A New Form of Contraception

Oh little Ella Belle...the cutest dog you will ever meet. She has a smooshy face (incidentally, that's her Native American name; Little Smooshy Face), floppy ears, puppy energy and sweet little Precious Moments Eyes. She has been an adventure ever since the first day we brought her home. She is so loving and she wants to be close to us all the time. That makes it hard to keep her off the bed at night since we are trying to teach her to sleep on the floor with her sister, Lexi. She loves us unconditionally and always feels so bad when we get on to her. She doesn't want to disappoint us, but she just can't help but chew the couch pillows, carpet, tissue from the bathroom trash or my shoelaces.

Having said all that, Ella has taught us that we are not ready for kids. Oh dear Lord, we are not ready. I mean I think if I accidentally got prego (Mom, don't you dare pray for that!) we would deal with it, get excited and jump into parenting. But, being that we are both a little bit Type A, we are planning on having kids in a few years after things have settled. Here is a list of things Ella has taught us and the incident that brought about the teaching moment:

Poop in the crate-somehow when Ella would poop in her crate it got everywhere. It wasn't just a little mess in the corner of the crate, it somehow managed to climb the walls and get to the roof. It was like it had a life of its own, and its goal was to make me hurl.
Lesson Learned: We need a few more clean years before we start cleaning up messes from baby bodily functions, or any other weird kid messes.

Lack of Sleep: As I am sure many new mothers experience, Ella didn't come with a functioning internal clock. When she was younger, she had to go potty several times a night. Now, she just thinks it's okay to get up in the middle of the night and play. These are the nights when Jeremy gets up and happily (and by happily, I mean not-so-happily) gets up to put her in the crate hoping she will chill out.
Lesson Learned: I have an amazing husband. He knows I will be grumpy, tired and downright unpleasant if I don't get sleep. Plus, let's be honest, I sleep through the whimpers, jingling collar and that awful noise that Ella makes when she's gnawing on a bone. Also, we learned that we need a few more years of sleeping in (that's 8a.m. for us) and hanging out in bed. I don't think it's appropriate to put a crying baby in a crate in the middle of the night to make it stop. In fact, I am pretty sure Jeremy prosecutes people for crap like that.

Dog Budget: I think it would be an understatement to say our budget for kids would be slightly higher than the one we have going now for the dogs. We buy food about every three months, take them to the vet about twice a year (now that Ella is older) and buy them toys every once in a while. Financially, our dogs are pretty low maintenance.
Lesson Learned: (from Ella and Lexi) Kids are expensive. How do you people afford them? For that matter, how did our parents afford us? You don't even have to spoil them to spend a lot of money. I almost bought a friend diapers for a baby shower once and decided against it when I saw the price. Are you kidding me? Anyway, the point is that even the necessities cost a lot. Our budget needs time to prepare. :)

As I read back through this blog I laughed out loud. I realize that one day when I do have a little bundle of joy, I will read this and laugh. I mean, the truth is no one will ever be fully prepared for kids and that's part of the fun. Jeremy and I will learn together and it will be a wonderful experience. But for now...I would like to thank Ella Belle Sylestine for providing me with a little glimpse of what it will be like. For now, we will wait.