Let me state for the record that my husband John is a saint and a rock-star. I am forever thankful that he supports my zeal in the pursuit of Dog Mom perfection and that he loves Lou Lou with the abandon and joy of a young child. I do the emotional heavy-lifting and the obsessive worrying for both of us. The worrying began even before we brought her home.
I shot out of bed that Sunday morning in a frantic rush to get ready. Never mind that the shelter didn’t open until noon; I wanted to be outside that door at 11:59. I chose my outfit and dressed as carefully as if I were interviewing at a Fortune 100 company. First impressions count; I looked the very picture of responsibility or preppy uptightness, depending on your taste.
Our neighbor told us to bring a copy of our mortgage, some utility bills and IDs to prove that we were homeowners and not squatting in the North Avenue Beach tunnel. As is my precise nature, I had enough paperwork to wallpaper the shelter’s waiting room. I had already printed out and filled in the adoption application in my best handwriting. I didn’t want our adoption to fall through on a technicality. Eyeing the stack of papers, John reminded me that we were going just to look.
When we walked out on the adoption floor at the Anti-Cruelty Society, it didn’t take long to find her and decide to bring her home. She looked a little bit like a Rottie and a little bit like a German Shepherd. We were smitten.
The next half hour jangled my nerves. The floor volunteer took her and pointed us to the adoption waiting room. We were called in for the interview, which unhinged me so much I acted like I had been pulled over driving with a trunk full of meth. We learned about her background and answered a bunch of seemingly unrelated questions. Waiting to see if the Adoption Counselor approved us or not, I whispered to John, “What if they don’t let us take her home?” Sensing my anxiety, he said, “Look around. I like our chances. If we aren’t taking a dog home today, no one is.” Not placated, I returned to peppering him with what-ifs to the point where all I got in response was an eye-roll as we waited for the final ruling of the Adoption Counselor.
I am a perfectionist by nature, which also means do it right or don’t bother doing it. Half-way is half-assed. Once I set my mind on something, I make it happen. I embraced my nature and decided that my motto would be “making OCD work for me.” And it did. My husband and I planned our wedding in another country with military precision. For over a decade, I was a successful teacher in some tough neighborhoods, a corporate manager, a survivor of working for Chicago Public Schools’ central office and I even lived to tell the tale of working for one of the most wack bitches in Chicago’s PR world. Known professionally as “the girl who makes the trains run on time” a former colleague nicknamed me ” The General.”
So you would expect that I’d be a super parent, one of those moms that the other moms at the playground talked about behind my back. Once I was married, I carried around the picket-fence plus family mental image in my mind. Except it wasn’t us with 2.5 kids in the ‘burbs. It was me, John and A DOG, not in the ‘burbs. The hurdle to achieving my dream and unleashing my skills was simple. We didn’t have a dog. For a long time, John flat-out refused to discuss it, always maintaining that we weren’t ready. We were, or at least I thought we were ready according to myriad questionnaires I found on the internet. It crushed me that my call to dog-mom-dom was left unanswered and that a dog in a shelter somewhere in Chicago was missing out on the good life.
Of course we got a dog, otherwise this blog would be a single-subject monologue about being an unfulfilled Dog Mom wanna-be. Once we adopted our pup, all the pent up frustrations resulted in my becoming an over-earnest, over-eager dog mom who made an ass of herself from time to time. Along the way, my well-intentioned endeavors brought me many wonderful things, including the smug self-satisfaction of looking at other dog moms and saying to myself, Yes, I am doing it better that you and my dog has a better life than yours. HA.
People regularly say to me that when they die, they want to come back as my dog. Of course they do…now. I didn’t start out as a damn good Dog Mom, but I got there. As a matter of fact, I was completely clueless. So, to the people who say that parenting is an art, I call bullshit. It’s time, dedication, information and persistence among other things that separate the so-so from the spectacular. You will become the Dog Mom you want to be if you want it bad enough. And I did.
Once upon a time…