Dear Buddha and Stella,
Today you are three. My mother, Emily Gilmore, wants you to know that this means that the Terrible Twos are behind us.
I feel quite confident that Stella, in particular, is ignoring that statement from Emily, since she started the celebrations off this morning by waking up and vomiting all over the carpets. Lovely mucous filled yellow vomit. Directly where I would step in it.
Stella always has been the overachiever of the two of you (sorry, Buddha, but you really do ride the short bus and I'm grateful that we have Stella in our lives so she can watch out for you and keep you from actually being HIT by the short bus when you're waiting to go to school!) and I'm sure in her mind she knew that it just isn't a party until someone vomits so she wanted to be sure your birthday got off to a proper start today.
Thank you, Stella.
I know that this last year of your life has not a particularly easy one. I uprooted you from your very comfortable existence in Santa Cruz where you romped in the ocean and ran illegally on the beaches day and night tormenting the wildlife and the small children and moved you to a place that had an abundance of frozen white stuff all over the ground. Not only that, but I forced you both to live in a house that had very faulty heat and no insulation and had previously been inhabited by crack dealers. I know we spent the first few months telling all those people that there were no more drugs available and I really must thank you both for rising to the occasion and being such marvelous watch dogs.
Also, I need to thank you, profusely, for guarding my own heart so carefully. It was pretty broken when we arrived. As shattered into small and fragile pieces as any heart has ever been. I was quite certain that it was never, ever, ever going to be whole again. That there was no glue on this planet strong enough to mend it.
Who knew that dog saliva can mend a broken heart?
Your kisses every single morning and every single evening and all day long are honestly, swear to goddess as my witness, the only thing that kept me going on many of those long and dreary days. I knew you needed me. I may have been abandoned, but there was no way on earth I was abandoning the two of you. Absolutely no way. And those kisses that woke me up every morning, that forced me out of bed, that reminded me that you needed breakfast, that you needed a walk, that you needed dinner?
Slowly, but oh so surely, those kisses gently gathered each sliver and shattered piece of my heart and glued it back together. It beats strongly now. It is even remembering how to love. I promise that it never stopped loving the two of you. Ever.
So now that you're three, there's a bigger secret I want to share with the two of you, my constant companions, guardians of my heart and all that is special to me.
It's about that guardian bit. I still think it's quite important since you do carry my heart on all eight of your paws that you do so gently and carefully. But, I want you to know that we live in a very safe neighborhood. And those people who are walking past? The ones you feel the need to bark ferociously at like you'd rip them into tiny one inch by one inch pieces if you were just given the chance? Those people? Those other dogs who dare to step on the sidewalk outside our house?
All that barking?
It's not necessary. Really. It's making me batty and making me consider getting you both your own house down the street. A house where the two of you can bark all you want. The Bark House. But this house? This house will become the No Bark Zone.
So what will it be, now that you're three?
Shall we give it a try? No Bark Zone? Let the folks and their dogs walk on by without going ballistic? Let the leaves fall from the trees without alerting the authorities?
We're all okay, Buddha and Stella. We really are.
Love,
Your Mama
