Boo!

Happy Halloween, everyone! I may be too old to go trolling for treats in the trampy Halloween get-ups that seem de rigeur for women in this city, but that doesn't mean I can't utterly humiliate my baby with a costume of his own. Man, I just can't wait until next year when I'll have TWO of them to dress up! Maybe I can save a few bucks and squeeze the human baby into one of Oliver's old costumes. Whaddya think?

My Three Kids

It was a landmark weekend... For one thing, I finished the first of what I hope to be many knitted items for our unborn baby boy - a little Sheldon I lovingly knit in shades of green and blue. You can see that Pug Baby has taken quite a shine to Unborn Baby's new toy, so I think it might be a good idea to knit a slobber-proof, gnaw-proof Sheldon next.

It was a landmark weekend for the hubby, too. Ever since we got hooked on Guitar Hero last year, it's been his dream to rock that plastic guitar in front of a crowd of adoring fans... at Best Buy. It seems that every Best Buy store has a Guitar Hero station set up in a prominent location, and there's always some snotty brat hogging it and showing off his GH skills. Vince won't admit it, but it's obvious by his hovering and lingering glances that he longs to be one of those snotty brats. Well, he finally got his moment in the sun this weekend when we went to a Best Buy and - lo and behold - the GH station was unoccupied. I have to say that Vince did me proud, and I got to be his groupie for three minutes that day.

In the last of my landmark news, I'd like to announce that after a tumultuous on-again, off-again relationship for the past ten months, Lady E and I are finally through. Actually, I was done with the byatch several weeks ago, but I'm only just now getting around to letting the world know about it. The emotions were too raw, you know? And after all that trouble, I realized that she's not even my style. Go figure.

20 Down, 20 to Go

Yesterday marked the end of the first half of my pregnancy. Hip hip hooray! Above, you can see evidence of my burgeoning zaftig-ness. I think most of it can be attributed to the wee Chan, but I'll be honest - some of it might be all of the celebratory eating we've been doing. We're pregnant! Let's eat! We closed escrow on the new place! Let's eat! We closed escrow on the old place! Let's eat! We're done with the first trimester! Let's eat! It's a boy! Let's eat! In fact, to celebrate the halfway point of our pregnancy, guess what we did? That's right, we treated ourselves to a gluttonous feast at Chicago for Ribs. Good thing I took that 20-week picture before dinner.
..I marked the halfway point in my own way by starting a Sheldon for Vince Jr. Oliver seemed to sense that this was a special turtle. As you may recall, the pug has exhibited turtle-cidal behavior in the past, but he left this one in peace. Perhaps it's because Vince made me promise to knit him a turtle of his own.

This morning, we got a chance to say "hi" to Vince Jr. at my Level II Ultrasound, AKA Structure Check. I'd been feeling him move around since my 14th week, but man, was he a squirmy little bugger while the doc was trying to get a look at him! I'm surprised he was able to get any measurements at all. According to Babycenter.com, he's about 10 inches and 10.5 oz now, but he feels much bigger when he kicks me sometimes. I want to tell him to calm down, but I'm so rotund now, I can't get my mouth close enough to my belly to do so. I just end up looking like a crazy person. Instead, I have Vince do it. Somehow, when a man talks to his wife's pregnant belly, it looks cute rather than crazy.
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Grandpug > Son-in-Law

My parents have a really soft spot for Oliver. About 99.9% of my father's emails have some mention of how smart, how funny, or how adorable Oliver is. Prior to getting together with Vince, Oliver was the only man in my life they liked. Then they met Vince, and he joined Oliver's hallowed ranks. Upon meeting Vince for the first time, they gave me confused glances that said, "How the hell did you pull this off?" Despite their approval of my choice in mate, I always suspected that the pug occupied the space closest to their hearts. After we got pregnant, though, I figured that Oliver's sway over them would relax. Father of first grandchild trumps painfully cute grandpug, right? Well, take a look at the above picture, and you tell me. It was snapped last week at LAX mere seconds after my parents exited customs, and it was the first time we saw them since getting pregnant. I found the scene to be wildly amusing until I had a premonition of my parents brushing past my newborn son to see Oliver. Maybe I'll just put them side-by-side in the same bassinet - problem solved!

Oshiri?

You know how people talk about seeing things "through the eyes of a child"? Well, I got to do just that last weekend, and what I saw was Oliver's butthole.

Our good friends Herman and Sachi came over on Saturday with their two adorable kids to check out our new place. While we grown-ups were chatting about grown-up things like mortgages and the amazing decline of the dollar, three-year-old Matthew grew bored and wandered off. Suddenly, we hear him squeal, "Oshiri! Oshiri!!" He's standing about four feet away from Oliver and excitedly pointing at his backside. I ask Sachi what "oshiri" means, and she starts laughing. "Oshiri" is Japanese for "butt." I'd grown so accustomed to Oliver and his puggy anatomy that I no longer noticed that his oshiri was hanging out for all to see. But Matthew noticed. And five minutes later, he also noticed that Oliver's mini-me chew toy was minus one oshiri. As he turned it over in his hands, he looked at his mom quizzically and said, "Oshiri?" And that had us all laughing our oshiris off.

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Below, you can see Oliver has parked his oshiri uncomfortably close to my growing Lady E. He probably doesn't realize that garment is going to be worn right by my face. Or maybe he does.

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