first I was 1
When I was one, I ate out of a thousand bottles

then I was 2
and I fixed Daddy’s truck

when I was 3
I helped Baba with his shop

when I was 4
I moved to Georgia
and helped animals

when I was 5
I helped Mama go to the post office

And now I’m six
and I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future, but so far I play with my bird!

If I say a terrible thing like, “No, you can’t have any candy right now…” he climbs on the couch next to me and flops around and sighs dramatically and kicks and hits me but very gently, so that it takes me a minute to even realize what he’s doing. If I ignore his obvious outrage, he points at me and yells “EXIT!!!”

What?

He wants me to exit. Because of what I said.

And lately whenever Nicolaus makes him mad I hear Graham scream, “YOU’RE FIRED, Nicolaus! You are BELIEVED OF DUTY.”

He means relieved. And for whatever reason, that makes Nicolaus cry.

Well his name is Roux. Or Roo, if you’re feeling more Disney than Cajun. Or Cutie-Roo Cute the Cute Pup if you’re feeling more like you are Graham.

I keep waiting for this dog to freak out and be terrified of something, or to call the police on us for taking him out in cold weather, or to write frantic emails to my mom begging for help because we don’t feed or pet him enough. But no, he’s pretty alright with his dogness. It’s a relief. And it also makes me that much sadder that poor Mouse was so distraught all the time. When we got him he was already grown, and his brain was already a mess. His first home wasn’t abusive or terrible, she just didn’t socialize him at all.

Then we, because it was the olden days before cable shows about dog training, accidentally encouraged his panic by telling him “It’s ohhkayyyyy, it’s okayyyy…” which dogs it turns out take to mean: It’s okay to choke yourself until you pass out trying to get away from that leaf. It’s okay that you want to die because you saw a person in a wheelchair.

The only thing we did right was to laugh — rather than reassure him — when he was scared of the dog in the oven, and what do you know? He eventually got over it. I haven’t yet seen that British dog lady suggest derisive laughter as an important technique, but we only get to see the show when we visit my inlaws.

Anyway, we’re trying to socialize this dog as much as possible. And when something potentially skirry happens, I underreact. Huh. Train. Shrug. Hey, strangers, weird. So Roux starts to freak, looks at us, realizes there’s nothing to worry about, and chills out. Over the next few weeks we’re going to keep taking the dog with us everywhere so that he gets used to people and wheels and noises and leaves. I’m going to order pizza so he won’t pull the fire alarm whenever a deliveryperson shows up, a personal sacrifice we must make, because that’s what committed, responsible dog owners do.

I’m also coming closer to understanding what people mean when they talk about socializing kids. After all of my pre-defensive worry about being judged or hassled about homeschooling, the only objection I’ve really consistently heard is: But what about socialization? Kids need school for socialization.

Part of me always goes: what does that even mean? The fun of hanging out with kids? The stress of dealing with bullies? The chance to practice conformity?

But as we try to socialize our puppy I am realizing that I know exactly what socialization means. It means exposing a child to all different situations and experiences while their brains are young and flexible so that they hopefully won’t grow up to be freaky, stressed-out oddballs who are afraid of their own reflection in the oven.

When we picked this apartment we didn’t pay much attention to details like the bedrooms have no windows. We were more focused on things like price and proximity to work and oh my god do you have anything available NOW, this very minute, so that we don’t have to spend another night in the clean but inexplicably awful Super 8.

I never would have gone out of my way to live somewhere with no bedroom windows. It sounds depressing, doesn’t it? Besides I already have curtains.

But listen: If you’ve never slept in a room with no windows, you should try it. Tomorrow just for fun, as an experiment, sheetrock over your windows. Tape and plaster aren’t nearly as difficult as people make it sound. It’s the texture matching that’s a bitch, but there’s no need to go into all of that just for an experiment.

If you have children it will be necessary to do the same thing to their windows, so buy a little extra plaster.

The effect will be immediate. People who spend the night always apologize in advance for how early they wake up. The next day they stagger out sometime after 11 am and say, “Is it morning?” as they squint at the sunlight streaming into the living room.

All of this to say: everyone warned me that having a puppy meant waking up painfully early, but no. After two days he started sleeping in until 9:30, as all good creatures do when they aren’t being imposed upon by the unreasonable and artificial influence of sunlight.

