Hives.

My single biggest regret as a pet owner is that I do not have pictures of the events that follow.

Disclaimer: Pet advocates, I am aware that dogs should be safely restrained in a moving vehicle. Rest assured I treat my puppies as I do my children. Heh. Safe driving advocates I remind you that this is New Jersey. In order to retain my New Jersey driver’s license I was obliged to create an unnecessary distraction because I couldn’t use my cell phone while driving this day, as one of the heathens stole my phone charger.

Monday morning. I have to take the puppies for their shots. They hate the car. It makes me question their authenticity as dogs.

We get in the van. They run all over, sniffing things and eating all the crap that the kids have left in the back. I would pretend that these are things that I’ve missed in my meticulous cleaning of the backseats and cup-holders, but I can’t keep a straight face and type that bullshit at the same time. The only reason the puppies do not eat the crap I’ve left behind is that I do clean out the front seat before I let them into the car. Because they might eat my chocolate, and that would be bad for all of us.

I put the car in gear and begin to drive. This is when the Fuggle starts to be very concerned. He cowers down and starts whining, then makes this soul-rending Beagle howl sound. Sometimes his mouth goes in a circle. I try to pull him to me but he clings to the seat.

Next, he tries to walk towards me. For some reason this is okay as long as it is his idea. His goal is my lap. He is thwarted by the laws of physics. I grab him at a stop light and pull him in. He’s little, so he’s not too difficult to steer around.

The Puggle has completed eating all the secrets she has discovered in the back of the van. She sees the Fuggle in my lap. She prefers to make her way there by climbing under my legs and dancing around the pedals but I block her. Being 30% bigger and more sausage-shaped, she’s more stable and less assulted by the laws of physics. She climbs from the console into my lap.

Now there are two puppies in my lap. The Fuggle continues to whine and howl. The Puggle merely shakes, and presses into me. Hard. The Fuggle is closer to my body and that’s where the Puggle wants to be so she adjusts herself, climbing in between us, until he pops out and I have to catch him before he falls to the gas pedal.

This is difficult to steer around.

When we finally reach the vet they are, at first, excited. So many sniffs! Gradually, beginning with the trauma of the automatic doors, they figure out where they are. They’ve been here before, many, many times. Nothing good ever happens here. They flatten themselves as much as possible. They try to dig their nails in to keep from moving, but the floor is like ice and I drag them along like deflated tether balls.

They get their shots. We get back in the car. Have much the same experience on the way back. At home they immediately fall asleep in their crate.

As Mondays often are, being the day off, this one is packed with obligations. I get back from shuttling kids around 5pm and I see the Fuggle, creeping gingerly to the top of the stairs.

He is walking as if he is in a lot of pain but also very itchy. Wide stance, slowly turning in circles like he wants to scratch but doesn’t know where to start. He looks weird. I take off my sunglasses. Holy crap. He’s completely covered in. . . hives? The Puggle isn’t in the crate so I go down to look for her. I am told that #4 is taking her for a walk.

Me: Did you see Jack?

#3: Yeah, he’s all lumpy. Is he supposed to be?

Me: What about Casey? Is she lumpy?

#3: No she’s fine. That’s why she got a walk. We didn’t want to touch Jack. He’s too lumpy. It’s gross.

I call the vet. I have to bring him in. On my way out, I see #4 across the street and make sure that the Puggle isn’t lumpy too. She’s good. So we drive, the Fuggle and me. He doesn’t make a single sound, except for a very heavy sigh when he lays down in my lap.

We get to the vet and as soon as he realizes where he is he tries to hide under a car, as if that will protect him, as if I can’t find him at the end of his leash. It’s a lost cause; he only weighs like sixteen pounds. Plus, he’s lumpy. The Fuggle simply can’t comprehend that he’s back at the vet for the second time today. This is the worst day of his life.

When I see him in full light, I can tell he’s a little less lumpy than he was at home, which is encouraging. They treat him but I have to leave him behind because they want to make sure nothing worse happens.

I cannot count the number of times I have had to leave one or both of the puppies at the vet like this. They’re not even two years old yet. Every time I leave, I see them in my mind, crying because I am abandoning them, their little dog mouths going in a circle.

I picture this most of the way home. I am worried about the Fuggle and feeling guilty about spending extra time away from the kids on my day off. I get home.

And see the Puggle walk gingerly to the top of the stairs.

She looks like she’s lost a fight. She looks like that kid in Mask.

One eye is completely swollen shut. She looks worse than the Fuggle did. Because she’s 30% bigger, it took her hives 30% longer to show up. Which is roughly the length of a round trip to the vet.

At the vet, she pulled the same move of trying to hunker down under someone else’s car when she figured out where she was. She shook so hard when I got her inside she was blurry.

They came out of it okay. They got de-lumped with Benadryl (note to self: try this at home next time and save three hundred dollars) and we got to bring them home that night. It was a grand total of four round trips to the vet for me.

My vet does not back their vaccines with some kind of warranty against reactions, nor offer a Second Visit In A Day discount. I asked.

Because of course I have that laying around.

#5 has a note from school that he needs to bring in some “kid-related” magazines, with pictures that he can cut out. A secret second grade project.

