Modern Dog Blog

There seem to be quite a lot of things no one tells you about being pregnant. The first is, well, it sucks. You have this great, romantic image in your head of how you’ll float through, glowing and thrilled, and your belly will be so cute and round. You will spend you days staring into a sunlit field while rubbing your tummy contemplating the joy of holding your perfect little slumbering infant who just makes you feel so complete. NOT SO.

Sure, you hear about morning sickness, but you don’t hear so much about all day sickness. No one told me about the super human sense of smell that you get during the first three months that enables you to smell the dishsoap in the kitchen when you are on another floor of the house. This same sense of smell that makes it impossible for you to get anywhere near the awesomeness that has always come out of your dogs, now you need help for the simple act of cleaning up poop. “They” also don’t tell you that all those wonderful hormones that enable your body to create another human are the very same ones that will make burp and fart not only with alarming frequency but also at deafening volumes. They don’t tell you that you won’t have anything resembling a normal digestive system, and if you have the luxury of actually getting to poop, you will be excited.

They forget to mention that when you do actually feel like eating again, there won’t be room in your stomach to actually hold a meal, you will be forced to pick at snacks all day long and never really feel like you ate.

For those of you who care, and follow this blog because you know me, I am now six months pregnant, and it’s a girl. We’re excited, thrilled, and stocking up on pink onesies, but let me tell you, this will be an only child.

I had imagined by now that I’d have a gently rounded tummy, you know, like you see in pictures. HA! Oh no. Instead I have enormous boobs - did you know that E is actually a boob size? - and my belly still looks like I drink too much beer. Some days you can actually look and tell that there is a baby in there, some days, I just look like I need to lay off the cookies already. And my ass. I’m convinced that that is where my baby is living. The days she’s not out front? She’s stretching out and doing yoga in the spare bedroom in the back, cause there’s room for her and a couple of friends back there.

Overall, I am not entertained. My legs swell up on a regular basis, the first time that happened I thought I was going to die. I’ve never had heartburn or been constipated until these last few joyous months. I’m more tired than I have words for, and while I am right on target for appropriate weight gain, I feel like a fat, slow moving slug. Seriously, if you could videotape my misery at this point, you could show it in high school sex ed and the teen pregnancy rate would fall through the floor. “They” tell you about how *sex* yikes, can make you *pregnant* gasp - with a baby. That is not scary. Having been a high school girl myself, you think, “oh well, a baby, no big deal. Being pregnant is cute, right?” Ha ha, let me talk to them about not pooping for four days and being unable to stop farting in public - that’ll make them think twice about climbing into the back seat with some sweaty high school boy. If only I had known…

Posted on June 12th, 2008 by michelle
Filed under: Pregnancy, Random run ins, The Naked Part | 1 Comment »

So I decided to take the doggies on a little trip to Wyoming. Why? Because my momma lives there and I thought I’d go and soak up some sun on her deck and let my beasties run like mad in her yard. Mom had two doggies also, both pugs, JB who is Jester’s younger brother by six months (let’s not even go there), and Piper, who is Teak’s half sister, younger by two years. That makes six dogs to hang out with while Mom goes off to work with humans.

The first morning I was here, I made the tragic mistake of leaving my dogs in my bedroom while I showered. Since I do this every day at home, I didn’t think much of it. Big difference to the Teak dog. At home, the bathroom and bedroom are all one big room, here there is a hallway separating the two. Which apparently means a free for all for Teak. While I was happily scrubbing away, she climbed onto the bed, up onto the back of a chair, somehow managed to work her way around my purse and pulled a soft sided cooler off the ledge. She then worked the zipper open and proceeded to pull out a bag of dog treats and shred the plastic and eat all the cookies. Yay Teak! What a creative girl. How do I know it was her? Because when I came back in the room, she was the one still licking the package remnants. Also, she was pretty cracked out the rest of the day - like a kid on a candy binge.

Her next trick has been to paw at the cupboard in the kitchen about 200 times a day. She has figured out how to get her face in there and push the door open. Fine, we just kept telling her to leave it alone. The other night, in the maybe 34 seconds between when my dad went to the kitchen to get ice cream, and when I went in to get water, the little animal had opened the door and had the entire front half of her body in Piper’s food and was gorging herself. Luckily, the kitchen is like two steps from the living room, and I chased her out of there before she got too much. Someday, I’d really love for her to look sorry instead of triumphant when she pulls these stunts. I can only hope that my mom’s dogs are not taking notes on how to be bad little pugs. Our solution? Duct tape on the cupboard door so she can’t get it open - now she’s just pissed off about it and we keep hearing these angry little paw swipes. Ha! Figure that one out, brat.

