Critters enrich a family’s happiness

I love animals.

Cats are my people, so to speak. Dogs and I get along for the most part, but they can get smelly. I’ve tried fish a few times, but they always die.

But just because I have an affinity with my four-legged friends doesn’t mean I want to share everything with them. In fact, our pets — at current count one dog and two cats — have some boundary issues.

I wake up in the shape of a crime scene victim every morning with a cat on the legs and one under an arm. I live by the clock of a German shepherd’s bathroom cycle. I am enslaved to kibble, twice yearly shedding and endless kitty litter sifting.

The animals are just a part of our family, so it wasn’t much of a surprise when my son started taking an interest in our critters. It began with a squeal of delight whenever they would enter the room. Then it progressed with approaching them and trying to touch and pet them.

Yesterday I walked into the room with my son sticking his entire hand into our dog’s mouth.

Now, I trust my pooch, but even I’m not naïve enough to think any dog isn’t capable of reaching his breaking point and snapping at a mischievous child.

Now my job as a mom has expanded ever further to mind all my children a little more closely. I need to be vigilant about a dog tail knocking over the kid, the kid chasing the cats, the cats sneaking into the boy’s room and the circle goes on and on.

One bright spot is that all four of my “children” have an affinity for treats, including hot dogs and cheese. So when I am cooking, it’s not unusual to have several sets of eyes peeking through the baby gate trying to see what nibbles potentially await them.

And the best feeling in the world is seeing all of the critters lying in the living room relaxing before bedtime. There is something that just makes me melt when I see a little blond boy using his dog as a pillow and the shepherd slumbering peacefully all the while.

Yes, some days life is just perfect and it’s all because of my four-legged friends.

— Sarah Leach is editor of The Holland Sentinel. Contact her at (616) 546-4279 or sarah.leach@hollandsentinel.com.

Injuries highlight true parenting differences

“Could you grab me a paper towel?” my husband called from the baby’s room.

I was annoyed, because I was in the middle of cleaning up the kitchen and he does have arms and legs that function just fine, last time I checked.

My huffy demeanor quickly dissipated, however, when I walked in, paper towel in hand, and my son was bleeding. More specifically, he had a split over his right eye and the beginning of a good shiner.

My husband seemed completely unaffected, smiling away as he dried our son off from bath time and prepped a diaper and pajama outfit. My reaction was just a little different — just a tiny bit.

“What happened?” I cried.

“What? This?” my husband said, as he started dabbing the blood away from the offending cut. “He jumped in the tub, fell and cut his eye.”

I stared at my husband incredulously. He was acting as if this was no big deal.

“You could have said something,” I said. I was trying to get my stomach back to its rightful place after dropping to the floor.

“It’s not that big of a deal,” he said.

I could have throttled him. Didn’t he know that this was my baby? Didn’t he understand how serious this was?

There’s a distinct difference between men and women in terms of their reaction to injuries. I want to call in the National Guard; he wants to rub some dirt in it and walk it off.

Both approaches are a bit ridiculous, so I can only hope our children will learn to find some middle ground in our extreme approaches.

The following day, the bruise was big, but it didn’t look like our son needed medical attention.

My husband seemed disappointed.

“I was hoping that his first shiner would be a little more noticeable,” he said.

I was just thankful that the yearly daycare pictures were three days earlier.

— Sarah Leach is editor of The Holland Sentinel. Contact her at (616) 546-4278 or sarah.leach@hollandsentinel.com.

5 ways I sabotage my own happiness

Is it possible to be happy yet completely overwhelmed?

It’s such a juxtaposition that it hardly seems that in one breath you can appreciate all the wondrous experiences with which you have been graced, and in the next want to throw up your hands and run away from it all.

The cold, hard truth is that I have too much on my plate, but when I want to take something off, I feel like a failure or guilty that I should be more grateful for the fact that I’m better off than others.

I imagine many people feel this way, but just don’t want to reveal their innermost demons so publicly. But I’m an over-sharer, so let me just invite you in:

• I work too much: I am at the pinnacle of my career at a surprisingly young age. I put too much pressure on myself to deliver everything to everyone. I’m a woman and 35 years old, ergo I not only have to be competent, but superior in order to prove myself every single day. Anything less gives validation to my critics.

