Sunday, April 19, 2015

Nothing’s fishy like picking a new pet


We are pet people through and through.
When my husband and I first met, I had four cats (yes, I realize how that looks). Together we also acquired two dogs, a purebred puppy and an older shelter dog. Sure, having six pets was a lot of work, but hands down it was totally worth it.
And through natural attrition, we are now down to two cats and one dog. One of my concerns when he started having human children (yes, my pets are my babies, too) was whether the stress of having an infant around would be tough for the four-legged children.
Those worries turned out to be unwarranted. Through lots of coaching about “soft touches” and “no tail pulling,” we came through the baby age relatively unscathed. My son, 3, now even has his first household chore: feed the dog.
It’s a daily disaster. There’s a massive dog food bin, where he unscrews the top and finds a scooper inside. Despite my attempts to get him to take small scoops, bigger is always better for my boy, and he insists on getting heaping scoopfuls. This usually equates into dog kibble skittering all over my kitchen floor.
But it’s a job he treasures, so we dutifully vacuum up the chaos until the next day.
Now I’m thinking he might be ready for his first pet that is all his own.
Through my research — OK, extensive Googling, really — I learned that having a pet can be quite beneficial for developing children’s social skills. The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry says having pets for children helps develop self-esteem and self-confidence and can aid in creating trusting relationships with others. There also are indicators that say having pets around children helps little ones develop non-verbal communication, compassion and empathy.
But what kind of pet would be good for a 3-year-old? On a recent trip to Meijer, inspiration hit: a goldfish. I can imagine it now — little Goldie swimming around, my tot gently pinching in the fish flakes, him whispering his childhood secrets to his finned friend.
In reality, it will be more like him dumping an entire container of flakes into the bowl and yelling for Goldie to do more than just swim — and I can only imagine how many Goldies we will go through to keep up the charade.
It’s a small price to pay for boosting your kid’s self-esteem, right? How hard can one more pet be (whimper)?
— Sarah Leach is editor of The Holland Sentinel. Contact her at sarah.leach@hollandsentinel.com or on Twitter @SentinelLeach.

Monday, April 6, 2015

‘Tired’ doesn’t even begin to cover it

One of the questions I field most frequently is, “How are you feeling?”

Usually, this is just one of those obligatory niceties and no one expects you to go into your gripes about sleep or nausea or stretch marks. In polite company, you are expected to say you’re doing well so no one has to worry too much about you and everyone can go about their day.

In my situation — I’m at the 22-week mark in my pregnancy — and I have to be honest, I’ve been lying to people for the most part.

Now, it’s not like I’m having an awful go of it. Millions of women have severe morning sickness at some point in their pregnancy — although why they call it “morning sickness” when it strikes at just about any time of day is beyond me — and I’m a lucky duck as far as that’s concerned.

And I feel like I don’t have much of a right to complain at all. After all, anyone who reads this column knows I tried to get pregnant for two years and fought long and hard along the fertility treatment path to happiness. So after all that, I’m pretty sure I’m a schmuck to whine at all.

The only reason I even bring it up is because I feel like I’m outright lying to people, even my closest friends and family.

The truth is I’m tired. I mean drop-dead, bone-weary tired. Sure I’m not sick per se, but for the past month I’ve felt like I can barely do anything. I walk across the room and I’m wiped out. I fold a load of laundry and I need a nap. Someone suggests any sort of outing that involves me getting out of a vehicle and moving any part of my body and I have an entire inner-monologue session to convince myself that no, this is not, in fact, a death sentence.

I just don’t know how I did this the first time around. I first pregnancy was a dream. It was my regular life with the addition of some kicks, a waddle and some heartburn. This time around, I can barely get everything done.

Maybe it’s because I’m older. Someone suggested it’s because I’m already a mom this time around. My theory is that I have a parasite. Not trypanosomiasis (otherwise known as African sleeping sickness); I mean a literal parasite sucking everything it can out of me to grow big and strong.

I say that with no malice in my heart. What baby wants, baby gets. But now that I just wrote a 400-word-plus column, I’m pretty drained. I think I’ll just lay down for a bit.

— Sarah Leach is editor of The Holland Sentinel. Contact her at sarah.leach@hollandsentinel.com or on Twitter @SentinelLeach.