A LITTLE UPDATE FROM PETER PAN

this afternoon i got an email from cammy, the woman who helped us find peter pan's new home with the big back yard. from time to time she'll send us updates on peter pan, and from time to time they include photos, vet's office details (those darn bladder stones), and other tidbits. it's such a lovely gesture, but i have to admit: i have never been able to open any of those emails. i always forward them to brandon and ask him all sorts of questions later.

but this afternoon i got an email from cammy and i was feeling brave.

as soon as those pictures loaded and i saw those petey ears flopping in mid air, i knew he was happy. i could just see it in his sweet, weird little face. i know we made the right decision for him, and that makes me so happy. though now i know what he looks like not mine. and well, he looks just like peter pan, of course. and then i cried all over my computer. 

there's a part of me that wishes we'd never let him go, though i know we did the right thing for him. our yard in idaho ruined him for the city, and his new yard is perfect! there's an even smaller part of me that sometimes wonders if we should never have adopted him in the first place. but that part is so small it's barely worth noticing. peter pan gave me six years of pure love. he made me the mother i am today. i would have given him everything.

and so, i did. 

a peter pan shaped part of me will be empty for the rest of my life. a part of me will always belong to peter, and i am happy to let him keep it. i am so happy that he is happy.

here are a few photos cammy shared that i knew i had to post, since i know so many of you have cared for peter pan over the years.

doesn't he look great?

a little note on peter's new family: he has three siblings. a twelve-year-old sister, a ten-year-old brother, and a seven-year-old airedale that he is said to get along with like gangbusters. in cammy's words, when she dropped him off "he was very happy, and didn't look back." 

thank you, new family, for the photos. thank you for loving him for me. thank you for that big, lovely yard! and thank you, sweet peter pan, for everything. i miss you pretty bad.

if you are looking to adopt a pet, or if you find yourself in the situation where you can no longer give your puppies the quality of life they deserve, please, please consider a breed rescue group. i have been so moved and impressed by all of the wonderful work they do, both for the animals they are rehoming as well as the humans who miss them dearly.   

OF THINGS (OF IDAHO)

while we were in idaho for poppy's funeral, we managed to sneak away to the basement for an hour to look through some of our things from our old house in idaho that we'd boxed up when we moved to new york. 

our idea was to leave all of our things in utah until we knew where we'd be living after the holbsattorney graduated from nyu, and then come back to take whatever we needed. if we ended up in the suburbs, we'd take all of it. if we stayed in the city, we'd take just what we could use in our small space and put the rest in a paid storage unit. for an entire year i thought wistfully of my mismatched china collection, my cake plates, my sewing machine, and my wedding album, and of the day we'd all be reunited. oh, my things. it would be such bliss!

some months ago my father in law moved most of it to poppy's house in idaho. and so it was that we were reunited on the evening of poppy's funeral. for a scant hour. it was terribly romantic. 

in my dreams we'd have had the time to sort through each box right then, remove what we could use in new york, repack what could be left until later, and feel some kind of peace that things were where we needed them. instead, with just an hour to work, we listed our priorities:

1. find the kitchen aid so we could ship it to our apartment

2. find my wedding album so we could ship it to our apartment

3. find my guitar and fly home with it as a carry on

4. find my wedding dress, just so i could know it was there (silly)
5. leave the rest to be sent to a paid storage unit so we could deal with it someday

when i ripped into that first box marked "kitchen items" my heart nearly broke. there we were, our life in measuring cups and pyrex dishes. pots and pans and hot pads and teaspoons. our own little idaho in the middle of poppy's little idaho. and i cried. the insides of the boxes still smelled like our house, like our puppies, like our lives. it washed over me until i couldn't breathe. and i felt so defeated. there were so many boxes! boxes full of photos and journals and books and clothes, boxes of me, boxes of brandon. and i just wanted to be us in one place again. those things were just things and most were easily replaceable but some are so priceless i feel like they hold my whole soul. my horcruxes (nerd). but where were they? in which box? where were they and where was i? 

