When I’m tending to Kulia, Leina has learned to amuse herself. Today, while I was nursing, burping and diapering the smallest McLaughlin, I happened to watch Leina at play.<\/p>\n
She had a small bowl full of goldfish crackers and was munching away. At her feet sat Artie, drool flowing freely from his large black jowls. He watched her with big pathetic dog eyes as her hand went from bowl to mouth and back again. Leina sat quietly, watching Artie watch her.<\/p>\n
“Honey, why don’t you share with Artie?” I asked.<\/p>\n
“Sure, mom,” Leina replied.<\/p>\n
Carefully, she selected a fishy and held it forth. The drool began falling at an even more rapid pace and Artie’s tail began thumping. Then, Leina popped the fish into her mouth and sucked on it for a moment or two removing all the salt. Once properly de-salted, she removed the fishy and held it loft again. Artie, who saw his chances for a tasty, if somewhat soggy and saltless treat, revived and the drool began gushing at an alarming rate. But Leina wasn’t done yet. Next, she very carefully placed the head of the fishy between her front teeth and bit the head off. With great purpose, she slowly chewed the goldfish head while holding the tail remnant between her fingers. Artie began scooching in place. Surely, that tail was for him! Sure, it was soggy, de-salted, and deheaded, but gosh darn it, it was coming his way!<\/p>\n
Leina swallowed and studied the fish tail in her hand. Then, she very carefully placed the little soggy tail piece between her teeth and….chomp. She bit it in half. I’m surprised Artied didn’t just lunge at her right there but no, he’s a good dog. He sat all a quiver, intently focused on that one….. last….. nibblet. It was tiny. It was soggy. It had all the flavor sucked off it but Artie didn’t seem to care. If anything he was more excited to get his big old teeth on that tiny little half of a goldfish cracker tail than ever.<\/p>\n
Leina regarded the remains of her small cracker and magnanimously tossed that sad little bit on the ground. Artie lunged. He gulped. And then he returned to the foot of the sofa to watch Leina select another fish and oh so carefully pop it into her mouth and begin to suck.<\/p>\n
This routine was contined for several goldfish. Finally, I took pity on Artie and gave him a piece of bread to eat because Leina’s idea of “sharing” seemed more akin to torture to me. However, Artie didn’t seem to mind. He was happy so long as that last nibble was for him.<\/p>\n
Sometimes, I feel so much like Artie. It seems like as soon as I get one kid settled the other has an issue. Kulia blows her diaper, Leina can’t find her blankie, Kulia needs nursing, Leina wants milk in the red sippy cup NOT the blue one, Kulia decides to spit up all over herself, Leina demands an episode of Jojo. On and on. Yesterday, I had 12 precious minutes to myself when their naps happen to overlap. Yes, that’s right. Twelve minutes alone without a child. My very own soggy, niblet of a goldfish tail. But like Artie, I didn’t look a gift in the mouth no matter how miniscule. No siree, I grabbed a magizine and headed for the bathroom for some luxurious 12 minute alone time.<\/p>\n
Like they say, dogs and mommies can’t be choosers and half a tail is better than nothing at all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When I’m tending to Kulia, Leina has learned to amuse herself. Today, while I was nursing, burping and diapering the smallest McLaughlin, I happened to watch Leina at play. She had a small bowl full of goldfish crackers and was munching away. At her feet sat Artie, drool flowing freely from his large black jowls. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-artie","category-family"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2Kqhb-bA","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=718"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1311,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718\/revisions\/1311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}