Other than the bad bad little black dog, everyone else has been pretty good. Karma gorged and made herself sick on grass and bird seed from under the bird feeder, so that was a fun explosion, and Dyson got left outside unattended for maybe 20 minutes and ripped up a portion of the deck trying to get to the bunnies underneath. Just a small piece of the board, not even a hole there, but you have to admire the effort. He got in trouble for digging under the deck the day before, so I can see in his mind how he wasn’t digging anymore, right? Removing deck boards is simply getting them out of his way. He’s become a bit obsessed with all the small critters around here. Jester has actually been very good, and has spent lots of time laying in the sun when it’s out.

Traveling with dogs is always an adventure, heck, daily life with Teak is a trip. I just never know what she’ll do next. I think I’m losing the war.

Posted on May 29th, 2008 by michelle
Filed under: My dogs, Random run ins | No Comments »

So we went to Build a Bear in Vegas this weekend. A good friend of ours gave us a gift card for puppysitting her dog - Hi Bella!. Josh made a cute floppy bunny for our baby, and I, of course, couldn’t resist making this black lab. It was the little assistance dog jacket that got me. How awesome is that? I just love it, his name is Trusty. Of course, cause he’s a lab. Duh.

Posted on May 14th, 2008 by michelle
Filed under: Non dog cuteness, Random run ins | No Comments »

Thrilled to discover that I am not the only one who thinks pushing your perfectly capable of walking little dog in a stroller is like, one of the weirdest things ever. I laughed hysterically over this post - check it out!

I wondered if other people noticed. It’s just weird man. Let them walk. They’re DOGS for dog’s sake! They have twice as many legs as we do and they generally enjoy walking!!

And just because I can
HOORAY FOR DOOCE!! That woman rocks!

Posted on May 12th, 2008 by michelle
Filed under: Not my dogs, Random run ins | No Comments »

We went to Las Vegas this weekend. One last grown up trip before we get baby. It was fabulous. We were lazy and slept all day.

Vegas really is a culture all it’s own. Within the first 20 minutes, before we had even checked in, I saw some lady vomit into her hand and all over the floor. It was cool. At least my dogs have the courtesy to barf on the easily cleaned kitchen floor.

Friday we slept late and then went and saw the new Beatles Cirque du Soleil, Love. It was an awesome explosion of lights, color, sound, and of course, amazing acrobatics. If you ever get the chance, see it, it’s worth it. Saturday we slept some more - I know, real party animals we are - and then went to see Penn and Teller. That was also a blast. Amazing and so very personable. You just sort of want to hang out with Penn and Teller, and it’s easy to imagine that they must be fun at parties. We sat in the second row, so you feel like you’re part of it. And I was. I was the very first audience member to get drug up on stage that evening, lucky, lucky me.

Penn comes right down to my seat, uh, uh, oh seriously, I make a career out of being a wallflower - he’s not really gonna pick me is he? Oh dammit. The trick involved him taking my glasses - so now I’m on stage in front of like a million or so people, and effectively blind - neato. Some fabulous slight of hand thing with a billiard ball, a sad little magic wand and Teller with a cement box on his head. Somewhere in all the movement, Penn managed to get my glasses over to Teller, and when Penn hammered apart the cement box, my glasses were on Teller. Hmmm, clever, but probably more entertaining to be in the audience. I was brave, very very brave, but a bit confused. If you wear glasses, you’ll know that without them you can’t see, or hear, or move.

It was fun, and I’m glad Josh decided we should go. Over all, thrilled with my Vegas trip. Although we are totally lame, we go there to sleep in, eat at the Pyramid Cafe, and we don’t gamble or drink. We had fun anyway. See, we’re already boring, we’ll be great parents!

Next weekend it’s off to Arizona for a flyball tournament. This doesn’t count as a grown up getaway, because if you take the dogs, you’re not really getting away very far.

Posted on May 12th, 2008 by michelle
Filed under: Not my dogs, Random run ins | No Comments »