Jparks and I are currently raising a teenager and it is difficult. And crappy. And it makes me wonder how in the hell we are going to be able to handle a real teenager.
Lily used to sleep snuggled in bed next to me at night. Sometimes she cuddled up with jparks, but mainly she was stuck next to me. But then, in the past week, something has changed and she no longer wants to stay in bed with us. In fact, I can barely even convince her to come in the bed for a few minutes to get some petting. It's like, all of a sudden, she is totally over spending quality time with us and would much rather hang out in front of the movie theatre with her friends and talk about how she steals sips of our booze and then refills the bottles with water.
Then this morning, excited that my dog might actually want some attention from me, I sat down on the hallway floor because it appeared she was running towards my open arms. Except the moment she saw me, she literally turned tail and ran away. She ran right back to the couch where she hid her head out of embarrassment that her oh-my-gawd-you're-embarrassing-me-mother would like some attention. She finally resurfaced when jparks called her and she ran to him. The little bitch (I can say that since she is tiny and is a bitch) ran right over to him and begged to be picked up. Beaming because for the first time ever Lily picked him over me, jparks proclaimed "Well, every child turns against their mother at some point."
I can't figure out what I did to turn Lily against me and I assume that's how most mothers of 15 year olds feel. I know it kills me when she ignores me and it drives jparks insane when she ignores him. We usually end up bribing some attention out of her with a spoon full of peanut butter. In the 30 seconds it takes her to eat the spoonful of peanut goodness we get to pet her, pretend that she likes us, and act like a normal "doggy" family.
What worries me is that this is our dog that has figured out how to manipulate us into giving her treats and other bits of goodness. A real live child is going to have us so wrapped around her pinky we might as well just hand our paychecks to her. I think it's safe to say jparks and I are hopeless and screwed. And that our kid is going to be one spoiled prick.
Chachi is exactly the same. He still sleeps with us, but he seems to prefer Adam than me when sleeping, until Adam leaves the bed, then I'm the favoured warmer. He'll lay in bed until early afternoon if I let him, and then he's still all lazy until late at night, when he gets all hyper and crazy. He won't listen when called, and we know he knows what we're saying, but he won't do it without a treat. I think it's a chihuahua thing, they have so much attitude!
ReplyDeleteI think you're right, it is a chihuahua thing. Most other dog owners always say how their dogs just look at them with love in their eyes, but Lily mostly looks at us with total disgust and hatred. Sometimes there is love there, but that's mainly when I'm holding the jar of peanut butter.
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