Simba

We have friends that love Simba, and very willingly baby sit him when we travel out of town. Since we were supposed to be going to Denver on Tuesday, we had spoken with them about Simba staying with them while we were out. They agreed of course, but on the condition that they get to spend at least one weekend with Simba. So we had all agreed that Simba would go to their house this weekend, and come back home after we return from Denver. Our plans got changed, but our friends had already made plans around Simba this weekend, so we agreed to have him go spend the weekend with them.

They picked him up last night, and right now, I’m missing him terribly! I woke up this morning and went downstairs and it struck me that Simba is such a huge part of this house and our family that it is impossible to imagine life without him! The house is so silent. Not that Simba is a magic dog that talks, but he communicates. He makes us talk to him. He makes us have the semblance of a normal life, the feeling that we are in fact parents. He makes me refer to DH as Dadda when I talk to him, and makes DH refer to me as Mama. “Where’s Dadda, Simba?” makes him run and look for DH.

I’ve written about Simba before, and I mention him often here on my blog. Simba came into our lives when our first IVF failed. We had a huge need to parent, and take care of a little life dependent on us, and DH thought bringing a puppy home would be just the thing for us. It was. The little ball of fur, all of 6 weeks when he came home, was a wonderful outlet to our parenting instinct and our need to nurture something.

If the last 3.5 years of parenting Simba is any projection of how we’d be as parents, then I can’t wait for us to be parents to a real human baby! DH surprises me by being so gentle and calm with Simba, and I surprise myself with being so very patient with him. He knows Dadda is the one who takes him out and makes him play fetch, but he knows that if he’s in trouble, and Dadda is angry, then Mama will take care of him. He knows that if he comes and looks at me in a certain way, I’ll know he is hungry or is thirsty.

It was a scary realization today that if we didn’t have Simba in the house, and if our lives had proceeded the same way in other aspects, ie, if we were infertile and had had those losses, and were where we are emotionally, mentally, physically, it would be a very very depressing and lonely existence. Just the 2 of us in the house to deal with all of these raw emotions would be too hard to bear. Not that Simba offers any emotional advice, but he just takes away so much pain by wagging his tail or licking the tears away!

After my ectopic pregnancy, we talked about getting another puppy – and we still might. It’s just that from then on we’ve been traveling to Denver practically every month, and we didn’t think it would be fair to bring home a new puppy and have to leave him/her in boarding or with friends so often.

All said and done, I miss the little guy! OK – he’s not little, he weighs over 90 lbs! Is it Sunday night yet?