Gotta feed the babies.
Monday, 10.01.2012 - 23:32 pm.

My (and Miss V.'s) favorite time of the year begins today. Nevermind that the weather is the opposite of what it made me fall in love with this season when I was a kid. Spring is beautiful, too, and I think I can count on chilly-not-freezing-cold days until the end of the year.

I've always felt more creative starting this time. I may chalk it up to the fact that, as a child, school ended by mid-october and I had an entire trimester and some more to draw and play and watch cartoons and go live abroad with Brother #1 for a couple of weeks, so I associate the season with being creative. I have some of that creativity left but I should be more disciplined. As an adult, it seems, creativity doesn't come from spontaneity as it comes from discipline. Life gets in the way and distracts me, so I have to make an effort to stay in the path.

But back to the mundane, my life has turned a bit, just a bit, upside down since saturday night. I schedule my time in chunks of four hours, and that includes being awake late in the night and early in the morning. Every four hours in a 24-hour cycle, I prepare a bottle of baby formula.

I'm caring for a couple of one-week-old puppies. Someone picked up a stray dog that on top of being pregnant, was plagued with mammalian tumours. This person set up a raffle to fund the operation (very proactive, and very effective so far!) and the dog ended up in my vet friend Karin's clinic. Aside from pulling endless nasty matter and her matrix, out came 11 puppies. The dog might not make it, it seemed, but she did. So did the puppies, all of them, but the mother is resting, relieved from quite a burden I suppose, and can't care for them. So I brought a couple home, as other people have, to support the cause, help my vet friend who had to feed them all, and be amazed by life. And because puppies are cute.

I talked it over with Andrew first, of course. He likes animals but this type of commitment was something else, and I had to make clear that it would be my responsibility to care for them. He said he was ok with it and has been pretty cool about it: he helps me prepare the bottle sometimes and today when I came home rushing because I was late to feed them, I found him feeding them. He's made sure they're comfortable and warm. He bought today a hot water bottle because they'd been whimpering and it turned out they were a little cold. They're more quiet now. Also, he advised me to check on them hourly so they won't soil themselves.

Of course. "Feeding hour" includes gently stimulating their genitals so they can learn to pee and poo. Now it's best to do it every hour or so. The mother does it with her tongue, I do it with a wet cloth. I love and respect all animals already, but I had yet to experience the task of caring for defenseless puppies (don't tell me about human babies!*) and I don't know how stray dogs manage. The puppies suck vigorously and squirm to no end when they're awake. They're actually pretty fast to get away when they're searching for a warm body.

[* Andrew's grandmother asked me when we'll have a baby. She seemed pleased with my response: it's in our plans within a few years but first I have to settle down here and find a job and make sure we can care for him or her properly. Which is all true, anyway. I'm still not digging the idea of getting pregnant, it's not something I'm eager to experiment, however magical it may be. But it's Good Guy Andrew we're talking about as the father (he was smiling the first time he was preparing the bottle, testing the temperature like a pro), and also I take pride in part of my own genotype, so I haven't ruled it out completely.]

We named the puppies Kramer and Newman. Some thought it was in honor of mathemathicians but it's all about Seinfeld. Once the puppies can feed themselves, in about a month, I'll bring them back to the vet clinic and they'll be up for adoption, after getting their shots and spayed/neutered.

See, this was a great chance to have a dog for a while. And I don't have to walk them or worry about them doing their thing on the carpet. They do it over the sink, sometimes at my command. The cats were a little freaked out at first but now they just get close and sniff and stare and then go away.

It's almost time to feed them again. I can't wait until they open their eyes.

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