One of my best friends all the way back from middle school had a new baby girl the other day! She’s beautiful and mom is doing great, but goodness it brings back those newborn feelings of exhaustion, bliss, and confusion of what day it is and which way is up.

Though I know a new puppy is drastically different from a new baby, I can kind of relate. I am finding myself in a crash course of remembering how demanding a puppy is. Finley is 9 weeks old today (another mom habit, counting in weeks… I’ll try to get it under control before I’m out there telling people my puppy is 37 weeks old).

She’s currently sleeping on my lap (the cuuuuuuutest!!) as I sit in her bed after she woke up at 5:45 AM to eat and potty. It’s better than yesterday’s 5:00 AM (though I blame the time change for that one).

We are figuring out the nights. I know a puppy this age can’t hold it for more than 2 hours so the frequent up and outs are fine, but the crying to go back to sleep makes for one long, choppy night.

Can I confess something? Nights are not my thing. I’m heavily reliant on sleep and in the middle of the night my cheerful persona is anything but. I get emotional and count how few hours I’m going to sleep and get quite irrational if I’m being honest.

Last night we all went to bed around 9:45 after an exciting evening out at Tae Kwon Do and the soccer field (resulting in picking up pizza for dinner because what new mom has time to cook?? 😉).

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I was up at 11:30 for the first up and out, but then Finley struggled with the back to sleep thing, crying loudly. David moved her crate into the closet and in a total solid dad move, brought a pillow and laid down beside her to keep her calm until she fell asleep. He did this more than once and then I took over for the breakfast/morning duty. I’m going to make him an extra special cup of coffee today because I definitely hogged the sleep last night.

Morning me laughs at all of this and knows it’s all to be expected and part of the trade off for sweet puppy kisses and snuggles.

The best part of getting a puppy right now is just amazingly helpful the girls are. During the day hours, David nor I can get more than a minute with Finley. They are constantly playing with her, snuggling with her, taking her out, and training her (proud mom moment: she pretty much has SIT mastered thanks to clicker training).

There is a lot of happiness in this house right now, even if there isn’t much sleep. The rest of this week is pretty chaotic with co-op and our first vet visit and continuing to learn how to be dog owners (the girls both still smile randomly and in a dreamy voice will say “I just can’t believe we really have a dog…”), but soon I’ll be able to write about another topic. Today just isn’t that day 😉

A couple FAQ:

How did you come up with her name? David suggested it. It stayed high on our list. We also considered Lucky, Riley, Bailey (too close to Hailey), Remi, and Reagan. All randomly chosen because we liked the way they sounded, but when we saw her, it was confirmed, she’s definitely a Finley – playful, adventurous, sweet.

What breed is she? She’s a Hungarian Vizsla. They are pointers, bird dogs. We’d love to get her comfortable around guns to be able to go on a hunting trip with David down the line, but we really love the breed for their “velcro vizsla” ways, their sweet and playful personalities, and their high energy levels (which national parks allow dogs?! Because we are all about it!).

Dog mom, signing off!