we found our kitchen aid, we found my wedding dress. we found my guitar. we couldn't find the wedding album (worrisome). but we did find an old scrapbook with these old photos of me inside looking very much like the huckster.

huck, i am your mother.

and then we packed it all back up.

storage is so funny. here comes the obvious statement of the year, but storage stays just as you left it, doesn't it? so that when you open it back up you can almost see yourself as you were in it. your movements and your packing decisions and what you were thinking as you stuffed newsprint in the corners. it's a time capsule of items both tangible and not. of the space where we once existed, of the air we once breathed. as we taped those first few boxes shut again i realized i was replacing that space with a new space. with poppy's space. and i realized i didn't want to open any more boxes. 

a few nights later i had a dream. i was in my little apartment in the city with my husband and my baby. the doorbell rang and there were my furbabies, my petey and my barney, come to visit me. their new owners explained that they wanted to make sure we were doing alright without them.

barney sat by me on the floor and rested his giant black head on my knee. he looked at my henry and my henry looked at my barney while i stroked his giant black eyebrows. i was glad he was there. i glanced over at peter pan, who was sulking in the corner having just peed on the carpet. he didn't want to be there, and i realized i had made the right decision for him. it was such a relief. a terribly sad relief. i patted barney on the head and got up to see my baby petey. i scooped him up to give him the proper goodbye i never got the chance to have. i buried my face in his neck and i inhaled the scent of his fur. i scratched his ears and i rubbed his back and i sang him our song. i told him how much i loved him, and how grateful i was for my time as his mommy. i told him he could go back to his life in the grass with the big yard and open sky. i told him i understood. i told him i was sorry. 

and then peter pan left me. out the door and into the sunlight. and i was happy for him, and glad that i had done the right thing for him that summer.

barney chose to stay. 

barney really needed a hair cut.

CHANGE, FOR THE DOGLESS

"people are always saying that change is a good thing. but all they're really saying is that something you didn't want to happen at all... has happened."

(thanks for leaving this quote in the comments, you know who you are)

once upon a time there was a girl with a big heart, who longed for a little family. she married a handsome young man with a heart the size of adventure, and the two of them set out to build that family. when it came along slower than anticipated, that short girl with that big old heart set out to glue together a family, piece by piece.

she called him peter pan.

***

when i created my little family, two parts human to two parts puppy, i meant for it to last forever. these last weeks have ripped me apart.

i talked myself into and out of calling it off a million times. writing the wire fox terrier rescue and saying, "i take it back, we're keeping him!" but every time i'd start, i could never finish. 

people always ask if it's because of henry. it was never about henry. when i adopted my boys, i adopted them knowing and hoping that we would add to our little pack someday with human babies. of course i knew that combining human babies and doggy babies would take vigilance, but i was prepared. henry was safe. the puppies loved henry. this was never about henry. 

it wasn't about simplifying my life, either. i never wanted a simple life. i want a life filled with love, and love is anything but simple. 

and it was never about convenience. i invited inconvenience in and i thrived on it. 

this was about my boys. this was about their needs, and making decisions based on what was best for them, not what was best for me. what was best for them broke my heart. 

we sacrifice an awful lot for this city life, and while we humans reap the rewards, the dogs in our life may not. the city life is a hard life for a dog. some dogs need what their owners can't give, as much as it hurts to admit it.

in five years we may be back in the suburbs, but five years is an eternity to a dog. i couldn't justify the limited life i was giving my fluffy boys. they deserved better than what i could give them, and when i realized that, it became so obvious what i had to do.

***

the cab pulled away on saturday evening.

i watched him jump in excitedly. i watched brandon reach his hand in to pat that fluffy head one last time. i reached my own hand in after him as the light changed and the meter started, but the door was shut quickly and my hand never found its target and the light was green too soon and then he was gone. i watched the taxi zoom up central park west for a brief second before it hit me. i had done it. the worst of it was over. i had sent my baby away to belong to somebody else. and then i couldn't breathe. i cried hard on the street into my baby's neck, while my husband squeezed my hand.

