Arwen's Pack

Each morning, the girls have a routine. They go into their "houses" (crates) and then one by one they are called to the kitchen for chow-time. Arwen is always first. She has earned the right to watch the food preparation at the edge of the kitchen. And preparation there is. First the green dehydrated mix must be soaked to rehydrate it, then the fish oil, and finally the meat. This may vary from chicken to salmon, depending on the day's menu. Of course the meat is thawed overnight to be perfect for the morning. Each will sit and be told "look", signaling them to look at me as their Giver of All Good Things. Only then, are they allowed to enter the kitchen to feast.

There have been setbacks, though.

They go into crisis mode if the meat wasn't left out to thaw. There's much pacing and whining and attempts at infiltrating the kitchen. More time needed to thaw out the frozen meat bags. Lately I've been making and warming Haimmie's food while the dehydrated mix comes to life. (Haimmie is our resident special needs ferret who must eat at regular intervals or else suffer a severe glucose crash.) This is earth-shattering to Arwen.

"I have to wait another two minutes?!"

Meanwhile from the bedroom there's the occasional pitiful whimper. Poor Nyxie. She can smell and hear the magic happening, but she's got no line of sight. The 10 minutes or so of food prep is interminable to the girls. Every morning and every night.

They love their routine. They thrive on that predictability. Even if we were nomads, which Matt and I are in a sense, that nomadic lifestyle becomes the routine. The girls live for their walks, their meals, their first wake-up stretches, their naps with mom. Although lately, naps have been few and far between. Right now, they are curled up behind my chair. Arwen, predictably the closest to me and Nyxie just a few inches beyond. Even my entourage is part of their routine. Soon, we'll be heading outside for the last potty break and then bedtime. The routine means being part of a pack, a family. It's something with an energy and a life-force greater than that of just the one.

Tomorrow when the alarm sounds, the cycle, the routine will begin again.