Why you shouldn't get a dog

This a public-service announcement to my large and growing group of friends who are settling down and now thinking about getting a puppy.  To those who have already gotten a puppy--sorry this is too late!  (Although I doubt I would have dissuaded you anyway).

To the others:

Ever since you graduated high school and left behind your family dog, you have wanted a dog again.  A puppy, with that milky smell and the too-big paws and its earnest eagerness.  I understand.  Here you are, with your new partner/boyfriend/husband/girlfriend/wife, settled in your new place.  You make dinners together and look around at your new place and think "the only thing missing is a wagging tail."

Please think again.

It may not seem like it right now, but in just a few short years (or less!) you will be thinking about having a baby.  No big deal, right?  Dogs can get used to having a baby around.  I even wrote about it here!

Yes, but.

Your life will be full enough, no dog needed!

Having a child is wonderful, precious, life-altering--and also, as you may have heard, it is an ungodly amount of work.

Most of the women I know are going to go back to work after having had a baby.  There will be a lot to do around the house.  The LAST thing you will want to do is walk your dog.  The second-to-last thing you will want to do is groom your dog.  The third-to-last thing you will want to do is feed your dog.  And because you will spend hours cuddling your adorable baby every day?  You will never, ever want to cuddle your dog.  

I'm sure that at some point, in about 10 years, when all of our children have grown out of babyhood, it will be nice to have a dog again.  The kids will want to play with them, and walk them.  It'll be great.  Too bad by then our dogs will be old and decrepit and gray around the snout.

As it is, if I could wave a magic wand and, in the most humane possible way, my dogs would disappear? (Preferably to a large partially-wooded farm where they would chase rabbits all day and then curl up in the evening by the farmhouse hearth).  I would do it in a millisecond.

So please, think very carefully before you get a dog.  Sure, it seems like a great way to "practice" having a baby.  But to use a passé SAT analogy:  the work of a dog is to the work of a baby as boiling water is to cooking a 14-course meal.  They are not, in fact, comparable.  It is hard enough to be a good working parent; the extra obligation of caring for an animal will quickly become tiresome.

If you also have a dog (or dogs!) and a baby, please feel free to chime in with all the other ways in which this complicates your life.  I can think of a few more off the top of my head:
--even harder to get away for a weekend
--tough to find a car that fits carseat, stroller, and dog safely
--babies are expensive and you will not want to spend money on the dog-walkers and groomers which will suddenly be necessary now that you don't have time to do it yourself
--crawling babies necessitate a very clean floor, which is difficult with a dog,
etc., etc., etc.

(Please note that I think the situation could be different if you're planning to be a stay-at-home parent. Although that is a TON of work, the extra work of caring for a dog might in that case be worth having the extra companionship at home with you.  Maybe).

Going back to work...& automating our household

I go back to school full-time in a few weeks, and although I can't wait to dive into the "fun" part of being a medical student (that is, actually working in the hospital, rather than taking classes), I'm also feeling apprehensive about having enough time to spend with my daughter once I'm working 12+ hour days.  As much as possible, I'd like to make sure that when I'm at home, I'm with her--or my husband--and not doing mundane household tasks.  To that end, I'd like to tell you a little bit about my plans to automate my life.  Please share any other time-saving tips you might have!

#1:  Finding a housekeeper
The plan is to find someone who will give the floors a good clean, dust everything, and leave the kitchen and bathroom sparkling once a week.  This will cost some money.  But I think that what it will save in time (not to mention a better relationship with my husband) will be well worth it.  However, given that we have two dogs constantly tracking in dirt and liberally shedding everywhere, this won't be quite enough to keep the floors as clean as they need to be now that we have a baby who can crawl, which brings us to...

#2:  Getting a robot.

Jetson Time!  These vacuuming robots have been around for years, but I've always hesitated.  Seems like now they've worked out a lot of the kinks.  It has little side-brushes for walls and corners, avoids rug fringe, focuses on dirty areas, and docks itself!  A number of Amazon reviewers who are also proud parents of young children AND multiple dogs swear by this model, so I think we're going to take the plunge.  I'm also secretly hoping that the robot-ness of it will make my husband want to take charge of making sure that the robot gets run every day or two.  Then again, he isn't the one who studied robotics at summer camp, so this may not work out the way I think it will...

