My child is a puggle

I'm just going to say it. I know I risk the wrath of parents everywhere and even as I write this I'm looking skyward for potential lightning strikes.

I would rather have a dog than a baby.

There. OK. Let me have it.

The holidays are approaching and I'll be getting together with family. That means traveling. I bring my dog with me wherever I go. I hate having to board her. She is my child. She should be with me. Plus she was born on Christmas Eve. I'm not going to have her locked up in a little kennel on her birthday!

Now some of my family members don't appreciate having a joyous little bundle of love and affection running around their homes. I get that. I guess. But the mere fact that I have to ask galls me. And that they say "no, don't bring her" really gets my ire up.

I know what you're thinking- that it's not an unreasonable request-asking me to leave my little girl at home.

But here's the thing: I've never wanted to have children. I told my mother that when I was a young girl and she was appropriately aghast. I've never made a secret of my unnatural tendencies. It's not that I have anything against children. I just don't have that ability to instantly dissolve into a cooing mess at the mere sight of a baby.

I have 5 nephews and 2 nieces and I love them all.

It's just that...well...Let's just say that I don't particularly like the screaming, crying, drooling, puking. I don't like the smell of poopy diapers, the look of snot running out of noses. And I really don't like that every time I'd get together with all of them, I'd leave with 1or 2 viruses.

By virtue of their cute holiness, babies are automatically accepted everywhere. To suggest that perhaps they shouldn't be in church or at the movies or on an airplane, is to take your life into your own hands. I subscribe to the European practice of leaving the baby at home and taking the dog to the restaurant with you for dinner. Dogs are certainly cleaner than babies.

I'm just saying: No one ever asked me if it was OK to bring their baby around and I never said a word.

Is it too much to ask that I bring my precious little girl with me?