The Notebook

Some people save pictures in scrapbooks, ribbons and trophies, figurine collectibles.  I save everything I've ever written, from the moment I started writing things down.  I asked My husband to retrieve "my box" with all of the older stuff in it so I could fill in some memory holes for my foreign exchange book.  It took all of Christmas vacation, but it finally appeared, and right on top was a school notebook from 1984.  I'd etched the Van Halen logo in several places and written other random things on the front.  As I started reading the stuff on the inside I had to put it down and walk away.  I left it for another week, and then one of my girls read a page---"AAACK don't read that, you must never read any of that."  So I'd just given her the greatest temptation ever.
 I took the book back in my hand and read through again, feeling nauseous, feeling very sad.  In French I told my husband what I'd written about, stuff he knows, some he doesn't.
"Girls, I want you to know that the reason I don't want you to ever read that is because it's not your mom.  That isn't me.  It's who I was before I knew Christ."
The notebook is now strategically hidden.  I've made a plan to make one more pass through it and then throw it away.  Burn it.  It was my lonliest most tragic summer, filled with things I'm forever scarred by, things I truly regret. I'm not ashamed for my daughters to know what happened, but I want to tell them with my true voice, not have them hear it from the very confused girl, who wrote about herself in the third person half the time.
There is one piece that I will keep, an ode to an Autumn leaf, that I wrote on stationary and tucked neatly in the notebook.  I'll keep this thing because it is truly beautifully written and it celebrates beauty and being alive. The rest will burn.

Obedience School Dropout

This week we lived through our first bath, learned to sit and lay down, and dropped out of our first obedience class.  I'm so proud of myself, really.  I signed up for the class offered by my rec department, and since this was the guy recommended by all the shelters in the area, I didn't think twice about it.  I was a little surprised that a choke chain was required, but sure I'll buy one. The first night he was a little harsh with a couple of the very aggressive dogs in the class, but at the time I really appreciated it.  After the second week, and seeing my dog get aggressive when she hadn't been before, I made the call.  The program coordinator asks me straightaway, "did he throw a chain at your dog?" Seriously.  And what's worse, he had thrown a chain at a 6 month old lab puppy who was snarling at my dog.

I swear I'm a mom blog, not a dog blog, but being a dog mom is making me sort of "focused" on this topic.   This week I experienced a deja vu of my early parenting experience, when my eyes were opened to the huge chasm between "parenting styles" in our country. At the time I followed my heart and prayed through a churning gut about some of the things the people around me believed and practiced.  As I grew in confidence as a mom, I could speak more authoritatively about what worked for me and why I didn't do it the way they did.  I was really assuming that dog raising would be a little simpler and less volatile than that, but that is not the human way, is it?

So we are looking for a new class, preferably one that uses treats and praise. The most amazing book for me on this journey has  been, Living with Kids and Dogs...Without Losing Your Mind by Colleen Pelar.  Short and simple, it has allowed me to prepare my house and kids for introducing a dog into the family. She provides simple things you can teach each age of child (The Boy loves to "be a tree" when Belle comes looking for a treat in his hand) and ways to train your dog around the kids with treats and positive reinforcement.  I have also loved The Adopted Dog Bible by those great folks at Petfinder.com . It's all in there, from housetraining to buying a brush.  And can I say that my dog stopped bunching up and dropping steamy loads around my house within the first week by using lots of positive reinforcement and not one rolled up newspaper.