Me: What kind of pictures are they supposed to be?

#5: Ummm, things that I like.

“Kid-related” magazines. With pictures of Things That He Likes.

Call me unfit, call me an abomination, call me a commie bastard, but nothing like this exists in my house.

There are seventy-three Victoria’s Secret catalogues that came in the mail over the past two weeks and one from Cheaper Than Dirt Ammo. AOPA Pilot, Live Sound, Colorado Outdoors.

#2 pays for her own subscription to M, evil tween pop culture mag. I suggest this as an option, but #5 is firmly unwilling to bring in pictures of Justin Bieber and the Jonas Brothers. I try to start a fake argument with him about how he’s being unreasonable but CC is not amused.

The gift subscriptions to National Geographic Kids and to Highlights he loves, but the pictures in them aren’t of things in his top 10 list. He likes candy. He likes video games. He likes to talk.

He likes bacon.

In my defense, we went to the drug store in my town with the best newsstand.

I found:

Parenting magazines, where pictures of candy weren’t allowed and the only video games were of the educational variety.

More pictures of bikini-clad models looking desperately in need of a sandwich than I could count.

Car magazines (no interest). Music magazines (no interest). Baby magazines (I’m not a baby!). The video game magazines all had pics of games way over his head. I was completely striking out.

Me: How about a tattoo magazine, buddy? This one looks pretty cool.

#5: (hard stare, no response).

Me: It’s okay, buddy, I’ll go through the catalogues again when we get home. You want a candy bar?

Candy’s my answer for everything.

I picked up the mail when we got back. It was evening, but the mail was still out because as I have mentioned before, no one in my house but me ever gets the mail, even though you physically come within an inch and a half of the mailbox when you walk in the front door. Mail score! An Oriental Trading Halloween catalogue! No video games, but plenty of candy and creepy, gorey Halloween decorations. #5 was thrilled.

So they did this secret project in class with the pictures. Apparently, they displayed the projects in the hallway at school for a couple of weeks but I was unaware of this because he didn’t tell me and unless otherwise compelled, my interaction at their school only involves me walking them to the end of the driveway, checking both ways for traffic, and nudging them across the street.

Go ahead & judge; I don’t mind.

Done? Okay.

#5 finally brought his project home. He was so proud of it. The teacher had done giant silhouettes of the kids and then they were to cut out the pictures of “the things they liked” and write what their goal was. As in, lifetime goal. Like, what I wanna be when I grow up.

The pictures were supposed to be related to this lifetime dream of achievement.

And I sent my kid in armed with a single Oriental Trading Halloween catalogue.

Here are some closeups so you can fully appreciate this.

He still has it hanging on his wall.

They Can Smell Fear

The kids have an innate ability to sense weakness in a babysitter within the first thirty seconds of meeting them, and an equally honed ability to exploit that weakness at every opportunity.

First there was Amy (not Hitler, above. I just liked the picture.) The daughter of CC’s accountant, she was a geeky, shy, fearful girl with heavy glasses to whom #1 taped a “kick me” sign. Yes, all the kids then proceeded to actually kick her, repeatedly, until we came home.

There was Pamela, whose greatest liability was that she just wasn’t all that smart. That’s a problem when you’re taking care of kids who are hell bent on creating a psychological obstacle course that you must successfully pass in order to move on to their next realm of torture. On her third scheduled shift she simply didn’t come. No call/ no show. Can’t say I blame her.

Let us not forget Rebecca, who dragged me into innumerable discussions about What Was Truly Wrong With The Children, and how she could help- all projections of her own issues. It would have been a kick in the pants had she been a psych major or something, but alas, she was merely a girl who was incredibly offended when she picked up and smelled the pile of dirty wet kitchen towels that I pile in a heap on the stairs rather than walk all the way up to the washer. Why would you smell a goddamn pile of dirty towels? Who does that?

Rebecca left after she cornered #2 and grilled her until #2 finally admitted that she didn’t like her that much. Rebecca called me in tears when I was in the Lincoln Tunnel on my way to a two-show day. She could barely get the words out. “I just (sob!) can’t. . . stay here (gasp!). . . when they don’t (sob!) like meeeeeeee”.

More than one sitter has lost track of more than one kid. Not because the sitter isn’t paying attention, but because the little heathens plan it that way. They scatter with timed precision like some kind of roller derby play.

They gang up. They misdirect. They sneak.

They lie.

My worst parenting has come out in these situations. The kids are pleased as hell when they get rid of a sitter they don’t like. We get pissed, not only because the inmates aren’t allowed to run the asylum but because at times, the ones they hate were the only option. We’ve grounded. Withdrawn privileges. Given extra chores. Spanked. Yelled. Without a single lasting effect.

The hyenas sense the weak wildebeest, work together to separate it from the herd, and attack. You can take the hyenas’ video games away, make them clean the garage, and give them an earlier bedtime, but they’re still going to attack when the moment is right.

It’s in their nature.

But the hyenas always have each others’ backs. The kids are never more united than when they’re trying to get rid of a sitter they hate. When you get down to it, I respect the hell out of that, and I’m finally a little bit proud of it.