Raising Isla

Isla has been with us for just over 2 months and is already 5 months old. There have been many times I have stopped and asked Jon, "whatever did we do with our time before Isla?" or "what did we talk about before Isla?" I have to say having a new puppy has made us feel that much more comfortable in stepping into our new roles as parents, or perhaps it has left us just too distract to fret over what lies ahead in the next month. And yes, we do refer to ourselves as "mommy" and "daddy" to our puppy Isla, silly perhaps, but this mock parenting has definitely instilled some more confidence in our parenting abilities and also pointed out the areas where we are ready to grow.

Some of the of these lessons can be boiled down to bullet points.

Patience is key. Yes, there was one morning I came downstairs to a poopy crate from Isla, and started crying, convinced that she was doing this to me on purpose. But to the rested and non-pregnant mind, it is clear that Isla does not enjoy sitting in her messy crate any more than I enjoy cleaning it up, and if she would have it her way, she wouldn't be in that situation in the first place. Yes, its true, sh*t happens.
Live life on puppy time. This means a couple of things. First it means allowing for those few extra moments to gather up and juggle all her accoutrement before heading out the door. It also means taking time to stop of smell the roses, or in Isla's case, traces of other doggy dregs. But going for walks with her has been a great lesson in slowing down and following the pace of some one else.
Everyone loves a puppy. Having a puppy is a great conversation starter and we have made many new friends at the park because we have this little one in tow. [side note: there are people who are definitely NOT dog people, crazy as it might seem, so its been good practice of reading cues for those who don't love a puppy jumping up with their dirty paws on their freshly pressed pants] However there is something kind of magical about a puppy that immediately charms everyone, I imagine the same is true with a baby and we will be making lots more friends just based on a common love for our little bambino.
Responsibility. This is a pretty obvious one, but for Jon and I who have had to only worry primarily about ourselves for the majority of our coupled lives, this has been a big shift. I am happy to say, that as I had hoped, we make an awesome partnership and are able to help each other out in our co-parenting of Isla.
Control is but an illusion. I think Jon is better at this one already, but I have definitely had to adjust to the idea of living in controlled chaos, and that any hopes that I had of having control are purely illusory. Like the time we left her in the kitchen with the doggy gates closed and came home to find that she had figured out how to climb on the kitchen nook table and had helped herself to several bananas and a healthy dose of newspaper.

These are just a couple examples of how Isla has been training us to be parents. Undeniably there will be some huge differences between parenting a human and dog, like it is not best practice to leave your infant child at home in a crate for several hours at a time, but overall the experience of raising Isla has been edifying.

Lastly I will leave you some of adorable pictures of our pup. Because like any good parent, we have to gloat and beam over our child.