We still don’t know his name, but your input is wonderful. The list has narrowed, I think to:
Helix
Venkman
Fruvous (, Moxy)
Spock
Cutiedog Cute Cute Puffy ears
Dingo Dog

You guys kick dog-name butt. So now what I’m doing is trying on each name a few hours at a time to see what sticks. If you think we’re weird for overthinking this, just know that you’re very glad you weren’t here for the naming of Mouse. It was hell.

Other than wrangling with the housetraining – which is going medium well, better than Graham most days in fact – we’re having a total blast. He’s still learning what toys are his (all of them) and which toys aren’t (???), and how to avoid being stepped on, and the joys of the crate which is not a real crate technically but it works. We made it using those wire shelving cubes and zip ties. Does that make us a little bit trashy? It’s a good little crate, and I like that he can see out but maybe we should go to one of those places and buy a real one.

Oh and! Is this a terrier thing or a small dog thing or a puppy thing? He loves to crawl under all of the furniture. When he is in Full Turbo Zoom mode, he runs the perimeter of the living room/dining room/kitchen (all one room) under each couch, chair, table, and hutch that he’ll remotely fit under. He also hides his toys and bones and things under the furniture, then burrows under and finds them the next day. It’s probably good that I don’t have a yard with a precious garden, isn’t it?

More later. Nicolaus just yelled from across the room, “Hey! Name him Curtain-Tearer!”

I’d better investigate.

Alright, Internet. I need your help. Our puppy doesn’t seem at all concerned about whether we name him, so long as we pet him and let him on the couch sometimes but really it’s becoming awkward. How do you get your point across in a heated political discussion if you can’t use his name? How do you let him know that you don’t agree with his unconventional views on domestic sanitation? How can we sell him a used car?

He’s a five month old American mutt, consisting of chihuahua, terrier, and possibly orange tabby cat. We’ll get to the pictures in a second, but first I have to say — because you’re going to see it right away — that it’s very possible that I caved to a strong bout of Mousesickness. We don’t at all regret sending him to Amy; he is in a wonderful home and our kids were making him crazy and sick, but still. He was awesome and we miss him.

This fellow looks like Mouse got stuck in a shrink-o-matic, or perhaps was somehow left in the dryer too long. It’s uncanny, and the longer he’s here the more I feel guilty for having him here. Like I’m cheating on Mouse? Or trying to replace him? Even though this guy has a completely different personality – Unlike Mouse he is very zen, very okay with his dogness, very sure that we have this all under control and aren’t planning on killing him later. He hasn’t tried to call the police even one time, even though yesterday I took him out to pee in the rain. And a leaf skittered along the sidewalk one morning, but instead of freaking out and gagging himself trying to escape the terrifying object, the puppy tried to play with it.

So you see, he has his own thing going and he needs his own name. It takes us a long time to name stuff. You need to help us. The winner will receive one free puppy.
No. Not a puppy, sorry. A set of Nerdy Baby 123 Flashcards. It’s okay, you don’t need a puppy any more than we did.

We have a list of ideas, but haven’t figured out which suits him best. The Star Trek ones are all Nicolaus suggestions. The dork ones are mine. The please can we just pick a dang name already ones are Kevin. Graham’s only two suggestions right now are Cute Dog and Puffy Ears the Cutie Space Puppy and I think it’s fair to say that both of those are off the table.

The list:
Captain Kirk
Trek
Mr.Spock (he does have massive pointy ears)
Shrek
Ganymede
Theory (vs practice )
Jupiter
Fruvous
Bird
Newton Crosby, PhD (from Short Circuit)
Venkman
Spengler (ghostbusters)
Marty McFly – maybe Fly for short (see a trend?)
Thorvo the Robot (from a Beverly Cleary story)
Squirrel
Lyric
Beso (I always wanted two dogs named Beso and Jefe )
Helix (his tail curls)
Pasquale
Arlo
Beck
Steinbeck
Gillian
Roux
Texas Red
Guthrie
Kudzu (get it? he grows on you?)
Fiasco
OR Something to do with his gorgeous color… it’s like watered-down iced tea, or honey, or… amber waves of grain. It’s a really pretty reddish blonde, but I can’t think of quite the word for it. The word would mean the color of wheat with morning light shining through it. Is there a word that means that?

Okay, pictures. That kind of suck because I forgot to take pictures until after sundown and I’m too lazy to move lights around to take real pictures.

So? So! HELP US. All you have to do to enter is post a comment either voting for your favorite name above OR suggesting another idea. The winner will be selected semi-randomly by Kevin, using whatever criteria he sets as soon as I tell him about this.