An Open Letter to Everyone

October 2, 2010,

Today Corban firmly decided that he doesn't want to have children. His main fear is that once the kid turns 16 it's going to try to kill us in our sleep. He needs to stop watching the news. Anyway, I told him I was okay with that. I've been giving a lot of thought to what kind of parents we would be and concluded that it would be years of "Good Cop, Bad Cop" ... resulting in me being the asshole with the baton and Corban as "Mr. Hugs & Candy".

I have discipline. I don't spoil. When I say no I mean it and I enforce consequences to broken rules. Corban will let the little monster have whatever it wants as long as he gets to sleep longer and watch the game in peace. This would result in me abandoning both of them and not picking up the phone when daddy's little monster calls asking for bail money.

Corban was offended by this. He changed his mind and challenged me to a kid-raising competition. He said we now must have two chilren. I raise one and he raises the other. No cross-parenting at all.  See which one turns out to be a better human being. I shook my head and turned on the news.

Part two:

We came up with the lamest reason for having a kid. Stubbs probably has about 6 years left to live - if he's lucky. I know he's not a child, okay. Yes, we're dog people, but we're not "Our Dogs Are Our Kids" people. We know that we can't leave a baby alone in the house with a bowl of food and the toilet lid open. We know the difference. But shut up, we love him. And it's hard knowing that we'll be forced to see him die in just a few years. It's hard to mentally prepare for it.

But... we also know that if we DO decide to have a fleshy human baby - we are going to fall ridiculously in love with it - it will change our lives dramatically and we will finally see Stubbs as just a dog. Sooo... it may be a good idea to go ahead and make a baby before Stubbs dies. You know, to ease the pain.

This was an actual thought of mine. Have a baby... for the purpose of cushioning the blow of our dogs death. Solid reason to introduce a new human being into the world.

Part three:

The other day I was TRYING to facebook and download music and Stubbs wouldn't stop whining and pawing at my leg so I flipped out and yelled  "WHAT?  What do you WANT? I gave you fresh water! I put cheese in your dog food bowl. We went for walk AND I gave you a pig ear! What the hell do you WANT from me???"

At that moment Corban and I silently stared at each other from across the living room knowing what we must NOT do. What we are so obviously not ready to do. 

Part Four:

Quit asking us when we're having kids.