Aaarrff!

Blog127:

“Aaarf!  Grrrrr… Arrrrf!”  Translation: It’s morning, Mama! Time to wake up! 

It’s barely 6AM.  Like clockwork, Dinky reaches up to my hanging face on the side of the bed. 

“Lick!  Lick!  Are you up yet, Mama?  I need to go outside.”

I give in.  Lazily, I shove the still warm covers, and stretch as far as my feet and arms could spread.  “That was good!” I mumble in my head. 

“OK, you win,” I tell Dink.  Run along and do it quickly, d’ you hear?”

He shuffles his little feet, licks my foot, and off he goes to the back yard. 

“Hurry up.  It’s very cold out there,” I holler. 

As if he understood, he finishes passing water quickly and he gets back right in.  Without thinking, I pull the bed covers and straighten them up.  I jiggle and shake the pillows and pile them up under the blankets.  A tennis ball, one of Dinky’s favorite, rolls down my feet.  I pick it up, while he stands at the ready to make a run for it as soon as it’s released. 

“Go get, it!” I bellow.  Like a lightning, he runs and brings it back for another throw, or ten more! 

I am not sure how or why Dinky came about this routine.   What I am sure of is that it’s an expectation I don’t mind fulfilling every possible waking day.  To be pleasurably needed by a creature is one of many life’s wonderful blessings.