The Pug Stalker

On Christmas Eve, Vince, Oliver, me, and my bump bundled up and drove to my in-laws' house to have dinner and open gifts. At some point in the evening, we noticed that Tyler, Vince's 10-month-old nephew, had developed a rather alarming pug obsession. Everywhere the pug went, Tyler wanted to be. Now, pugs are not known for being fast-moving creatures. I think the average pug's mean speed falls somewhere between that of an overweight hamster and that of algae. But on Christmas Eve, we discovered that one creature couldn't keep up with even the pug's slow pace, and it drove him absolutely mad. Oliver would wander across the room, and Tyler would try in vain to crawl to where he was. After watching this go on for a while, I just grabbed the pug and held him still.

As you can see, Oliver's indifference to Tyler's loving ministrations did not go over well at all.

Christmas Day was spent relaxing and doing the things we each love best. For me, that meant baking a chocolate mint torte for dinner that evening. For Vince, that meant playing eight straight hours of online Risk. For Oliver, that meant sleeping. And sleeping. And sleeping some more. It seemed the poor pug was especially sluggish, probably due to his stalker-dodging maneuvers the night before. Or maybe he was just trying to enjoy some peace before the arrival of a potential permanent stalker in his home.

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It's That Time of Year Again

Every year, it seems that the holiday season arrives more and more quickly. Wasn't it just the other day that I was obsessing over buying gifts, baking cookies, and trimming the tree? Speaking of trees, Vince and I were a little late this year with setting ours up. Perhaps it's because baby madness has us preoccupied, or perhaps it's because we were still recovering from hosting Thanksgiving, but we didn't get our tree up until just this weekend. Still, we were thrilled to have found a rather realistic-looking fake tree at our favorite store, Target. And it was on sale, no less! Can't beat that.

To round out the weekend festivities, I knit the little bear you see above. I used Vanessa Carter's pattern for him, which I found on my favorite knitting website, Knitty. To my delight, I was able to finish him in less than a weekend's worth of casual knitting. Even better, he required only about half a skein of yarn! Half a skein!! Laugh, if you will, at my utter elation, but I feel like Christmas came early for this knitter.

The Home Stretch

I'm officially in my third trimester now. The one in which, according to various pregnancy books and websites, I get "itchy, bitchy, and huge." These three winning pregnancy traits were spread out over all three trimesters for me. I became bitchy in my first trimester. I started itching in my second trimester. And now, I'm getting huge. If I had any doubt about my huge-ness, it was erased by something my hubby said to me last night. After searching fruitlessly in my closet for a T-shirt that would still fit me, I decided to wear one of Vince's. As I emerged from his closet in an old raglan tee, he noticed that even though there was a discernible bump beneath it, it was still somewhat baggy on me. His eyes got all big and buggy, and he whined, "Oh, my God, I'm not that big, am I?"

Careful there, buddy. Careful.