Best Day Ever

When son Tim, about to run what may be his last cross-country race in college (Go, Tim!), was a toddler, he woke up one day and proclaimed. “This is the best day ever. I haven’t had this day before.”

I was just chuckling to myself how Cedar says that every morning. She doesn’t go nuts when I get up. She sits and watches me, to make sure I’m about to let her out of her pen. She’s getting a little reluctant to take my direction to go out the door to do her business (12-week teen-age phase is basically here), but she will follow if I go first. Once that’s done, it is time to celebrate the day through PLAY. I, on the other hand, need to go through this strange slightly loud ritual of making steam come out of a silver shiny thing on top of the big silver box, making a horrible crushing sound with some black cylinder, pouring water into another cylinder, creating a smell that smells like…well, good shit…before I get down on the floor to play. Then it’s GAME ON.

She’s all teeth of course. Just-can’t-help-it teeth. But she’s developed this sweet little habit of curbing her instincts (maybe her equivalent of my NA beer; more on that in another post, maybe), where she follows her open jaws towards me but tucks her head at the last minute, so she gives me an affectionate head butt, before squirming around, going upside down, right side up, nibbling my chin, and on it goes. Eventually I get to stand up and drink that coffee, although that’s often at the price of some tugs on the slippers. This morning she set in to be held like a 20lb. baby, so long as she could munch my hood strings on my sweatshirt. Last night when she decided it was time to play, she startled me by tapping me on the shoulder as I watched hockey highlights on my laptop at the kitchen table. (OFF, DOWN, and STAY still very much in the lesson plans.)

I like to do these little rambles while I drink that coffee and while she tolerates a bit more rest before it gets light and we see what this best day ever has to offer.

Yesterday’s offering included her first porky sighting. The good news is that I don’t think she made the transfer from the “blue porky” (boat scrub brush she loves to attack) to this one. The other good news is that she was on the leash while I scratched my head about whether I could make it a teachable moment. Unsurprisingly, nothing came of my head-scratching. The bad news on the “blue porky” front is that she does make the transfer to any broom. Hence the floor pictured below.

Go fast, Tim, on this particular best day ever. We’ll likely go slowly here, but who knows?

May your day have some kind of surprise that makes you sit and wonder.