Jerry and I married "late in life." Not really if you ask me - our timing was perfect. But you know the peanut gallery... when they're married, you should be married and if you're not then it must be "late in life."
And what goes along with getting married (typically)...?! having kids. Ugh.
Jerry and I were hoping to get pregnant on our honeymoon. We were ready to have kids on day one. But alas, it was not meant to be. So we got a dog, Grace. Then we got a second dog, Maggie. But we still kept trying to make babies. Practice makes perfect, yes?
So while we were trying to make babies, we would occassionally (read "WAY more often than we ever cared to hear) get unsolicited feedback from the peanut gallery... "just wait until you have kids", "oh, you won't really understand until you have kids", "you just can't prepare for kids, it's so different"... you get the picture.
Man was it annoying!! Just add insult to injury, rub salt in our wounds, put it on a billboard! Despite the battered psyche, we had two dogs. We had to get up in the night but sick puppies. We had to clean up accidents, plan our schedules around them. We knew what it was like to make sacrifices for little loved ones that were completely dependant on us. So get off our back already.
We also heard from the peanut gallery about our dogs, only it went more like this... "just wait until you have kids - you will kick those dogs outside," "oh once you have kids, you won't give those dogs the time of day", "dogs are only special when you don't have kids", again... you get the picture.
Again, so annoying. We love our Grace and Maggie. Sure Maggie drives me crazy with her ear scratching but that's not her fault. And their barking can put me over the edge but they are our first "girls" and we love them unconditionally. So any talk about kicking them to the curb was just silly.
Well let me tell you... you just don't get it until you have kids. I'm way more tired than I ever was with Grace and Maggie. When doggies are sick in the middle of the night, you get up and deal with it and then go back to sleep. When widgets are sick in the middle of the night, you spend the rest of the night listening for any little noise out of place wondering if it's another call for help.