#3:  Buying food
We do our grocery shopping at Trader Joe's (although we buy all our produce at the farmer's market), and for the last couple months we've been doing a lot of experimenting with the prepared foods, or almost-prepared foods, there.  The frozen asparagus risotto, for example, is quite good (especially if you add in some clams or sardines...).

We are also considering having more of our food delivered.  Since we live in northern California, there are a ton of local CSAs that will deliver a box of local organic fruits and vegetables every week.  The thing is that I really enjoy our weekly trips to the farmer's market, and I also suspect that they're good for our daughter--so I'm not in a hurry to cross that off my to-do list.  Of course, this may change once I get a taste of being in the hospital 60-80 hours a week...

There's even a local service called Michal the Milkman that will deliver dairy to your door weekly (milk, eggs, butter, yogurt).  If we do start using a CSA, I would probably sign up for dairy delivery too, since then we could get away with less-frequent grocery store trips.  Then all I would need is a bakery that will deliver bread...

#4:  Making meals
As I mentioned, we've already started experimenting with eating more prepared foods from Trader Joe's. I'm tempted to buy a well-reviewed cookbook which provides recipes based on the foods available there.  We do have one other favorite "quick and easy" cookbook, by NY Times writer Mark Bittman, called Kitchen Express:  404 Inspired Seasonal Dishes You Can Make in 20 minutes Or Less.  We've probably tried about 20 of the recipes so far, and I don't think there's been a single dud.  It's a particularly good cookbook if you buy your produce at the farmer's market, since it's organized seasonally.

We're also probably going to sign up for weekly Indian food delivery from Tiffin Dinner, a local family business that delivers home-cooked Indian meals to the Stanford area; on Tuesday nights they offer free delivery to our neighborhood.  They're reasonably priced and quite tasty!

#5:  Buying household goods
I think we've found two ways to reduce the number of trips we have to make to a Big Box store to buy household staples like toilet paper, soap, etc.  First, we've switched to reusable products rather than disposables where we can.  That means cloth diapers, lovely cloth napkins, flour sack towels instead of paper towels, dish cloths rather than sponges, and glass containers or washable cloth bags for storing food rather than ziplock bags.

But we still need laundry detergent, bar soap, shampoo, toilet paper, and so on.  And then I saw this article in the New York Times "Your Money" section yesterday, about a "Subscribe and Save" service from Amazon.com, through which you can sign up to have them automatically send things to you every month or 3 or 6, with free shipping, and save 15% off the normal cost.  My husband and I were so excited that we immediately proceeded to subscribe for soap, detergent, toilet paper, etc.  The only thing I will say is that the quantities are sometimes better suited for a larger household than ours--there were some things we would have gotten except that we couldn't possibly use their minimum amounts every 6 months.  Still, it's a really neat idea.

Do you have any household shortcuts to share?  How do you make sure that your time is spent where it counts, rather than doing chores?

Getting things done at home with a baby

Things that are pretty fun to do with a baby:

• Folding laundry.  Put baby on bed.  Dump clean, dry laundry on top of her (you know, without smothering her).  Enjoy her delighted smiles.  Wave items of clothing above her, letting her grab and giggle, as you fold.  
• Sit-ups.  If baby's neck still isn't too strong, lay her down on your thighs; if she can, sit her up on your mostly-straightened legs, holding on to her hands to keep her upright if needed.  Do sit-ups, smiling at baby on each ascent.  
• Push-ups.  Put baby on blanket on floor.  Do push-ups over her, giving her a kiss on each descent.
• Playing music.  In a carrier, baby can be entertained by you noodling on piano or guitar for a variable amount of time.
• Take a bath.  Especially with a young baby (under 3 months) who wanted to be held all the time, I found that this was the easiest way to get both of us somewhat clean.
• Read email/books/magazines.  Nurse baby, and read away.  Just don't try to write anything.  It's not gonna happen.  (If you're not quite at the one-handed nursing stage--don't worry, one day it will just magically be possible).
• Walks.  The best way to send baby off to dreamland, and get some exercise for you (and the dogs).