I have never babysat, not for a baby anyhow. Never gave a baby a bottle, held a baby, certainly never changed a diaper. As a little girl, I used my dolls for 'parts' to create other toys and build weird things. (Little did I know I would continue this practice as an adult!) I didn't pretend to be a mommy and take care of my baby dolls. I did, however, do this with my stuffed animals. I cherished them and took very good care of them. My family got our first dog, Tara, when I was five. She was a constant companion for me until she was put to sleep 11 years later. We also acquired several cats, parakeets, fish, rabbits, frogs, turtles, snakes, lizards and various wild critters that were injured or 'homeless'.
As I think about and plan how to take care of Piper, I have realized that, although not in a conventional way, I have been preparing to be a mother all my life. Our current menagerie is excellent preparation for me:
I have 2 fish tanks. The 90 gallon houses 12 angelfish among other tropical fish. It is also a fully planted tank with 10 different species of aquatic plants. Fish keeping is like being pregnant. The fish are trapped in the tank, you choose what food they get, where they get moved to, how loud and active their environment will be and who their tankmates will be. It's like playing god. You get to choose everything that happens in that tank - they rely on you for everything. I can be an evil god and neglect to feed them and change their water or I can be a benevolent god and focus on their care.
I have been noticing more and more that Piper responds to what I eat and the action around me. She can't make me do anything, but just like the fish who remind me to feed them when I walk by the tank, she gives me a few swift kicks when I haven't eaten for a little while. I also pay significantly more attention to what I eat and how often. After all she is trapped in the fishbowl in my belly. I have learned to be a benevolent god to my fish, and to my offspring.
Eleu is our 6 year old macaw. He lives his life in his cage in our sunroom. I take him out most evenings while we relax in front of the TV watching a movie. He gets to take a shower with me every week so he doesn't become a 'stinky bird'. He also depends upon me for food and toys. His cage is not unlike a baby crib. A place that is safe and full of fun things. Occasionally, Eleu screams for what seems like no good reason other times he his having fun wrestling with a toy and doesn't need my attention. There's a greeting call that he uses when he just wants me to say hello to him. Sometimes I think he is just testing me to make sure I will come. When he screams uncontrollably, I cover his cage with his blanket. Then he knows he has gone too far.
He has many different screams and I know them all. There is one he makes when he is in pain or very frightened. This scream gets me moving fast and will I bolt into the room. He got his toe stuck in a toy once and panicked with this call. But being a clever bird - Eleu occasionally plays the 'bird who cried wolf' and when I get into his room with my heart pounding, he just says "hello". "Don't do that to me!" I will often holler back, and then he won't do it again for a long time. From Eleu I have learned that if you can't get out of your crib, you will need to use the right cry to get the attention you want. Learn the difference quickly.
My two cats are over 10 years old, Jack and Hunter - they are brothers. When I adopted them from the shelter, they were feral cats. They were only 8 weeks old, all claws and teeth. They were terrified of me. For the first few days they wouldn't even come out from under my bed. I fed them under there, gave them their litterbox under there and spent hours lying on my belly talking to them while they hissed at me. They refused to come out and wouldn't let me touch them - yet.
Even as loving adult cats, they are very quirky. Jack does not like to be held. He will kick and thrash until you let him go. He doesn't even like to be on my lap, but let him lay next to you on the couch and he will purr for hours. Hunter taunts the dog. He waits for her to come up the basement stairs so he can whack her as she comes around the corner. If I catch him waiting for her I will scold him and he will run away, but he usually comes back when I am not watching. You can't make a cat do anything it doesn't want to do and it's hard to stop it from doing something it really wants to do. I suppose the same is true for a baby. No amount of begging, sweet-talking, tricking or forcing can make them do what they aren't ready to do. From my cats I learned patience and compromise.
Bella is a Great Pyrenees, 5 years old, beautiful, smart and gentle. She grew up with our Bernese Mountain Dog, Ling. We had to put Ling to sleep last year because she had cancer. When Bella was a puppy, she followed Ling everywhere. Ling was a well trained dog - we trained her. She learned a lot from our instructions, but there were some things we couldn't communicate to her and she never learned them. She had some quirks. We never trained Bella. I didn't do any formal training and yet she knows how to sit, stay, come, lie down, give paw, wait, etc. She learned all of this from watching Ling.
It's amazing how much a young creature can learn from watching and imitating the older creatures. From Bella I have learned that we will be role models for Piper and she will probably learn more from watching and imitating us than from anything else. I hope we will do her justice.
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