by Alan NeSmith
Fenn & Aunt Bee
The week of Sept. 20 was a doozie. Stumbling to my feet in the wee hours, I found myself pacing the front yard. I found myself leaning on the stop sign in our neighborhood at 3 a.m., wondering if the beam of my flashlight was giving our six pounds of love stage fright. I found myself wondering about wondering as I said, “Potty, Aunt Bee” for the 10,000th time.
You see, our mission was to make sure we gave her every opportunity possible to not have an accident. And though the new member of our household belongs to our 10-year-old son, Fenn, his mother insists, “Fenn must be well-rested for school.” So, Aunt Bee snoozes in a crate by my bedside table and holds our precious sleep in her tiny, loving paws.
A dozen or so days into Aunt Bee’s joining the family, I was beginning to cope better with spurts of sleep as Aunt Bee was starting to understand the purpose of our wee-hour walks. And then Mother Nature threw a cruel curve ball. With what started as one little drop from the sky, rain, I mean heavy rain, descended for what seemed like seven months, but was really seven straight days.
Have you ever tried to hold two umbrellas, a leash and a flashlight at midnight or later? My, oh my, how wet grass shuts down Aunt Bee’s routine, not to mention the falling rain drops. And again, I was shown a great life lesson: it can always get worse.
Today, I’m happy to report we’re a little more rested at the NeSmith house. Aunt Bee, a 13-week-old Jagdterrier, is able to sleep most nights from 11 p.m. to 5ish a.m. She’s now nine pounds of curiosity, love and limitless energy.
And in the evenings when she is curled up with Fenn or William watching the Andy Griffith show, I know it’s all worth it.
Alan NeSmith is the chairman of Community Newspapers. Reach him at anesmith@cninewspapers.com.