Levi and Maggie

I can’t leave my house. I am trapped by my puppy. It’s not that she (an outrageously adorable black lab mix whose pregnant mommy was rescued off the reservation) is holding me here against my will. She was potty trained in two days. She goes in and out of her doggie door like a seasoned Mastiff. She doesn’t need me to let her out. She loves playing with the bunnies in the backyard when we’re gone. She does well on her own. It’s just that I can’t stand being away from her.

I am, for lack of a better word, puppy-whipped. Snuggling with her is like nothing I’ve ever felt. I’ve stopped running necessary errands, have curtailed my work meetings significantly, I’ve even ceased running to the grocery store and have allowed our food supply to dwindle to a hardened block of Jarlsberg cheese and a few rotten strawberries.

What is happening to me? Don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t remember feeling this way about my boys when they were puppies…er…I mean, babies. I think I was so freaked out about every minute parenting detail that I could never relax long enough to enjoy my sweet little bundles of joy…or…sobbing, screaming, colicky newborns, as they happened to be.

The truth is, Maggie is a luscious little fur ball filled with nothing but love, cuddles and okay a few accidents in the house. But she doesn’t keep me up all night. She just curls into the chez at the foot of our bed and sleeps peacefully. She doesn’t have long, unending crying jags when she’s overtired. She just naps on my lap when she’s all tuckered out during the day. She doesn’t make me question my sanity by acting hungry every other second and then spitting up three quarters of her last feeding. She simply amuses me non-stop with her tail-chasing, bunny-hunting, peanut-butter licking antics.

What is not to love I ask you?