Here’s an easy recipe for becoming a hypochondriac: start as a physician’s child, to absorb medical knowledge by osmosis. Get an undergraduate degree in something like neuroscience, so you have just enough academic health knowledge to be dangerous. Factor in general neuroticism and a vivid imagination. And then, through years working in tech, get extremely good at Googling up obscure yet painfully fatal diseases that all begin with innocuous flu-like symptoms. (A few weeks after I’ve helped clean out a dusty storage closet, I’m certain that a mild headache is an early symptom of Hantavirus.)

But if I’m good, Jess is even better. Because not only is she able to convince herself, she can often convince me, too. A few years back, for example, while I was out in Los Angeles for work, Jess decided that her stiff neck was actually the onset of meningococcal meningitis. I spent much of the afternoon responding to her worried calls and texts from New York, to say that, no, I was pretty sure she didn’t have meningitis. But I spent most of the night staring at the ceiling above my hotel bed, trying to think of how I would explain to family and friends that I had poopooed Jess’ concerns the very day before she died in her sleep.

(Spoiler: Jess is still very much alive. Though she did discover that spending hours on a couch with your laptop, head propped up sharply on a stack of pillows, is a pretty reliable route to a sore neck.)

Impressive, I know. But if you think that’s good, you should see what we can do with our powers combined, and focused on a six-pound puppy.

Of course, Gem has actually been totally healthy. But that doesn’t stop us, at least a few times a week, from Googling up crazy strings like “puppy choking sounds sleeping”. If he walks by his water bowl one time too many without drinking, we’re just a couple of clicks away from diagnosis: OH NO HE’S GOT PARVOVIRUS AND HOLY CRAP MORTALITY RATE FROM THAT AS A PUPPY IS LIKE 90%!! Gemelli, we barely even knew you!

As a result, we’ve basically been helicopter-parenting this poor dog: putting his favorite fleece blanket on him when we find him asleep on the floor; cutting his high-end food into smaller, bite-sized pieces. All the ridiculous and overbearing behaviors I’ve long mocked in New York dog owners.

I’ve been joking for a while that Gem is a pretty good pre-child warmup lap. Perhaps that’s true. But if nothing else, he’s a good chance for us to tone down our overprotective mania. Because if we don’t, I fear our future children will be in for the life of therapy bills inevitably caused by having to wear helmets and water-wings whenever they leave the house.