• I care too much: I wish I could take every person I’m at odds with and haul them into a counselor’s office so we could talk about our feelings. I keep convincing myself that if I can just say the right string of words and explain myself in the right way, it will all work out in the end. I keep clinging to the masochistic concept that if I pull off impossible things, I will lead by example and get others to follow.

• I worry too much: We’ve been trying to get pregnant with no luck. That is tough enough, but I’m having abnormal periods — 2 a month for 6 months — and the doctors can’t explain why. I’ve been poked and prodded in some very uncomfortable ways, but the bottom line is I have no answers. And with no answers, I can’t identify a solution. How could I have gotten pregnant so easily only to be mystified the second time around? What if I develop cancer that struck down my mother at such a young age? What if I never have more children? Not knowing leaves me in limbo and limbo leaves me not knowing how to feel about any of it.

• I don’t have a rock: This is not a criticism to those who love me. In fact, I think it’s my fault. I’m so set on not needing to lean on others — to avoid unnecessarily worrying them — that I don’t reach out for the hands that often are extended. I don’t have that perfect person you read about in books or watch in movies who just gets me in most vulnerable hour. Do they even exist in real life?

• I’m not a positive person: I habitually brace for the worst-case scenario, preferring to be pleasantly surprised than horribly disappointed. My life experiences have taught me this coping mechanism. It has served me well at times, but has hardened me in inexplicable ways, where I cannot revel in joy for more than a few moments before doubt and worry creep in.

I can’t do it all, but for some reason I keep trying, like a gerbil in an endless spinning wheel. I don’t know why I don’t give up — and I honestly don’t think I want to. Perhaps the struggle is the journey on which to reflect at the end of the road.

But now, in this moment, the mountain of obstacles seems insurmountable. All I have are these two hands, so I better stop whining and get climbing.

— Sarah Leach is editor of The Holland Sentinel. Contact her at (616) 546-4278 or sarah.leach@hollandsentinel.com.

Techno wizardry leaves me a bit uneasy

“We're born, we live for a brief instant, and we die. It's been happening for a long time. Technology is not changing it much — if at all.” ― Steve Jobs

Well, not to argue with the father of the iPhone, but technology makes a huge difference in my household. From the bottle warmer to the quick microwavable toddle meals to the books with sounds, technology has allowed me to open up endless possibilities for my son.

But with great power comes great responsibility, and that means monitoring that iPhone pretty closely when you have a toddler running around.

This past week, I was sitting with my son on the couch. He slyly pulled my phone into his hands, thinking he was really getting away with something. I smiled, thinking how cute he was, secure in the knowledge that he couldn’t do much harm.

I raised an eyebrow as he flipped the phone on its side. My mouth fell agape when he selected the correct button to light up the smartphone’s display screen. Then I watched in disbelief when he opened and clenched his hand over the phone until his fingers hit the screen just right to unlock the device for use.

How in the world did my 20-month-old learn how to operate a computer?

Part of what separates the babies from the grownups is that adults (in theory) know the ways of the world. Babies depend on us for certain things — food, clothing, stinky diaper disposal — and the adults are expected to provide.

It’s a little unsettling, however, when a child flirts with knowing more than you do. My son hasn’t even started forming sentences yet, and he knows how to take “selfies” with the camera on a cellphone. And just in case you thought this was a fluke, he learned how to unlock my husband’s cellphone, too, using an entirely different unlock mechanism.

Suddenly I don’t feel so secure in my technological superiority, and I’m wondering what else this kid can figure out. For now, the laptop is getting put on a higher shelf, the batteries are coming out of the DVR remote and I’m calling Apple to see if there’s a minimum age for new interns.

— Sarah Leach is editor at The Holland Sentinel. Contact her at (616) 546-4278 or sarah.leach@hollandsentinel.com.

I’m wishing for another round

Humans are funny in that they can never appreciate what the have — we always want more.

