I want breakfast and a doggy.

So yesterday morning, Eddie awoke screaming as if having a nightmare. What was he screaming? "I want a doggy!" Assuming this was just a dream he needed to get past, I told him he could have a doggy and calmed him into falling back asleep. Crisis averted, right? Until he woke up for real and announced his two desires. "I want breakfast and a doggy." Not a stuffed doggy either. A "real" doggy.

I called Steph. "I don't want a dog," she said, the panic just starting to sound in the edge of her voice. "I know," I said. "Neither do I. We are NOT getting a dog." And yet. The fear and panic made it clear that we're no longer in charge. I mean, if we were in charge, a request or even demand for a dog would not scare us because we could just say no. But I think we both feared that even our fervent desire to not be tied down with a dog would be meaningless in the face of 3-year-old insistence.

When the topic came up with Eddie again -- oh, about 3 minutes later, I told him all kinds of terrible things. Things like, "Talk to Santa about it." (Now, there is no way in hell Santa will bring him a dog. That's just not the way to do this kind of thing even if we were going to cave. But I'm much more comfortable with Santa being the bad guy. Sue me, fat man.) "Santa probably thinks you need to wait until you're older. Until you can feed your doggy and pick up his poop."

Here's where the story brightens. Because this is, after all, my child we're talking about. "I don't want a poopy doggy," he said. "I want a dog that doesn't poop."

"That's what we all want," I said. "But all dogs poop."

He pondered for a moment then made a rather significant concession. "I want a doggy that doesn't poop. I want a toy dog." Crisis averted. Or at least postponed. Because we, the grown ups in the house, really, really, really don't want a dog.