***

i think a lot about change lately.

my family has changed so much. some days i hardly recognize it. 

where once there was an empty ache, there is now my henry august, fat and happy on my hip. where there once were finals and classes, there is now a career with a paycheck. where there once were wheat fields and cows there now are brownstones and sky scrapers. 

i love my city life, but sometimes i grieve for moscow.

moscow was such a funny little time in our lives. and such a funny little town, untouched by time and hardly even existing at all once you left its tiny borders. it is easy to pretend that things can stay exactly as they are there, frozen in time forever just as i left them. the people, the places, my old narrow hallway extending to the back door, the patio we laid ourselves that hot summer in the sun, the rickety old lawn furniture propped against that old barn shed, the prickly grass, the hammock in the lilac breeze, my old pal mister sun.

some nights as i struggle to fall asleep i walk those quiet little streets in my head. i imagine i can feel the hot august sun beating down on my shoulders and coming up in waves against my legs through the concrete. i imagine i can the smell of the lilac trees and the earthy warmth of pine and wheat from the fields. i imagine i can feel the slow easing of my city life as it drains out from my fingers. the moscow of my mind is deserted and quiet and it is just me there, empty but for the ghosts of those i loved, slipping in and out like wisps of clouds in the atmosphere. i visit my little shoebox of a house on b street, the sandwich shop where i'd meet ollie and kendall for lunch, and all those street corners where so much life happened in my imagination on a momentary pause on an afternoon run. those old horses on d street and the llamas behind cleveland, and the middle school soccer games on the field and gyros at mikeys and visiting brandon on campus. betsy the flying potato. schweitzer engineering laboratories looming on that big hill in pullman to the west.

what a life we had there. beautiful and sad, just like it always is.

in the years to come i will always long for my little family of moscow, two parts human to two parts puppy. at times i will want it so desperately it will crush inward on my chest, pushing residual sadness down my arms.

but i am okay with it. because that is where peter pan and barnaby macduff will always be mine. where a little family of four will still sputter and ache and struggle to start. where a short, childless, romantic, big-hearted girl lives with them still.

they will always be mine, there.

LIFE LESSONS FROM A TERRIER

This morning on our walk, Pete decided to take a moment.

He sniffed along the curb for a bit, found things satisfactory, and then laid himself down on the hot sidewalk right outside our building, belly to concrete, and refused to budge. 

I was running late already, and feeling impatient, and after tugging fruitlessly for a bit I looked down at him over the bald head of my baby and pondered his scruffy face. 

Suddenly there he was again, my Petey, just like old times. Like nothing had changed. Boy had I missed him. He looked up at me inquisitively, possibly wondering why I was staring at him so strangely. 

"Should we find you a park bench in the sun then?" I asked, relinquishing my agenda and all of the shoulds of the day and pulling softly on his green nylon leash. 

He looked up at me lazily and yawned and stretched his gangly white legs, and then set about the business of watching cars pass by on the road, just right there, where last night all our garbage bags awaited their pick up. Like this was something he could do--lay on the sidewalk instead of fulfilling every silly expectation. 

It was such a significant, dumb moment that I nearly shouted. I wanted to laugh, and I wanted to cry, and maybe also just a little bit I wanted to lay down there with him and forget about everything else, too. Just me, my puppy baby, my chubby baby, and the hot, stinky street slowly warming our climate-controlled bones. 

Instead, we settled on a sunny park bench, a suddenly free morning, and some people watching. I mean, after all, I was wearing a skirt.

The park was quiet as I cancelled some plans, and then we eased into doing absolutely nothing. We watched some horses clomp by carrying their tourist cargo, we discussed the weather with a nice old lady and her fluffy Maltese. Pete lay until the laying was laid, then got up and bravely cleared his way through some awfully tall weeds along the side of the bench, sniffing for worms I'm sure. And then we paused to watch an older gentleman jogging down the street in a track suit made of plastic, his curly hair glistening with sweat. It looked terribly uncomfortable.

