But I'm not ready...

Friday night I learned that our baby is arriving on Tuesday(today) and as soon as I learned the news I started to freak out in a "Oh my God, what have I done?" kind of way. I've seen it happen in the movies a million times, you know the scene, a woman is about to give birth and there are contractions, and cliches, and measurements of her cervix and undoubtedly the woman says she isn't ready and how she needs more time and how the babies room hadn't been painted and blah, blah, blah. Well, as soon as I got the text that my furry daughter would be arriving on Tuesday instead of Wednesday I started to do Lamaze breathing and half expected my water to break.

This is my first puppy ever and I feel totally ill prepared for her arrival. I did go on a puppy shopping spree at Petsmart and bought her three kinds of treats, six toys, food, bowls, and everything else required for puppies arrival. Also, I have ordered 400 puppy pads (and not one of them have arrived yet) and I have been watching Cesar on the National Geographic channel and I have been reading "Good Owners, Great Dogs" and the more I watch and the more I read the more sure I am totally unprepared and will make a horrible puppy parent and that I need the book "Total Inadequate owners and the dogs who love them anyways." I looked on Amazon.com and so far no one has written that book.

I will not be the alpha dog but more of a zeta human. I will walk her wrong; I will get the wrong kind of leash and send the wrong kind of message and I won't know how to get her to walk beside me instead of front of me and then I will get so overwhelmed with anxiety about messing her up I will just carry her around making her overly dependent and helpless and perhaps her limbs will atrophy from lack of use.

I know for sure I will potty train wrong. I won't be able to read her cues and she will be one of those dogs that never learns to go outdoors. My carpet and beautiful oriental rugs will never again be seen because for the next 15 years I will have to cover every inch of our home with puppy pads. I will feed her the wrong food and take her to the wrong vet and I will pick the wrong trainer and never get her into a good puppy preschool and because I will undoubtedly mess her up so very badly all the other doggies at the dog park will make fun of her for having such a horrible puppy parent. Then there will be doggy therapy. The animal behaviorist will blame me for everything, because it is always the mother's fault.

The only thing I am prepared for is to document each misadventure. My camera is charged and I bought a video camera to immortalize each moment of her puppyhood and of my pathetic puppy parenting, oh, and there is one other thing I am prepared for, I am so ready to love her. I am pretty sure I can do that right.

Tomorrow there will be pictures. Until then, wish me luck...

Picture of Westie comes from here.