Sunday, May 6, 2012

Always a Mom

Growing up we had pets. At times we had way too many cats for our small apartment. But that was a temporary situation. When I met my husband it did not take me long to realize that he was Dr. Doolittle. Life with him would always be full of animals. It was one of those things that at first was strangely exciting. He came with a dog. I had never really had a dog. He came with a bird. I definitely had never had one of those. He came with many fish. These were expensive fish, not like the goldfish I had as a child. My nurturing nature often kicked in and I found myself caring for these pets. At first for some of the animals the unspoken agreement was that they were my husband’s responsibility. He brought them into the relationship. Our home grew from one dog to two very quickly. Somehow they became “our kids.” The bird became birds, but that is entirely different story. The number of fish tanks increased. I began pushing the limits of what I provided in the way of pet care. Once we had human children the number of pets grew. My husband found a coy way of getting new pets. He would smile and say “but the kids want it.” Before I could even give him a disapproving stare there was yet another pet to care for. Picture your child looking at you with those puppy dog eyes ( no pun intended). I was promised by all family members that there would be no more work for me. The child that wanted the pet would care for it. Somehow that is not how it ever works out. Yesterday, I had a pet experience that made realize how far this has gone. My children have leopard Geckos. They live in my daughter’s room. They were purchased while I was out of town of course. But the story was the same “Don’t worry Mom we will take care of them.” Pinky the Gecko has not been feeling well. My husband got concerned and said that it was time for vet trip. Of course this is not a trip to our regular vet. We have to take this little Gecko to a specialty vet. This vet that specializes in exotics is located over an hour away. My husband could not take the Gecko and my children can’t drive nor were they up for accompanying me. That is right…. I ended up taking this little creature to the vet. As I listened to what the vet was telling me my inner voices were bickering. On one side I unconditionally care about this little animal and was trying to take in everything I needed to know to care for her. On the other side I was giggling and thinking once again here I am. I am always the Mom, the one who cares for the sick. This two hour tour cost me over two hundred dollars. I amazed myself in how easily the credit card came out of my wallet to pay the bill. The irony in this little tale is that I am never the one who wants the pet but I am often the bad guy who has to be the voice of reason and refuses to get one more animal. However, I am often running the pets where they need to go, caring for them and “helping” a child clean up after one. As much as they wanted the pet they did not really want to clean up after it. Somehow my mom instincts really do extend past my human children.

1 comment:

  1. Several people have recommended your blog and thought you might be able to help. We have a site that caters to moms. It allows them to store digital memories and then release them to their kids in the future. We are still in the “testing” phase and wanted to see if your readers would like to participate and get a complimentary membership.

    We would appreciate if you could do a blog post and/or social media mention, informing them they can visit www.kairoslife.com to register their email address.

    From there we will update them when we are ready to start testing the site. Please let me know if you have any questions.

    Thanks,
    Mark Hollingsworth
    Community Relations Director
    KairosLife.com
    mark@kairoslife.com

    ReplyDelete