Third Dog Out

Bringing a baby home requires a number of adjustments. For one, you give up all hope of a solid night’s sleep. You also stop doing the dishes, making food and grooming yourself. More or less. This happens in part because the baby needs to be fed every three hours and have her diaper changed at a rate of about 1.35 changes to every feeding. But it also happens because said child is totally freaking cute and it’s really quite hard to leave her for hours at a time to, say, do the laundry, cook a solid meal and/or clean the bathroom.

Exhibit A:

We’re thankfully getting a handle on those everyday tasks, though, and I predict that within a week we’ll be more or less normal human beings again. If parents are ever really normal.

The individual who has not yet shown any signs of adjusting is the dog, poor ol’ Finn.

In Spanish there is an expression “hacer caso,” which literally means “make a case/fact” but is generally translated as “to pay attention to.” So, a couple days ago, Marta noted that Finn had taken to plopping himself down wherever anyone was “haciendo caso” (paying attention) to someone. Usually this was around Nico, be it her bassinet, her changing table or her tiny little body in somebody’s arms.

There we would be, huddled around Nico, and Finn would wander over and curl up on the floor near us, as if he could mooch a little caso off of Nico. Sadly for him, it hasn’t worked all that well. I try when I can to toss him his squeaky duck or have a quick pet fest, but I am so completely, disarmingly enrapt in Nico right now that, without meaning to, I find myself forgetting about him more often than I’d like.

Until last night when I realized that, instead of lying in the middle of things, Finn had slunk off to another room to be alone. We were getting ready for bed when I noticed. Normally when we head toward the bedroom Finn goes with us, curling up in his plush dog bed as we pull back the covers on ours. But this time, when I headed off to the bedroom, he stayed in the living room. I gave him some time, assuming that he’d join us eventually. But he didn’t. When I finally went to check on him, he was curled up in a corner on the floor in the dark.

“Finn, come on,” I said. And he raised his head, hopeful, and followed me toward the bedroom.

Then he waited expectantly. And I promptly forgot all about him. Probably Nico had just pooped or Marta wanted to show me some cute face she had made or we had to get her changed for bed. I don’t remember what distracted me. All I know is that a little while later I realized Finn was gone again.

I went back into the other room and there he was. In his corner in the dark.

“Come on Finn,” I said. And he followed me, slightly less hopeful. I remembered to follow-up on my offer to hacerle caso that time, though. As soon as he lay down, I lay down beside him, petting his freshly washed head (thanks to my mom and dad, who have been the number one reason the house and the rest of us have stayed someone clean these first couple days) and telling him it will all be all right.

Now I just hope that it will.