Sometimes in life things are so obvious that it catches me by surprise, which is so weird to me. Shouldn't obvious things always make sense? But even in the best of times, roads are windy and decisions feel strange. Doesn't life sometimes feel like a big old ball of string, with one more person to disappoint, and one more expectation you know you will struggle to meet? I can't please everyone, and in trying, I lose sight of all of the beautiful things most worth seeing. I'm learning the hard way to accept that and move on.

It was a good lesson today from that silly white dog of mine with the long, scruffy nose. To just lay down on the concrete, and maybe sniff at a passing bug, and let the obvious things in life be the most important things for a bit.

Thanks for that, Pete.  

LOVE NOTE FOR A BEAGLE

dearest leila girl,

thank you ever so for letting us watch you this week. didn't we have a lovely time?

thank you kindly for the thoughtful souvenirs you left us (all your doggie hairs). we will cherish them always. they make my baby sneeze.

thank you for that one time when i really only meant to walk you around the block, but instead you took me on a grand tour of central park. you are so terribly (i mean wonderfully) stubborn. that was a very pleasant walk, once the first mile was over and you had broken my will. 

brandon says he will miss how daintily you did not pee on your paws. could you teach that to my boys? especially the black one.

thank you for coming with us on our family powwow to our spot on the grass the other day, and for enjoying that nice drunk guy with us ("i'm gay? . . .  so i don't have kidssszzzzzz, i have caaaaaaatsss. my name is dougggg.") he was nice though, wasn't he?

lastly, thank you for giving my boys the chance to be such gentlemen. they sure do love having a lady around to dote on.

loves and hugs and kissy-kissies,

auntie natalie & big uncle brandon

this week we thought maybe peter pan was dying

i have this dog. his name is peter pan.
peter pan has a dream.
his dream is to die by eating lots of socks.

weekend plans

this weekend we are hosting a very special lady at our house. her name is leila.

her human is our neighbor mareika.
mareika is in the hospital for radiation treatment this weekend,
it is a total party over here.

barnaby is especially excited to be having slumber parties with leila. 

he is in loooooooove with leila.

peter pan, of course, remains a confirmed bachelor.

 

(plus he ate two wet wipes today, so he's feeling a little tooty.)

this weekend my mom and i are hitting up the brooklyn flea market, seeing a taping of late night with jimmy fallon, eating our fill of dim sum at china fun, and then going churching on sundee. and of course, macking on this guy:

babble from this week:

iiiintroduuuuciiiiingggggg: huck!

how to raise a baby in just 300-square-feet, and all of the things you get to live without.

my favorite iPhone apps (hint: forever 21, duhhhhhh).

this is the post wherein i talk ad nauseum about all my hair falling out.

everybody has opinions on sleep training. what are yours?

world peace and diakriah (poops)

huck's mocs are from the ever-fabulous freshlypicked
mine are from the crew-jay

it has been four days now, and we are still living with the excitement of peter pan's remarkably unreliable intestinal pyrotechnics. i am telling you, that dog really knows how to live life to its fullest! 

so far one sock has resurfaced from the great and terrible panbowels, but it seems there may be more in there. how many baby socks are we missing, anyway? i can tell the city hasn't been as fun for pete this time around, and as usual, he is taking his anger out on socks. we're starting to wonder what should be done. 

for now, we are making sartorial decisions based on what does not involve socks (i.e., dog poison). mocs, not socks! 

today peter pan walked around all day with a q-tip stuck in his beard

i don't think he minded it a bit.

it's my job not to play favorites

I spent half of my day today laughing at the memory of my ginger sitting at the Met Cafe, eating a PBH and some pudding, and saying to me "Do you remember that whore unzipping my jacket?"

To which I stopped everything I was doing and said, 'WHAT?'

To which The Holbs looked at me innocently and said,

"The horse? Do you remember?"

I do remember the horse that unzipped Brandon's jacket, because that was the day I almost died. We rode Brandon's cousin Scottie's dang horses in the snow for ten minutes before mine got all grouchypants and I had the sudden realization that I WAS SOMEBODY'S MOTHER and as such SHOULD NOT BE RISKING MY LIFE.

