Momnesia

My life revolves around four things, in this order:

• Emerson - daughter, 12 months old, ferocious and precocious
• Scrabble - mini fox “terrorist”, 18 months old this month, nervous and untrained
• Work - neverending, sometimes household, sometimes writing
• Scott - husband, 34 years old, harried and studious (sorry, Scott, but you can feed and walk yourself)

But most stories do not feature my husband, because he is normal. It is the rest of us who are mad.

Scrabble is a HUGE baby. I took him to get his quarterly cleanings and flea dip (and they do something with his butt that I don’t ever want them to tell me about again), and he refused to go near the nice groomer.

When they took him in the back, I could hear him shrieking at the top of his lungs. His shrieking set off all the other dogs and Emerson, who gets really freaked out when Scrabble howls.* Their nice quiet morning turned into canine mania. Thank you, Scrabble; we didn’t even have an appointment.

He’s lost his mind since we found a home for Halley (a fosterdog we took in from an abusive home). We keep taking in little doggie friends, and then sending them off into the great unknown, but it’s not as though he lacks for stimulation.

Por ejemplo, Emerson views him as her own personal horse-and-carriage. She latches on to his fur and he drags her around the floor trying to get away while she laughs hysterically and I chase after them shouting, “Scrabble! Sit! Stay! Come here! Gah! Emerson, no! Let go of Scrabble’s fur!” none of which either of them acknowledges. This is because Scrabble is 100% deaf, we found out from the vet, unless we’re holding a treat. Then God creates a miracle until we feed him. Amazing.

Inevitably, Emerson loses her grip and slips onto the floor, sometimes smacking her head, or her hand, or nothing, and whether or not she’s landed on or injured some part of her, she freaks out like we just slammed her hand in a door or are playing the harmonica.

FYI: Emerson does not like harmonicas. I do not know why, but I do know that it is funny. She doesn’t mind them being there. It is the playing that upsets her.

Good times.

* Last week a little shi tzu (sp?) wandered into the yard and I took him in until his owner got home. This little dog almost did not survive his stay because Emerson was going to kill him.

Scrabble is a nerd. He has no social skills and thinks Humpfest 2006 is rad. He is wrong. Brownie tried to tell him so, by yipping at him to get him to leave him alone. Then it was yapping, then nipping, then snarling. Y'all, Scrabble does not do subtle. He does not do requests. He only does Scrabble on 10 (but he goes to 11).

After four hours of sexual harassment, Brownie lost his shit and chased Scrabble into the kitchen, snapping at him. Scrabble howled but here wasn’t a scratch on him and, frankly, sometimes lately I want to chase him into the kitchen and bite him, too.

But Emerson, seeing this, let out a mighty roar and tried to kick her way out of my arms to go after Brownie, whom she had previously found highly amusing and super furry. “Now,” Emerson said, “It is ON!” Of course, I did not let go of her until I was sure her combat skillz were until control.

But thereafter, whenever Brownie came near, she would reach out as if to pet him, then shriek “NAH!” and swing at him. My one-year-old was trying to start sumthin'. I had a mental picture of her in a bar at the ripe old age of five, sitting in a fog of cigarette smoke punctuated by tequila shots, scowling at other patrons and inisiting, "Yeah, I was in the shit."

She produced the shit, I can tell you that...