Baxter is the Cutest Puppy in the World: A Study in 13 iPhone Photos

Baxter

          Baxter does an amazingly large number of cute things for such a small puppy. His cute antics include (but are not limited to):

• Lying with his back legs out
• Snoring huge snores
• Burping huge burps and then looking at you as if to say "....What was that?"

• Sleeping in ridiculous positions, for instance twisting half his body around, stretching all the way out, bending his body at a 90 degree angle, or curling up ridiculously tiny on top of himself in a tucked away corner
• Flinging himself like a flying squirrel into our pool, spread eagle in the air, and belly-flopping with a splash
• Skidding and slipping when he makes sharp turns running on the stone floor. Boyfriend has taken to tripping Baxter on purpose as often as possible because it's so freakin' cute.

• Jumping in the toy basket, jumping out of the toy basket, then jumping in the toy basket again and rolling around in all his toys. Then jumping out. 

• Rolling around and wiggling like a maniac crazy dog when he's in your arms because he's so excited to see everyone and everything that's going on around him. 

Burrowing-Baxter is kind of like the yeti. Photographic proof is inconclusive and more reliable footage is yet to be found.

• Burrowing under large piles of pillows until only his butt or one of his ears is sticking out from under the pile. If you're sitting on the couch, he'll often burrow under the pillows next to you, squirm in between your back and the back of the couch, and magically pop up on your other side.

• Invading the personal space of our other dog. Other Dog will be sleeping and Baxter will sometimes literally go lie on top of his face. He looooves to be close to Other Dog. Other Dog likes him well enough but looks at me mournfully and sighs when Baxter starts crowding him.

Other Dog says "Whyyyyyyyyyyyy"

What to Not Read Before Bed

          I suppose I felt invincible the other night, because for reasons which escape me right now, I thought I would be fine if I did a little reading before bed from a book called World War Z, which is about the zombie apocalypse. I climbed into bed, unaware of the horror which awaited me, curled up with my novel, and picked up where I left off.  The problem was, I didn't anticipate how much I would identify with the story...

"I can't wait to be lulled to sleep by some masterful story telling!"

          I started to read, "We never thought that the zombies would come to where we lived. We were just in some suburb in the middle of Northern California." Huh, I thought. Weird. I live in a suburb in the middle of California. It continued, "Another thing we never thought about was how there was a forest behind our house, the perfect place for the zombies to mass before they started crawling towards our back yard." 

"What are you doing? Turn off your television! Can't you hear them?!"

          "Huh," I thought as I laughed nervously to myself. "There's a forest behind my house too." The next paragraph began, "It never occurred to us how many windows there were on our first floor, effectively eliminating any chance of defense. That is, until the zombies crashed through the sliding glass door and into our living room."

"FIGHT, DAMN YOU! FIGHT TO SURVIVE!"

          "I HAVE LOTS OF WINDOWS DOWNSTAIRS," I thought, breaking out into a faint sweat and eyeing my bedroom door nervously. "As the glass shattered, my husband leaped up and began to struggle with them, and I heard the children screaming in another room. I ran in to rescue them, knowing as I fled that my husband and my dogs were already dead." 

          "I HAVE DOGS. I COULD HAVE A HUSBAND. I HAVE A LIVING ROOM. SHIT, SHIT SHIT." I curled tighter and tighter into the fetal position, covers securely tucked around me as I tried to put down the book and take some calming breaths. But the masochist in me needed to know what happened to the children! (Hint: they didn't make it.)

           Three hours later, I was still awake, ears perked for any signs of dead bodies dragging themselves through foliage. 

"I AM NEVER GOING TO SLEEP AGAIN."

          You should try sleeping sometime while your adrenaline spikes because you can't stop obsessively planning out how you'd hold off the living room so that your puppy can survive. Optimally on a night when you have work the next day. Then, if your boss asks you why you're so sleepy, you can try and think of an excuse to tell her, or at least something that makes you seem less insane than "I was worried the zombies would eat me."