Telling The Family

One of the early problems we faced was how and when to tell the family.

It wasn't so much that we were older and therefore slightly uncomformtable about the 'age thing' - well, ok, I was. The biggest issue was going to be how to tell the family and so how not to cause jealousy and bad feeling.

Confused? Didn't I say we had no children so far? I did. But I did not mention that we have two Border Collie dogs, brother and sister from the same litter at nearly 3 and three quarter years old. Yes, for those of you who believe dogs should be dogs and not treated like humans, clearly you have not owned dogs. Whether you like it or not they become part of the family.

I suppose it doesn't help that I give them 'virtual human characteristics'. The boy dog is a real lad, complete with an almost Ozzie twang in my mind and a comment for everything, he struts about the place as if he owns it whereas she is more lady-like but very intense about everything. You may think I am mad, but the two seem to mimic every comment I make. Too boot, the boy behaves like a teenager getting huffy if he doesn't get to play a game and is completely crushed if we go out.

This is where the problem begins. They behave pretty much as if we are 'Mum and Dad' to them and, err, well we behave as if we are their parents too. So it was always going to be a shock and potential issue for two, effectively, teenagers to have a new baby to interrupt their lives. How do you tell them?

Well the first remarkable thing is that they seem to know. They both have become slightly more protective to my wife - the 'bitch' (how I hate that word about my own daughter, I mean dog) especially so. Then we have recently started saying things like, 'Are you going to have a baba?' Seriously, we do.

The girl seems to get quite excited, but then again both have a 'vocabulary' of about 80 words they know and so several words in the sentence may lead it to believe it is either going to get a dog treat or a walk. He, meanwhile, as a typical male, looks on impassively. Indeed, if they did know anything about themselves, she may be excited by the fact that she is going to give birth herself to the first coming of the dog Jesus as she is speyed while he clearly is thinking, 'Nothing to do with me, mate'. His undercarriage is still intact but the poor fool dotes on his sister so much that the only thing he has tried to mount is me and my brother in law. His sister has long since told him where to shove his appendage.

The result is that we are not sure what the two 'kids' think. As pack animals, the boy dog thinks he runs the house and frankly I am pretty low down the order of things in his eyes, while the girl knows her place. So when the baby arrives, there is going to be an issue. Firstly, they pretty much roam the house as their own. Secondly, they demand a lot of time, attention and interaction - not least a walk of at least an hour but more like two hours a day, which is tough when you are out most of the day. They are the focus of attention in our world - we cannot go away for the weekend without making arrangements for them to be looked after, while we have had only one holiday since we have had them and worried about them the whole time.

In reality, they will not know that they have a new 'brother or sister' until he or she arrives. I don't think they will like it.

Telling the rest of the family? Oh, that was easy. Amazing how communication has changed these days.