When Three is Really Nine It’s Good to have a Solid Marriage

The email said, “Jen just posted a momma and 3 pups on Facebook.”

Mindy knew I was jonesing for some puppies, so I appreciated the heads up. I checked the page and there was a picture of a momma and there were five pictures of individual puppies. I examined them and decided that some of the pictures were just different angles of the same pups.

And the pups were adorable- only two weeks old, their eyes barely open. Like human newborns, unless they’re yours they all do look kind of alike.

And mom even looked a little like Lily.

I’ll take ‘em, I said. Yay puppies for Easter!

I went for a bike ride with hubby and broke the news.

Puppies this weekend?

Yeah, but only three and they’re little guys.

Well, hopefully Cat will take off this weekend.

Yup, that’s the plan.

And then I came home and sorted out the puppy room. Stacked the clean towels. Mopped the floor. Removed all the accumulated kid flotsam. I even tidied the “garden.” (The puppy room is also the greenhouse where I divide and raise annual geraniums and new guinea impatiens all winter and start the spring veggies and petunias from seeds.) I trimmed up the bigger flowers and pulled all the dead leaves on the geraniums (must look up if geranium leaves are poisonous to puppies….).

Everything was set.

And then I checked my email.

There was a note from OPH medical that said my nine puppies would be arriving on the Friday transport accompanied by their vaccines.

Uh…..

NINE?

I knew one thing – the next conversation with my husband would need to take place over a beer. Or several.

It was a beautiful night, so we took Cat and hiked up the hill to our favorite spot.

We talked about the garage we’re building this summer, the three college boys who were due home in a few hours, how funny it was that our cat Crash loved to torment our foster dog Cat. We talked about my book that’s coming out in May (!) and how the first run copies had the pages all mixed up so now there’s a scramble to do another print run. We wondered if maybe the print screwup was a good omen. Kind of like bad weather on your wedding day. On our wedding day, everything that could possibly fall from the sky fell from the sky and it’s been a pretty stellar marriage for 20 years. It was a nice conversation.

Amazingly, Nick laughed when I told him there were going to be a few more than three puppies coming. He recalled how our first litter also grew exponentially after we’d already committed to them.

So tonight we will bring home a momma dog and her NINE adorable puppies. That should keep us off the streets for a little while.

A few things I learned yesterday…

• Always assume that one puppy might very possibly equal three puppies.
• It’s important to ask specific questions.
• I have an amazing husband-partner-friend.
• I’m incredibly blessed.