Toddler Meet Humane Society!

My husband and I got the bright idea to adopt another dog over the weekend. Our other pooch has been super lonely lately since our other pup is gone so we figured she could use a friend. So I decided to take our two year old with me and my husband decided he would stay home with the baby. Walking in to the front doors of the humane society, my heart started to race as I was thinking to myself, why in the world would I bring a two year old to a giant pet store.. eek! As my son and I proceeded to our viewing area, we had to stop at every animal kennel and ooh and ahh and wow mama, over every single animal, big or small, cute or ugly!

Finally, we got into our viewing room where we got to play with our newest little pup, Molly. My son was very nicely feeding the dog treats and playing with her on the floor while I talked over the fine print with the volunteer. Next thing I know I hear the sound of marbles hitting the tile.. marbles, I didn’t have marbles in my purse.. marbles, Oh @#%@! As I look over, I notice an ENTIRE bag of peanut M&M’s (put into my purse by my darling husband!) hitting the floor.

Editor’s note: by ENTIRE bag, we’re talking the BIG bags, not the single serving bags you get at the checkout lane. My first thought is to scold my son for dumping the M&M’s on the floor…

My second though is oh no! dogs + chocolate = BAD! So now my mommy attention gets turned to scooping up the dog as quickly as possible. I felt like I was on grandma’s farm chasing chickens. I probably looked just as foolish. The scene played out as me chasing this dog around trying to make sure she didn’t scoop up an M&M, all the while my son laughing his brains out and the volunteer was trying to help me get the dog. I’m sure the people from the other side of the glass window got an equally enjoyable view. Finally, we get the dog picked up, get the M&M’s picked up and life moves on!

Once we decided we wanted little Molly we had to proceed to another area to actually be able to fill out all the fun paperwork. So now we’re walking back past all the kennels again, stopping at each one. Finally we came to a large cat area. Well, wouldn’t you know that my son about pee’d his pants with excitement.  He stood there for about 10 minutes SCREAMING and jumping and clapping and cheering all for the ONE cat that was actually paying attention to him. He chased the cat all around the outside of the enclosure laughing and having a blast. Once I told my son that it was time to go and we had to go get our puppy he decided it was time to flip that switch of tantrum off to tantrum on! So, in about 2.2 seconds, we went from laughing and clapping to being on the floor SCREAMING and crying. Once that started I scooped him up and carried him into the lobby while all the innocent bystanders were now exposed to the tantrum child. I proceeded to try to speak to the front desk lady about wanting to adopt the dog while Jacob continued to flail and scream at me for not letting him run circles with the cat.

After literally 15 minutes of this ongoing thing, and plenty of whispers from the peanut gallery, Jacob decided he had in fact had enough.  At which point it was our turn to fill out the paper work. I proceeded to the desk to which our name was called and I did the 300 questionnaire trying to determine if I could in fact, handle a dog. Once again, my son had NO intentions to sit through this process so we flipped the switch.. again. The friendly lady behind the desk offered to bribe him with candy and cookies to which I politely declined. I had no intention on giving my brat of a child treats to “act nicer”. So I suffered through the paperwork while the bystanders suffered through a tantrum.

Finally we finished up our paperwork and Molly was ready to go! They handed us a small bag of puppy treats to help coax her into coming outside and getting into our vehicle and I decided to give them to Jacob to carry to ‘help mommy out’.. By the time we had gotten to my car and I needed the treats to be able to convince Molly I’m a nice lady, Jacob couldn’t find them. I kept asking, “Jacob, where are Molly’s dog treats?” to which he would give me his “I don’t know” hands. So I happen to look up onto the sidewalk we just walked past and in the sunlight I see a baggie laying on the ground.. Oh good, I found them! As I got closer to the baggie, I noticed the bag was empty.. empty.. I looked back at Jacob who just kindly gave me a dog food grin as he shoveled the rest of the treats into his little mouth! Ey!

So then I’m standing on the sidewalk with a dog who’s never seen a leash who is franticly pacing back and fourth, screaming at my two year old “Yuckies! Spit it out! EW! Buddy! Gross! Spit it out!” while he’s screaming and crying “no! no!”. At that point I looked up and sighed a sigh of disgust, no point in fighting anymore and frankly we had already given this place quite the show.. might as well go out with a bang right? So needless to say, we packed everyone up, pup and son slept the whole way home and I learned my mommy lesson: never ever again will I take a two year old to a giant pet store with cats who want to play and free ‘food’ at the ready!