Captain Knuckles

So we were not even properly churched and we had a child.

(I hear gasps echoing across the land...)

Fake out - we got a puppy about two months ago.

We got the puppy when he was four weeks old; too young to leave his Mommy really, but she wasn't feeding them anymore. I can't blame her; those puppies looked like four weeks old when they were newborns.

Anyhoo, so Chef Boyardee takes the puppy home and names him Captain Knuckles (from the cartoon Chowder). He's Knuckles' primary guardian; I still think of myself as the absentee parent. And my my, does that little puppy love his primary guardian. He starts to whine or bark (yip, yip!) as soon as he hears Chef's voice. When he was teeny, he climbed up all over him and licked his face, bit his ears and generally made a nuisance of himself. Now he positions himself in the yard wherever Chef is. Is Che in the bedroom? Knuckles is in the back yard. Is he in the living room? Knuckles is sitting in a small shady spot, staring soulfully into the living room window.

Me, I usually get a cursory lick ('thanks for the milk') and then Knuckles amuses himself by trying to bite off the hem of my jeans. Great for teething, denim, which I intend to keep in mind for my own litter.

But to see Captain Knuckles grow from a snippet that could fit in my palm to a 12 pound gangly toddler with a mind of his own has been both rewarding and scary. He won't always be so sweet, so energetic, so goofily opinionated with his barks. He will grow up and be a big dog, take on a more serious mien, cease to fling his bowl around and maybe take on a mortgage.

I'm exaggerating clearly, but I'm realising how fleeting youth is. I can't stretch as easily as I did at 16, nor can I fit into the same clothes. Thirty six will probably see me with stretch marks and slightly droopier boobs. Forty six? Fifty six? I can't see that far ahead. But its nice to look at someone who thinks the world is new and exciting and filled with adventure and watch them enjoy it, especially since I have so much work to do and can only stare wistfully out the window.