Our daughter, we have learned, loves animals. Particularly, dogs. More specifically, our dog.
If you haven't read previous posts, Jack is our dog. A purebred boxer we bought from a pet store - something we'll never do again. Not because we hate the poor dog, but because he shows every sign of abuse that comes from being raised in a puppy mill. When we brought him home, one night I noticed a few scars on his legs. When we had trouble house-training him (He still loves to use our carpet as his toilet), the lady who helped us out in puppy classes told us that it is just something we'll have to continually work with him on, as puppy mill dogs are often never housebroken.
But he is our cowardly lion. I've never seen a dog bark so loudly the sheer brutality in his bark drives the mailman to literally drop packages and run to another house, but then Jack will hide from a cricket. Yes, I said a cricket. I have seen him run from a common housefly, and dance around a "pill-bug" outside in hopes to scare it away before the small monster bite him. I have even been witness to Jack running away from the wrath of the dreaded of a Monarch Butterfly.
So we were apprehensive, to say the least, when bringing our daughter home. In fact, I think to some extent I've blogged about this before. But now that Evelyn is up and paying more attention to the world, rather than discussing how Jack relates to her, I thought I'd mention how she loves to stare at Jack.
Stare. As in watch without blinking.
Then she tries to hug him. Or strangle him, her motives are often unclear.
We're inclined to think she loves him and is trying to give the poor beast a hug. Jack, the fool, often rushes in with that horrible depth-perception of his, popping my infant daughter in the nose with his under-bite, then licking her face as if she were a small, human ice cream cone.
The whole time Evelyn smiles like its the most wonderful joy in the world to have an animal who licks unmentionable parts of his own body use the same tongue to slap your face. My wife laughs and takes pictures because, in her mind, the children are playing together. In my mind, I'm just thinking I could probably find a small saddle that would enable use to have a "Jack Rodeo" and film it, put it on Youtube and get a ton of hits, elevating my daughter to the world's newest celebrity and open doors for her to go to Harvard completely free of charge.
This has probably been done before and isn't even funny anymore, but the dog is built like a horse and I clearly have an odd sense of humor.
All in all, I have to say, it has been nice to see she's neither allergic nor afraid of the big cowardly lion.
Now, if we could just get him to stop being afraid of crickets, and stop messing up our floors, we may just have something here.