Case in point, I have a husband who finally took a job that keep him home, a job I can’t help but love and a 20-month-old who has me wrapped around his finger.

And yet I want more.

We have been trying to have another baby, but the ease we were blessed with the first time around has not graced us again. In fact, it’s getting pretty frustrating.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: “You’ve only been trying for a few months, these things take time, you’re still young, yada, yada, yada.”

We’ve been trying for six months and the minutes that are ticking down to my impending 36^th birthday are like war drums. I keep thinking that any minute, God will bless us again, but it looks like that’s not the plan for the immediate.

The doctor says I need to be patient, but that, “given my age,” we’ll take things to the next step if we’re not pregnant by the end of the year. But every month feels like an eternity.

So now, I am hoping and praying I have a little luck left.

Family ties grow stronger with burial

My husband finally met my mother this weekend.

It was short and sweet, and she didn’t say a word, but it meant the world to him.

In 1993, my mother died of liver cancer. She was 40 years old, a single mother, and I was her only child. There are many predictably soul-crushing aspects to this unfortunate life statistic, but I daresay I’m happy with my life.

I met a great guy, who for some reason beyond my comprehension, professed his undying devotion to me and asked for my hand in marriage. We had a zoo of pets that we poured our love into, and when we thought we were ready for a two-legged baby, the good Lord blessed us with a feisty son.

But there was something always bugging my husband.

“When are you going to take me to see your mother’s grave?”

It wasn’t the first time he had asked. In fact, he’s brought it up a few times during our six years together.

My mother is buried in Macomb County, where I grew up. And, even though I have only gone to the cemetery about a dozen times since her burial, I know exactly where the plot is. She is in a beautiful spot, near a large shade tree.

And now, my grandmother is finally with her. We traveled home to finally lay my grandmother to rest and bury her ashes next to her husband and daughter. It was a relief to know that she was at peace with those most precious to her, and it was cathartic to finally show my husband — and son — what was my most hallowed ground.

It was temperate day, with storm clouds threatening. The process was brief — almost anticlimactic — and then it was over. As I stood there, my husband took my son’s little hand and led him over to my mother’s grave.

“Ben,” he said, “this is your grandma. Can you say hello?”

Ben looked down at the gravestone I selected for my mother all those years ago and just stood silent, and I saw my husband grieve for a woman he never met.

Now that’s love, pure and simple, and I know my mother was pleased to finally make their acquaintance.

— Sarah Leach is the editor of The Holland Sentinel. Contact her at (616) 546-4278 or sarah.leach@hollandsentinel.com.

Graduation day makes me wistful

It’s tough to believe that this day has finally come.

My baby is graduating, and I couldn’t be more proud.

He worked really hard on all of his assignments, and his teachers said he always displayed a natural curiosity and precociousness rarely seen for his age.

I worked with his teachers every chance I got in order to have a good relationship with them. I attended every school open house, bought extra school supplies, brought in items from home to help him through his day.

My husband and I worked through work schedules, doctor’s appointments, travel, holiday weekends and our little one’s success is evident.

It’s weird seeing him move on, though, as he reaches toward bigger and better things. My husband and I wonder where the time went, as our little man starts branching out on his own.

It makes me wish I could go back in time and savor some of those milestones moments just a bit more. I should have scheduled more family outings so we had more memories to cherish.

At the very least, it has motivated me to try to make the most of the remaining time we have before he inevitably leaves the nest. My husband thinks I’m being a bit premature, but I am all too aware of how quickly the sands are falling through the hourglass.

And my son has done a great job meeting my expectations in terms of his educational achievement. I always knew he was capable of great things, but it’s a fine line between being wholly supportive of your child and being a little too pushy, which can jeopardize their interest level.

I’m glad the family’s hard work is paying off and I can’t wait for what this next phase brings. There will be challenges, for sure, but we will work together and come out stronger and wiser on the other side.

That’s right, my guy has graduated from the infant room and now is in the toddler room.

Way to go, Peanut. You’re making your dad and me proud.

— Sarah Leach is managing editor at The Holland Sentinel. Contact her at (616) 546-4278 or sarah.leach@hollandsentinel.com.