A new category at pinewordworks.com: “Come Raise A Puppy With Us.” 

#1 MORNING

Here’s how I crawl out of bed these mornings. No, I mean, crawl out.

Eleven-week-old miniature goldendoodle, Scooter Sublime, sleeps in his floor situated crate just below my side of my husband’s and my bed, just short of the wall of bedroom windows, and just inches in front of an end-table before which I once left my slipped-from slippers. 

Scooter has been with us for a week. All seven-plus pounds of his goldendoodle energy contentedly crawls into his crate around the time we, his human pack members, begin night’s rituals in preparation for bed. By that time, having consumed three meals through the day, having been outside at the least every two hours learning to “hurry-hurry” in proper places, having run like a cheetah after leaves in the wind or around, under, through table, sofa, chair, and bed legs and back, having mouthed, chased, wrestled with, retrieved, carried off or relocated a variety of objects called his own (including blanket and pillow from his daytime bed), after our resituating several objects we mean to call our own, bedtime calls. Scooter happily settles in his crate and cares not how long it takes for his humans to settle in what, apparently, is theirs. He cares not at all how long lamps might be lit and book pages are turned before darkness embraces the room and the three sleep.  

However. When morning comes. When by habit I rise—hold it; when once by habit, I rose around five, when once my feet met slippers settled just left of my side of the bed where now a dog-crate stands, when, in the past, around five I brewed coffee, settled on the sofa to read for an hour or two—once has been replaced by a new routine. Now, the seven-pound member of the pack notices my feet on the floor on his side of the room, and beginning at tail’s end, an “Oh BoY! We’re getting up!” wiggle that thumps crate walls and signals absolute, can’t contain it for another moment, Joy. “Let me out! (wiggle-wiggle) Now! (wiggle-wiggle) Please.”

When Scooter rolls from his crate to lift his wiggling self into the lap of the person who so kindly rose at 5am, as he plants licks on the person’s cheeks, plans change. There will be no quiet reading. Coffee may be brewed but the drinking of it will follow the first “Hurry-hurry” outing. A book may be opened but it will be read by glimpses between playing and correcting and feeding and finding Scooter.

So, let me tell you how I now crawl out of bed if I wake at the early hour I enjoy. I Crawl.

Darkness reigns. The night before, I left today’s clothes in a room other than the one in which we all sleep. My slippers have been placed at the foot of the bed on my husband’s side. I quietly slip from under covers, and on hands and knees I crawl to the bed’s foot; then, depending my husband’s position, I either have room to step off the bed below his legs or I climb over the end-board. I’m happy to do either. I’m avoiding, postponing (I hope) until seven o’clock, the sweet Scooter greeting. I feel my way to the slightly opened bedroom door, slip through it, close it quietly, flip on a corner light, move to the kitchen to start the coffee, dress (because the luxury of staying in pajamas and a robe has vanished), settle on the sofa with a book, and, well, find myself eager to hear Scooter’s sweet morning voice. 

I may well have to wait for two hours. Two long quiet hours.