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Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Bringing Home Puppy

Wanting to be the prepared mother of not one but two children, I headed, or I should say waddled, out to the local bookstore in my third trimester of pregnancy. My plan was to peruse the parenting aisles to find a book which would reveal the magic I needed to ensure that there was as little jealousy as possible between my older son (OS) and my younger son (YS). Confident that there would be a secret, fool proof method, or at the very least a well-known fool proof method, I began to read books on bringing home the second baby. All the advice looked very familiar. I felt as if I had done this already. How could that be though when I only had one child? I had never dealt with siblingitis before now. And then it dawned on me I had actually done this twice. It just hadn’t been with human siblings. I did it to help my cats welcome their younger canine brother, and to help my dog welcome his younger human brother, OS. It was like the sky parted and the clouds of nervousness lifted. I was finally a PRO at something that had to do with parenting. The day had finally come where I could learn from my own lessons. I modified what I had done before and applied it to OS.

According to my parenting manuals on preparing children for the birth of their siblings, one of the first things you are supposed to do is to prepare a “big brother box.” This is basically a container of bribes you give the older child to put up with the new baby. That sounded just like the plastic pet store bag I had put together for my cats, (although the contents were a little different). I had filled it with feather wands, furry mice and cat treats. This was all in the hope that they would be so impressed with the toys and treats that somehow they wouldn’t notice that a large golden retriever puppy had come to live us. Alternately, they would associate the puppy with new toys. Just like one would logically expect with human children, the cats were not fooled by this and thumbed their noses at their new gifts.

When OS came along, I stuffed a big cardboard box with squeaky toys and stuffed animals. This time, it worked. My dog, Gandalf, was fooled by this. (Did I mention that he’s a golden retriever?) OS was not given feather wands or squeaky toys, but he did receive a Magnadoodle (deluxe Magnadoodle no less accompanied by a big brother t-shirt) from his newborn brother and tons of toys from family friends. He is not a golden retriever, so unfortunately he was fooled for only a few minutes.

A second recommendation was to have a stash of small wrapped gifts close at hand (ie in a hall closet) so that if someone came over with a gift for the baby and not for the older child, one of the gifts from the stash could be grabbed and handed to the child. That way the older child wouldn’t feel left out. Hmmm… I did the same thing for Gandalf when I brought OS home. Whenever someone came in and would make a fuss over the baby, I would grab a new toy from the big brother box or a gourmet dog biscuit that I had bought especially for those times and give it to Gandalf. It did provide a TEMPORARY distraction. The key word being temporary. With the cats this wasn’t an issue since they don’t like loud noise or lots of activity. Since loud noise and lots of activity are practically guaranteed when someone stops by to see a new puppy, we didn’t see too much of the cats.

Another thing that the parenting manuals said to do was to hang a sign on the door (provided that your older child can’t read) asking guests to pay attention to the older child first. That was also very familiar! While, I didn’t hang a sign on the door when visitors came to see OS (even though we assumed that Gandalf couldn’t read), I did keep the baby in the bassinette and ask guests to spend a few minutes with Gandalf first. Again, while I think this idea diminished the potential for jealously, neither Gandalf nor OS were fooled by it. As said above, the cats were busy hiding (and later peeing on my bed) when guests came to visit Gandalf.

The manuals also suggested having the mother came into the house alone while the other parent drove the newborn around the block in the car. This is supposed to prevent jealousy issues. I don’t know who these experts tried this on, but it didn’t work for any of my children, 2 legged or 4 legged. When I brought Gandalf home I came into the house alone while my husband stayed in the car with the puppy. Immediately my cats came running up to me and begin meowing…for about 2 seconds. Then one of the cat’s meows turned into hisses, and she began shaking her tail. She pushed herself out of my arms and ran up the stairs. Not too long after there was pee on my bed (and no it wasn’t from my husband, the puppy, or me). OS looked suspicious when I walked in without his brother. Suspicion turned to outrage which turned into sulking which turned into a temper tantrum. All of these symptoms were treated with a nap upstairs.

The fourth thing the parenting manuals said to do was to spend special time with the older child. With the cats, this amounted to spending extra time shaking feathery wands for them. With the dog it involved taking him for extra walks and trips to the park. With OS it involves taking him to parent child swim lessons on Saturdays, which is like going to 10 dog parks in one hour.

A Elliot’s Lesson Learned: Whether parenting a two legged creature or a four legged creature, many of the skills are the same.

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posted by Alex Elliot @ 11:40 PM   1 comments
1 Comments:

  • At 9/26/2006 9:27 AM, Blogger Suzanne said…

    Makes me glad that I only have a sulky rabbit. Sometimes I forget how much you have going on in your household.

     
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Name:Alex Elliot
Home:MA, United States
About Me:Professional Mom of two cats, a dog, an ant farm, and oh yeah...two boys: a 6 year old and a 3 year old. Also found in my house is my husband who is known on this blog as The Big Giraffe.
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For those of us who didn't get an instruction manual with our babies and for whom parenting hasn't always gone as planned. On a more serious note this blog is about supporting a woman's ability to make her own choices about parenting including the choice, for whatever reason, to bottle feed her babies formula.

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