Sometimes I wonder if growing up with dogs my entire life wasn’t necessarily the best thing…

You see, now that I have a daughter, I have this weird mindset where I compare everything she does to the what the dogs can do.  On the plus side I am completely amazed with what Little Lady has been doing recently.  Recognizing songs and singing “Ee-I-Ee-I-Oh”, finding her baby doll and putting her in a toy stroller to push around, climbing into the laundry hamper and looking all cute… Ok, so the dogs can do the hamper thing, but the previous two are all her!

I don’t really know why I have this problem of separating the talents of the dogs and the talents of Little Lady.  When I talk about her with others I sometimes refer to her new found talents as tricks.  I guess it may come from the fact that she started not knowing anything and as a parent it is my job, just as with the pups, to train/teach her how to do things.

This must be the case with other parents that have previously raised dogs, though.  Sometimes I think she believes she is just one of the dogs, crawling around on all fours and choosing to skip her hands and go straight face to tray when eating dinner.  She loves to feed the dogs.  Spoons, crackers, anything… if she can sneak it to those beggars, she’ll happily oblige their starving stares.

But as time moves on and Little Lady gets smarter and smarter, I’m wondering if as the tricks… talents get further and further away from the dogs’ talents, they will seem as amazing… or more just the next step in the progress of going from baby to little lady.  Eh, I’m sure they will… I’ll probably just stop comparing her to the dogs as much!

In any case, the dogs still have her beat in the bathroom department.  Maybe my cure will be the day she starts using the toilet… maybe…