Kids or canines

As mothers for generations have, I often find myself watching our kids play, sleep, interact with each other and with their friends. I’m amazed at the things they conjure up in their imaginations. The games they invent. The jobs they undertake to pass the time.

No doubt I’m not alone. Kids are and have been for years undisputedly the greatest improvisers, workers, investigators, and performers in all of God’s creation. And these are only a few of their most admirable qualities. Qualities we grown ups should take a lesson from once in a while.

However, there are times when I’m enjoying the blissfulness that is a little boy’s childhood, that I have to wonder if maybe something went wrong. Did our genes somehow mutate in utero or did my undying loyalty to our longtime family Lab somehow seep into my children’s utter being? It’s a question I sometimes find myself wondering and one I can’t help asking: Am I raising kids or canines?

It might sound like a joke, but seriously, kids and dogs really do have a lot in common. After all, who hasn’t caught their child peeing in the floor at least once in their early, developmental years? If I’d have had half the insight then as I do now, I’d have had my house lined in puppy pads. It’s true.

But kids just do crazy things like that; at least ours did. They were improvising. Trying their best to solve a problem on their own.

Take for instance, a dog’s innate drive to dig. Is it really so different for a little boy? Since they were old enough to sit up on their own, our boys have loved being in the dirt. Whether they are driving cars and trucks or sliding into home, there’s just something about being one with the meat of the earth. And it doesn’t end there. We have more than one hole at our house that looks as if someone is searching for a new route to China. “I’m digging for gold,” my little guy will say. I’m not sure he’ll find any gold, but he sure is learning how to work.

Another kinship between boy and beast? If you leave the gate open, they will both get out. This I’ve learned the hard way. Kids are investigators, just like our pets. If there’s an unusual scent lingering about the yard, ole Bessie will grind her nose into the ground checking it out. And our kids are no different--minus the nose grinding, of course.

And don’t they all love to perform? I learned early on that neither kids nor dogs will actually perform their little tricks on command. I had a dog once that would fetch till his feet were bleeding…if I was the only person at home. And kids really aren’t that much different.

“Where’s your nose? Where’s your nose?” Parents ask these crazy questions in their nonsense voices and expect their babies to break out in true Fred Astaire-ian style with a song and a dance about the location and function of their little button nose. Most times, however, the kid will look back at the parent like they are mad-silly. Oh yeah, they’ll perform. But on their own time.

And they don’t really grow out of that. We can catch our kids doing all kinds of amazing things if they don’t happen to know we are watching. I’ve peered through my kitchen window too many times to count, in awe of a six year old playing “fetch”. He throws the ball. He hits the ball. He fetches the ball. And he does it again and again, until his tail is too tired to wag and his tongue is hanging out.

Finally, the most endearing quality of both kid and creature is their undying, unrelenting, lifelong loyalty. No matter how many times we rub their noses in one of their dirty messes; no matter how many times we cringe at the sight of a new hole; no matter how many times they escape through an open gate; our children remain steadfast.

They hug our necks when we are angry. They make us smile when we want to scream. They lick our wounds in ways only little children know how.

Am I raising kids or canines? Sometimes it’s hard to tell. But one thing’s for sure, like any good pup, our kids are loyal to the end. Even after a good spanking.

And that’s All in a day’s work!