I am trying to find my voice on a parenting blog.  But let me do a small rant on one thing that bothers me.  Dogs.  Specifically, dogs who are replacements for kids.  If you don’t want to have kids, well that is all well and good.  Don’t have kids, live your life.  But don’t try and claim that your “dogs” are some kind of child for you.  They are not surrogate children.  They are dogs.  They are like really tall hamsters.  Your kid gets run over by a car, people are going to jail.  Your dog gets run over, well, that sucks.

I have friends that are thinking about having kids but in the meantime they talk about their “kids”, their dogs.  They post pictures of themselves with their dogs with captions like “Hanging with the kids”.  Their mother posts things like “Loving my granddogs”.  Did your dog have puppies and then they had puppies?  They might be your “Granddogs” otherwise, no.  Get off it.

Otherwise it just seems like you like the idea of kids, the “mystique” of children, but you really don’t want to deal with the hassle, the expense, the commitment.  Instead, you anthropomorphize your dogs and try and claim parent status without having to really put in the work or commitment.  Do you get up in the middle of the night to nurse your dog or comfort it because of night terrors or bad dreams (this is rhetorical, if you answered “yes”, please seek professional help).

So, no, your dogs are not your kids.  My kid’s crawdad is not his kid.  Nor are the cats our kids.  Our dog is not related to us in any way.  We own the dog.   Various meal-worms that we raise to feed to lizards, they are not our kids.  Baby goats may in fact be our kids, but I muddy the issue.

I see cutesy but belligerent shirts and posters about “Yes, my dogs are my kids.   I am going to talk about them as much as you do your kids.”  BS.  How do your dogs do in school?  What, they can’t talk or read?  What part of the autistic spectrum are they on?  You keep them on a leash?  CALL CPS!  They aren’t kids, you need to rethink your life.  You get over it.

 

Ha, actually in my family the kids can’t stand to be at the adult table.

I am thankful for a fantastic boss, and for you, the readers who actually willingly read my ramblings.  What is wrong with you?

Seriously though, I love you all.

Have a happy and safe Thanksgiving!

 

Last week’s poll asked how you felt about animals being kept for human entertainment purposes, and the horrible incident at Sea World Orlando was on my mind.  Thirty six percent of you think that it’s wrong and should be stopped, and forty percent of you felt that it all depends on how the animals are treated. Twenty percent were unsure, and three percent had no issues.  In the past I have had occasional twinges of guilt when visiting places such as Sea World, and to be honest, I hadn’t really thought a whole lot about it.  I’m trying to figure out if beholding the beauty and grandeur of such animals as the killer whale will inspire people to help maintain their natural habitats, but so far it doesn’t seem to be working all that well. 

Today on the Ides of March, a shout-out to one of my homegirls who was asking this question on Facebook.

Stay safe, have a great day, and have some pumpkin pie for me!

From the desk of the Munchkin

It is day 2 of my so-called “summer vacation.” Except I call it the most boring two days of my entire life.

The ogre in the other room, aka Mom, is refusing to buy me all of the toys that I know for absolute sure will make me never bored again. She keeps saying something about how she just bought me a really expensive Lego set for my good grades, yadda yadda yadda.

I know that I said it would make me the happiest little boy in the world if I got that Lego set and that I would play with it every day. I just now realize that I could be even happier with even more stuff.

Her suggestions to go outside and get some fresh air are good for only about ten minutes. There is only so much to do outside. It’s boring.

Then she had the ludicrous idea that perhaps I should pick up some of the thousands of Legos that adorn the floor of my room and the living room. Can you believe this woman? It’s summer vacation for goodness sakes! I worked hard all through the school year, and now I am on strike from any type of work.

My goals this week:

1. To harass the ogre at every turn about buying me more toys
2. To make a complete mess of the house within 10.3 minutes of waking up
3. To drive the ogre crazy

#3 is going well. #2 took me 13.7 minutes today, I’m going to have to train to get my time down. #1 is really easy.

The ogre says that maybe today we can go to Target and pick up some art supplies.

You know your life is pretty sad when going to Target is the best part of your day.

Some Sundays we just want to take it easy on the ol’ blog, particularly since that ol’ blog has been showing its age more than usually lately! So this Sunday we’re just going to post a lolcat and a few links of interest and pretty much guaranteed to be online at any given moment, which is more than you can say for us!

The bacon bra (Fracas)

Disturbing pacifiers? (LaughingStork)

Prince Harry is still not over my rejection (Bild)

Growing up Buckley: Mum and Pup and Me (Disembedded)

Diva gene breeds true to type (GlamBabyBumps)

The first rule of Donut Club is… (CelebrityBabyScoop)