As my kids and I walked to school, they plead their case.

“Please can we get a dog?”

“Mommy, if we got a dog, I promise I would take care of it.”
“Every one else has dogs.”
“Please can we get a dog?”

Aunt Susan got a dog and she doesn’t even like dogs.”
“Please can we get a dog?”
“You never gave us another brother or sister, so you owe us a dog.”

Yes, just about every time we walked to school, that’s what I heard.  For five years. (Although to be fair, my daughter alternated between wanting a dog and wanting to get her ears pierced.)
I might add that walking to school takes a good twenty-five minutes, during which we pass innumerable dogs in Central Park, enjoying the off-leash laws. Thus innumerable chances for them to say “Isn’t he cute?  What about a dog like him?”  And this was when the dogs were mangy, or smelly.  Or resembled my sixth grade science teacher who looked like he never brushed his hair.

Twenty five minutes of begging, three days a week (that’s subtracting for the days when they beg  for ear piercing, or a DS, or an iPod…or even the occasional day off from begging, when we just talk.), starting some time mid-way through kindergarten and lasting until Fourth Grade.  I think that adds up to 4455 minutes of begging.  So a few weeks ago, we finally caved.  We’re getting a dog.

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