I spent the other half of my day congratulating myself on finally figuring out that my baby is not angry or mean spirited, but rather he is sleepy. lightbulbs! I had no idea babies slept so much. All day long, really. Even when they stop falling asleep on their own.

Tricky, those babies.

Less tricky are dogs.

For instance. If you notice a dog is missing, and also so is the other half of your candy cane, chances are high that they are both together, enjoying sweet puppy love making, under your bed.

Dogs are so easy! I should write a book. Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Dogs. Is what I would call it.

Did you know sometimes you have to help your puppy go to sleep, even when he does not act tired?

There is nothing worse than an overtired terrier.

The husband is off watching a football game with friends tonight, and so it is just me and the dogs and the off-and-on sleeping baby holding down the fort, and as such there is nobody here to keep me accountable to anything. How many Diet Cokes have I had tonight? THERE IS NO WAY OF KNOWING!

The other half of my day I spent staring at this part of my apartment:

Oh boy I am turning into my mother, and all I want to do is stare at this corner and ask myself out loud what I am going to do with it.

What am I going to do with it??

It is in my nature to just stick everything that is appealing to me onto the walls and call it good, but I have been informed by The Boss (he wishes) that this apartment is "too small to be cluttered."

Which is too bad, because the other day I acquired these guys.

So.

And now to cap this off, here is Barney:

For All My Ho-Ho-Hos

A few weeks ago I got an email from a reader who said,

Sorry to be a demanding blog reader but . . . will Santa Pan return this year?

As if I could stop him!

Dear Santa Pan,

I have been a very good girl this year. 

For Christmas I would like:

an iPhone 

(since I ask for one every year),

and maybe a good job for my Holbstudent when he graduates.

xoxo,

Me

(You get to ask Santa Pan for super extravagant things, it's sort of his forte.)

* * * * * * * *
If you have been good this year,
and would like to tell Santa Pan what you want for Christmas,
I'd be happy to pass along the message
to
him,
for
you.
* * * * * * * *

Merry Christmas!

Some Things To Share

First of all . . . 

this.

In other news

this is cute. 

Guess Who Else Has A Birthday This Week?

Peter Pan! He is five today. Five!

This is our long-standing family birthday tradition. I hope you enjoy my large pregnant butt in the freeze frame, and my large pregnant face for the remaining two minutes. There's just really nothing I can do about it.

Happy Birthday, Pete!

Sundays In The Park

Our new warm weather Sunday tradition is afternoon picnics in the park. 

Me and Baby Huck like to people-watch.

Barney likes chewing sticks. :)

This One Is About Barney

The only people who take transitions worse than women who are seven and a half months pregnant and filled with impossible nesting hormones, are dogs.

Every day B and I put on our shopping shoes and trod off to the next furniture store to see if they sell chairs that are small enough, or dressers that are small enough, or shelves that are small enough, so that maybe they can come and live in our Green Bathroom Central Park Palace of Tiny Wonders.  It is quite the effort, involving multiple bottles of water, miniature measuring tapes, in-depth subway route strategy meetings, and lots snacks for the suddenly ravenous pregnant girl.

Some days I have three lunches. I am so tired of eating!

And then at the end of all this we run home to walk the dogs.

My favorite part of this is when we come home, and we click the lock open, and then there are our two furball butt heads greeting us at the door wearing their best WUH-OH! faces.

And then, the carnage.

Mostly it is not terrible. Mostly it is just Message Destruction, which, as opposed to Boredom Destruction, is not so very awful.

Message Destruction is when you pull it all out of the garbage can and strew it about just-so, in order to convey to the humans the power for evil you could possess should things continue on in such an undesirable canine manner.

Boredom Destruction on the other hand . . . total annihilation.

And it is never terribly clear-cut who did what in these escapades. Sometimes the garbage has been procured from tall structures (only Barney would dare to leap to), and sometimes the garbage has been recovered from deep caverns (only a Peter-length face could reach). The nature of the artistry usually leans toward The Pan, who never commits to anything less than the ultimate of high expression, but then the guilt in the room upon our return is heavily Scottie in nature, and so I am never sure who to blame.

