity by the age of 2. For children....it's usually at least 25.
9. You wouldn't board your child for 10 days with someone you had never met, while you went on vacation to Europe.
10. If it doesn't work out, you can always give a dog away to someone with a farm in upstate New York. That doesn't go over so well with children.

Music Class

We all want to do the right thing for our children, right? We involve them in playgroups and maybe daycare or pre-school, all with the hope that it will mold them into well-socialized little people. And music class is one of those activities that is supposed to be so good for them, help with their cognitive development, etc. So we sign our kids up (sometimes as young as 6 months) thinking, "This class is going to make my child a musical genius!!"

Then there is my child who, at every opportunity, will get up in the middle of music class and walk into the other room. Somehow the strollers and bathroom in the room next door hold much more appeal for him than the energetic music teacher leading the class right in front of him. So I am left there, by myself, singing, and clapping my hands, and gesturing wildly to the beat of music that I stopped listening to three decades ago, while my son is playing "steal the snack" out of the closest stroller he can find. So I find myself wondering, "Is he actually absorbing anything in this class? Why am I spending good money on a class for my son, when I am the only one participating?"

But despite all that, I will say that after his first semester there, when I had pretty much decided that we were not going back, he one day started singing one of the songs from the class. At 19 months he doesn't say much, but when he started singing that song, he had me hooked. That very same day I signed up for another semester.

Who knows, maybe my son will be the next Tommy Lee. But I kind of hope not.

The Inadvertently Bad Mom

Have you ever found yourself in situations where you look like a terrible mother, through no fault of your own? This happened to me on two occasions in the last week, and I'm feeling bad about it for reasons I can't explain.

My son is learning how to say the word "firetruck". Now either he is lazy and is trying to reduce the number of syllables he needs to utter in a single breath, or he simply can't say the two words together. My theory is the latter, coupled with the fact that my husband and I laugh uncontrollably every time he tries to say it. But somehow "firetruck" has been shortened to "f'uck". And because my husband and I laugh every time he says it, he just says it over and over again: "f'uck", f'uck, f'uck!" like it's the most natural and normal thing he could possibly say. We had the cable guy at our apartment the other day, and while he was minding his own business, fixing our cable, my son was playing with his firetruck, and....you guessed it....he starts yelling "f'uck, f'cuck, f'uck!" To which I promptly replied, "No, sweetie, it's 'firetruck'", trying to somehow tell this stranger, who I will likely never see again, that in my spare time I have not been teaching my child every swear word in the book. Ugh!

And just two days later, my husband and I took our son to the public pool. Prior to leaving, like any good parent, I lathered my son with sunscreen. But, of course, no sunblock applying session is complete without the token toddler meltdown that comes with it. So, needless to say, applying the sunscreen to my son's face was no easy task, and resulted in my getting about half of the sunscreen meant for his face, in his eyes. So we get to the pool, and by now he has been rubbing his eyes for a good 10 minutes, so they are red and puffy and watery - kind of resembling pink eye - the LAST thing the other parents want their children exposed to in that environment. And for some unknown reason, his nose spontaneously started running too. So we're there literally begging our son to "have a good time!", and he is completely miserable, rubbing his eyes and slobbering all over himself, us, and the kiddy pool we so desperately wanted him to enjoy. And I definitely caught a few looks from other parents, as if to say, "How could you knowingly bring your child to a public pool when he is clearly so sick!?" I felt like I needed to wear a sign across my bathing suit-clad chest that read "Nothing to be alarmed about folks. It's just a little sunblock!"

So to all you moms out there who have experienced this, I salute you. All we can do is try our best, and just know that sometimes along the way, despite all our efforts, we will still end up looking like an "ass'hole" every once and while.