Spent

I sit at the top of my apartment stairs, past the first floor where I live, head on my hand, hair dripping wet and trying to curl around my head, as my dog attacks the keys I have attached to my belt loop. There's a growl, a prance, a tug, a pull. Momentarily he pauses distracted by the leash he has around his neck. Back to the keys. My pants pull slightly in the direction for which he is. His head is adorably soaked, with mud spots from where he perused the underbrush on our second walk of the evening. As we return to the apartment, he runs around as if we have not just gone on two walks in the pouring down rain. As if he isn't just nine weeks old and yesterday was exhausted after one block of walking. As if we didn't run back and forth seven times in the back yard trying to wear him out. As if we didn't run loops around the inside of the house. As if we didn't go up two flights of stairs just so he could demonstrate his ability to do stairs--and hopefully wear him out.
I look at him. Not only do I think he grew another three inches since I left him at lunch, but he has just about chewed me to my limit. The purple squirt bottle dangles from my pant loops. "No bite" is becoming a whine. A plead. Am I doomed? I think as I run around my chair for the sixth time, yellow lab hot on my heels. I vaguely recall my friend describing a point in her labs life where she sobbed to her father to just take him for a day, she was worn out, never mind that she was thirty something. She couldn't handle his energy any longer. Lab energy. It's true. I even broke down and called my friend with a dog--maybe if she could just let us play for an hour, tackling another dog would expunge the remaining excess energy. I get being cooped up for four hours while I'm at work. I get the whole pay attention to me thing. Chew my leg off? Eat my shirt off from my body? What happened to a nice rainy evening, dog snuggled close to me and a movie playing at the foot of the bed?
Sigh.
He has the cutest face.
I know he's just tired.
You could not pay me to be a single mom.