Puppy Lust and Picture Books

Photo by Dan Bennett via FlickrIt's spring break, all five of my children are under one roof for the first time in months, and what am I doing?

Obsessing about picture books and puppies, of course. 

It's been a year of adjustment for me as a parent. I've been at this mothering thing for more than two decades, and in January, my youngest youngling turned nine, entering the second half of her childhood. This means all of my children have either slipped into adulthood or are more than halfway there. It also means that this thing I've been dedicated to for most of my life, home educating five kids full-time, is more than halfway over. 

I remember when my eldest, Taylor, turned nine. It came as a shock that the bulk of her childhood had zipped by so quickly. There had been much I'd wanted to do with that little girl, much I felt I'd missed, though I'd committed to being a stay-at-home-mom. There were books to discover, cookies to bake, and brand new puppies to bring home and cuddle. How could she already be closer to her teens that to toddlerhood? And, just as I thought, nine years had passed and I was delivering her to a dorm room. Now, my last child has reached that landmark, too, and it seems very surreal. 

Recently, in preparation for spring break, when our son Zach would be home from six months of backpacking across Europe and Africa, and Taylor would return for the last spring break of her last semester at college before moving to L.A. to pursue a career in screenwriting, directing and filmmaking, my husband and I took advantage of our seasonal drive to declutter and organize. We worked on a project I'd wanted to see done for ages--building a new bookcase. As a biblioaddict, I've amassed quite a collection. I'm always on the lookout for places to tuck my treasures, corners that haven't been otherwise allocated by the stuff of seven people. A few years ago, my husband and I realized that the space above our second-floor stairway was unused, that it would be a perfect spot for a lovely collection of books that, because of the height-(many feet above our heads), would not likely be used again. Or not very often, anyway. 

And so, I set about combing the house, collecting books to fill that new space, books that I want to keep but rarely touch, enough to fill seven shelves, each three feet wide, which can only be reached by wrangling an extension ladder into the stairwell. 

Choosing those books was more difficult than it might sound. 

As a bibliophile, I've developed strong ties to each of my books. If you'll sit for a minute, I'll show you what I'm talking about. These, for example, these tattered leaflets that look like they're bound for the burn pile, are the Stephen Cosgrove books my parents gifted me when I was in 4th grade, the ones I read to Taylor and Zach when they were just toddlers. I could store them on that shelf high above the stairs, but shouldn't my youngest still be reading them? And these? Oh, these are a treasure, indeed. They're the child-friendly artist biographies by Mike Venezia that I was so excited to discover as a young homeschooling mother who had more of a bent towards Mary Cassatt and Henri Mattisse than multiplication or Mannheim's Theorem. That was back when Borders carried real, exciting educational materials and not just branded movie tie-ins. Those Venezia books were what we read before our first real trip to the Chicago Art Institute, where Taylor saw and identified her first Monet, almost touched Cassatt's After the Bath because it was so beautiful and she didn't know any better. I could set them up there, too, because they're no longer being used, even though I feel like they should be.

Going through these stacks also necessitated a culling session. My younger daughters helped, lightening the shelves in their room by piling books in the hallway, books they said they'd never read, never would read. I examined the piles and couldn't believe my eyes. Dozens and dozens of books that I'd practically counted as required reading did not spark the interest of my youngest children. Not read Sister Wendy Beckett's A Child's Book of Prayer in Art? But I remember when we all went, as a family, to the Akron Art Museum and took a Saturday class on text art! That's where I fell in love with that Sister Wendy book, had to have it, hunted it down and brought it home! And what about these? Not read The Time Warp Trio? Not interested in the terrific traveling adventures of Joe, Sam and Fred? How can that even be?

When I sifted through the piles destined for the thrift store, or, for some, a Fahrenheit 451 fate, I could hardly stand upright. Dispose of Dickens? Toss Tikki Tikki Tembo? Get rid of Grimm's?!? How had these books escaped the endearment, nay, even the acquaintance, of my young daughters?

Here's the other thing: I've been dreaming about puppies.

Day dreams and night ones, too. Sometimes, when I'm taking a break from my daily routine, I'll hop over to one of the pet rescue websites just to look into the eyes of the little darlings. On his birthday, my husband indulged me in a trip to the pet boutique to ogle for a bit. I have three dogs already, and we often serve as a doggie bed and breakfast for other pooches, which means there are sometimes five or six canines accompanying us on our walks or cuddling by the couch as we watch the traveling Time Lord and his Tardis on the telly. 

But, lately, I've been resisting the terrific urge to add a new Jack Russell or English Bulldog to our clan, a baby all my own to nestle beside me at night or settle at my feet in my office as I write. This week, I even dreamed about him, my tiny tail-wagger. He was a sort of dalmation variety with lovely brown, green and yellow spots. But before I could take him home, someone else had claimed him as their own. I woke up alone, save my snoring spouse. 

I know why I'm doing this. I know why I have a hankering for a hound. 

It's all about hope. 

I'm getting older, you see. I'm entering a new phase in my life, one where my children are almost adults, where I realize they're leaving behind the books I'd gathered for them, the plans I'd guessed for them, the futures I'd envisioned not only for them, but for me as their mother. When they were babies, I had my whole life ahead of me. Lazy days of reading together, of hiking and birding and museum hopping. Now that they're becoming independent, I'm beginning to feel like my life is nearing an end, though I know that's not at all true. Still, I feel like if I blink, the next nine years will be gone, and my nest will be completely empty.

But when you add a puppy to your home, it's like saying, "There's more living to be done." It's like saying, "Come along with me into this next phase. I need a companion on this journey, and you're the perfect one."

It's like saying, "I plan on living for at least another fifteen years, and, on top of that, I'm determined to summon the energy to keep up with the likes of you."

The bookshelf is up now, and most of the shelves are full. There are still stacks on my bedroom floor, a kind of pergatory for the published, waiting for me to decide their fate. My old dog Jack, who was once the size of a bat and had ears like one, too, curls on his dog bed beneath my desk, when he feels like it, when I'm lucky. The grey in his hair is becoming more evident every day. "He's getting to be an old man," my husband said today as we took our first spring walk down our country road. 

I don't know where this puppy lust will take me. I'm hoping, if I ignore it long enough, it will go away, that's it's just my own quirky version of a mid-life crisis. I'm trying to be satisfied with my old dogs, with graying Jack and thickening Lewis and aging Joy, with the canine guests at our animal auberge.

But I can't help it. I keep perusing the pet rescue sites, wondering if one of those adorable doggies is destined to warm my toes and wag forth some hope for the future as I attempt to wrangle time and wrestle with my own mortality.