Of the many, many things that dogs are better at than we are, knowing when to stop and rest rises to the top.
I’m sure your to-do list looks a lot like mine: errands, chores, work, social commitments, laundry, more errands, more work. Every time I scratch one thing off, there are half-a-dozen tasks added.
John and I have a running joke about the boys’ having very full to-do lists. “That afternoon nap isn’t going to take itself,” we say. We rattle off the items that Emmett and Lucas have on their list: eat breakfast, take an after-breakfast nap, go for a walk, sniff the garden and munch on a bug or two, take a nap in the grass, if it gets too hot move the nap indoors, play with toys, eat dinner, play outside, play with toys again, take an evening nap.
This past weekend, we were busy. We drove a couple hours out of town to go to a concert and my darling nephew’s first birthday party. We worked, John on his qualifying exams for his PhD and I on the syllabus for a course I’m teaching this fall and articles that are due this week. We picked up the house, swept up the fur, and went to the store. We made coffee Sunday evening, just so we could stay awake long enough to get through our tasks. We fell into bed, exhausted, just after midnight. And got up this morning at 6 to do it all over.
But the boys… Yesterday, they slept! They slept in their beds upstairs, then moved to their beds downstairs, then came back upstairs to sleep some more, then laid in the grass… After all their excitement of going out of town, having three other dogs to play with, attending my nephew’s party, they were wiped. And they knew it. So they slept.
This morning, I struggled to get out of bed, and John hit snooze every 9 minutes. When I finally crawled out from under the covers, there were Emmett and Lucas, bright eyed and bushy tailed. They wagged away, so happy to see me, ready and excited to face their day while I struggled to open my eyes.
There’s a lesson in this, I think.
Nap time! A good reminder to at least stop and put our feet up and take a deep breath during our day.
I always say I’m going to employ that rule they say new mothers should follow “always sleep when the baby sleeps”. 😀 Of course, if I always slept when my dogs slept we’d be in serious trouble.
I work late at night, and always wake up the dogs and let them outside before I leave. Sometimes I will walk outside to let them in and discover they have curled up in a hole and gone back to sleep – they come back in and go directly back to bed. It makes it very difficult to drag my butt to work after witnessing that.
I love it, Amanda! And I’m totally with you… After the boys have had their breakfast and gone outside, they go straight back to bed and curl up in these darling, furry little balls. It makes it so tough to walk out the door!
It is a good lesson to take from your dogs Maggie! Darby has taught me 1,000 times over to live in the present moment, rest when I need it, and smile more 🙂
Those are all great lessons, too! It’s amazing just how grounding our dogs can be… if we pay attention!
Paying attention to our canine friends would teach us a lot about how to live life in such a full way! But, alas, off to work I go to earn the kibble for the dogs. Hey – wait a minute. They have learned how to make us work for them.