Except, as the higher-intelligent being, it really does fall to Peter Pan to be a better example. That sounds stupid even as I type it.

But today was the best. Today, after a marathon day in Brooklyn, we returned home to a pristine apartment, with our two butt head dogs wearing their best angel faces. We thought, Hallelujah! Praise Mayor Bloomberg! The dogs are all right!

But actually there were nefarious plots afoot, and not ten minutes after I arrived home, the king of our apartment, Sir Barnabus MacDuff, waltzed into the bedroom where I was napping, planted a fragrant load right in the corner, and then casually strutted out.

The minute his furry behind had crossed the threshold to the living room his guilt set in, and I could hear him scurrying about in a delighted panic.

As I lay there overcome with the aroma of death, I imagined I could hear his thoughts translated through the tapping of his toenails on the hardwoods, like morse code.

"I poo-ed! I poo-ed! She's going to catch me! Weeeee!"

I got up and made all my angry noises and shook all my fingers at Barney, while he wiggled in half-brained guilty excitement and launched himself into the green bathtub for cover, his ears tucked back against his head and his eyes darting about nervously. I was headed to the bathroom myself for supplies, and when Barney realized I was coming he shot out of the tub with glee and barreled directly toward his crate, his back half twisting so forcefully he looked like a rocketing corkscrew.

All of our Target purchases were piled in the doorway to his crate and when he realized he couldn't get in he started scrambling in the opposite direction. Redirect! Redirect! He chose to make for higher ground and made a last-second crooked leap toward a tall cardboard box. One minute he was landing on top of the box in triumphant splendor, and the next minute the box was swallowing him whole. I watched his shocked little face disappear and heard a yelp of surprise, followed by a great scramble of dog against cardboard as he ran about in chaotic circles, not sure if he was safe inside or if he was stuck forever, and obviously loving every second of it.

Peter Pan, meanwhile, had this certain expression on his face, like possibly he had put Barney up to all of it and felt marginally guilty for how it had turned out, but still relieved that, for the moment, the dumb black one seemed to be gone for good.

I opened the flap to the cardboard box and took a good look at my little prisoner, who by now had gotten the pleasure of pooping indoors and going on a wild adventure, and then I looked at Peter Pan, who had by now composed himself and was now staring at the wall with a bored expression, and I said to myself,

"Shoot! We forgot to look at lamps while we were out!"

the problem with dogs as babies...

is that dogs can't be babies
not really, anyway

babies can fly inside airplanes
and be taken to restaurants
and ne worried and stressed over
and nobody looks at you funny

as long as your baby
isn't a dog baby
that is

the problem with dogs as babies
is that dogs can't be babies

babies are people
and dogs aren't people
even if you love them
just like people
which is confusing
but that's just the way
it is


the problem with dogs as babies
is that you can't be a mama bear
when your baby bear is a dog

people will look at you strange
and question your priorities
and obviously
you are wrong

real babies
clearly take precedence
over dog babies


i guess i have lots to learn
about dog babies
and real babies

because if you asked me today
i'd tell you

that these dogs
are my babies

and i'd really, really like to make this work.

Peter Pan, Two Minutes In The Life

Presenting,
Pan The Man, 

an artful exhibit of Photo and Prose. 

I Pete, 

Therefore, I Pan.

Hello! And behold as I scratch my chin in masterful strokes!

Do you not admire this view of my very manly parts?

Do you not appreciate my lithe form as I scratch mine ears?

And, I rest.

What, pray tell, are you staring at?

Behold! I come when I am called! For I am certain this man hath treats!

Pay attention to me as I bring hither yon toys, woman of the species! 

I command unto you, that ye shall play with me!

I SAID, PLAY WITH ME!

Oh! 

Do I not sit like a champion?

Do you not admire my very whiteness and fluff?

Will you not throw it already?

Behold my indecision! 

The Orange Ball? The Pink Cone Thing? 

She threw it!

fin