Thirty-something speaks
From careful planning to cage match
Mike Maddock

Sometimes my visions of fatherhood are a bit grandiose. I often expect my children to fall in line and behave like the subjects of a Norman Rockwell painting. But that's not reality. Children are more like Picassos. They each have their own beauty, but they're a little disturbing and usually confusing and chaotic. That's what makes planning special moments with children a bit of a crapshoot.

Sometimes the best plans turn into those wonderful visions that stay in the memory bank for a lifetime bringing a warm smile to the face every time they're pulled out, while other plans go awry and torture the memory bank like a bounced check and the bad credit that follows.

My wife and I went through great pains to surprise our three children with a puppy this Christmas. We searched endlessly through classifieds and the Internet and made numerous calls to weed out the bad breeders and shysters. Finally, we found a nice family in the Upstate who had puppies available on Christmas Eve. My wife and I couldn't pull off the Christmas morning surprise, but we figured a Christmas Eve surprise on the way to Nana and Papas was just as good.

I couldn't wait to see my kids' little faces as I sprung a six- week old female Cocker Spaniel on them. I just knew they would melt and call me the best daddy in the world as they giggled unmercifully while the puppy jumped repeatedly to lick their faces.

But that's not what happened.

The problems started immediately because the puppy had to make its debut in our minivan. The bucket seats made it kind of hard for it to jump up and lick their faces. Maybe a Great Dane puppy could have pulled it off, but not this tiny Cocker Spaniel. Plus, this particular puppy had spent the first six weeks of its life trying to avoid two small little boys it shared a house with. These boys weren't vicious. They just thought puppies weren't much different than soccer balls. Needless to say, I imagine this puppy wasn't thrilled when her new gig included three new little kids to deal with.

My children were happy to see her, and they all loved her immediately. That part was good. The bad part was that the bucket seats made holding her an individual effort and sharing a necessity. My normal Rockwell dreams quickly turned into

something out of the Lord

of the Rings trilogy. The puppy was the ring and my kids were all screaming, "Give me the Precious!"

I guess I should be happy the puppy made it to Nana and Papa's in one piece and didn't look like a disheveled rock star mobbed by a hoard of groupies, but the picture could have been prettier. I wanted a family moment to cherish forever, but I got a cage match instead.

Still, my kids did and do love the new addition to our family. The fights for her attention still spring up occasionally, but oddly enough, never when I'm rushing her out the door for her to potty at three am.