Sunday, March 29, 2009

Another Animal Lover...

I guess I'm not totally surprised. When Jess and I first started dating, I knew well that she was an animal lover. Not just the "I like the zoo and puppies" kind of animal lover, but a hardcore "I like animals more than people" kind of animal lover. I am a moderate "animals are cool" kind of guy myself, so Jaycee was sort of predisposed to a zoological upbringing.
Any of you who know our current animal count, feel free to skip ahead, but for those of you who aren't fully aware, here's the breakdown. Part of being a hardcore animal lover means that you HAVE to stop on the side of the road and keep whatever animal is there (Charlie), you HAVE to take the animals that nobody else wants(Bella/Buster/Rooster), and you HAVE to do it every time. Don't get me wrong, I think Jess' compassion for defenseless animals (i.e. her 6th graders) is admirable. She thinks nothing of changing her life to help a little creature (she even refuses to kill spiders) and has a long list of animals that she has helped in some way or another, but I digress. On to the current list: 1 cat, 3 dogs, and a rooster (yes a rooster). It may seem like a small list, but a small house plus a toddler equals tight quarters. By the way the rooster lives outside. Anyway, in a given day Jaycee can interact with 4 different species of animals and she loves it.
It has been a lot of fun watching Jaycee figure out what each creature is and she really loves her animals. She shows this love by giving them hugs and kisses and being generally excited to be around them. Since I am obviously the odd man out, I started thinking about what is going to happen when Jaycee gets old enough to be an "I like animals more than people" person? I have visions of waking up to jungle noises instead of alarm clocks.
I guess I sound a little selfish right about now, but it is MY blog! After all the dust settled in my whirlwind imagination though, I came to a realization. It isn't the fact that Jaycee is going to bring animals home to add to the collection, but rather that I can't imagine telling her no. To make this kid smile I dance around, I sing, I let her rip out my chest hair by the fistful, and a whole slew of things I wouldn't let anyone else do for a million bucks. I don't really see that changing and I imagine at some point she is going to trade chest hair for hairy creatures, but I'll still be trying to make her smile. You do the math. I guess I should start figuring out where to put the llama...

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Get out of jail free...

I knew it was coming. I knew that eventually Jaycee would figure out how to turn her daddy into a pile of warm play-doh that let her do whatever she wanted; I just didn't think it would be so soon. One of Jaycee's newest little gimmicks is the biggest teeth smile you have ever seen. If she were to smile any bigger, her face would surely crack. The funniest thing about this giant grin is when she chooses to use it. When she sees something funny or is smiling back at you, she has a standard sealed lip smile. But when she sees you have something she wants, that magical grin appears as she walks toward you with her hand(s) out. You see the picture. How could you not hand over what ever it is that you have that she wants? I'm sure it won't be long before she starts to flash that smile instead of throwing a tantrum.
Also new in Jaycee's bag of tricks is the pointer finger. Not only can she show you exactly what she wants with her finger, but she has also found it to be a useful tool when trying to figure out if something is worth playing with or if the dogs are asleep or not. As I write this, Jaycee is poking Bella (our Chihuahua) in the nose to she if she wants to play or not.
Between the pointing and the grinning, I am rarely confused about what Jaycee wants from me. The question is: how the heck am I supposed to say no...