Coco fell and was embarrassed

Ear update: the stuff is still in my ear, but now it's dislodged and rolling around in there. It's like having rocks for brains, and it's driving me nuts.

Coco and Rimsky have been up in the loft a lot lately, and they like to play on this three inch wide part of the loft. It's kind of hard to describe, but it's right by the railing, and is a full story drop to the floor on either side. Well, they were *playing* on it, which needless to say, is ridiculously precarious. As we watched last night, Coco tried to maneuver around one of the railing bars (a staggeringly stupid move if you saw it), and lost his balance and fell. He broke his fall by kind of pushing off the back door which luckily was close to his trajectory, but he still fell pretty hard, and despite being ok, it was clear that he felt stunned and embarrassed. I bust out laughing, and Rimsky came down to check on him. Satisfied that his brother was fine, he whacked Coco on the cheek with his paw and ran off.

Ear Candles

OK, so I got a pair of ear candles for my birthday. Unfortunately, they did not come with instructions, and instead of looking online, I foolishly decided to try them as an ear candle ignoramus. Well, this is what I've learned. It feels kinda good. It seems to magically pull out some stuff. But the hazards are just a little too intense for the payoff.

I had a little piece of hot wax roll into one ear and now I feel like I have water in my ear. I'm sure it'll work itself out (if not, I'm sure it will be simple to get it cleared out at the clinic), but in the meantime, I am kind of pissed. Of course, when it first happened, I wasn't so rational, and was convinced that my stupid ear candle experiment had made me deaf in one ear. So I spent a lot of time secretly panicking last night. And that makes me mad. I don't like panicking.

Anyway, the lesson is, if you want to try it, remember two things. Do it above a sink so the burning ashes can fall in there. And keep the candle horizontal instead of vertical. Ideally, someone should hold it for you and keep an eye on the flame so it doesn't burn your hair or face.

Weekend Kitty Pictures

Trip to the vet

Ok, so I guess nobody thought the tiny dinosaur theory was very funny. Too bad, all you people with no sense of humor!

We took all three pets to get their shots last weekend. The cats meowed in stereo all the way to the vet, but calmed down after getting out of the car. Bailey, on the other hand, starts to hyperventilate from excitement as soon as we pull up. When she gets into the lobby, she's been pulling so hard that she starts choking loudly to add to the nervous barks of the dogs that are already there. Jonner is following, holding both kitty kennels, and as I open the door for him, the door somehow falls off of coco's kennel and so I lose track of Bailey while we struggle to get it back on. And then the black lab by the door barks viciously at groveling Bailey who has blundered into its space. Apologizing, we sit down after our grand, noisy entrance into the vet's office.

When we get settled, I tie Bailey up, and an awkward hush falls over the lobby while we wait. Then Dr. Deb, the nuttiest, awesomest vet comes to get us, and she beams at all of us, clearly loving the idea of getting to handle all three of our pets at once. She immediately starts to feed a steady stream of cookies to Bailey who can't believe her good luck and scrambles around her knees begging for more. All of them get felt up and we get a report on how much doody is in each of them, and then they get their little shots. We learn that Coco has thick leathery skin like a rhino, and that Rimsky is indeed the longest cat in the world. And in between every pause, she's popping cookies into Bailey's mouth faster than we can keep track.

On our trip back, the animals are all strangely calm. Yeah, it was a great visit.

Ah ha ha

Here is the tiny dinosaur theory. Well, I got a kick out of it.

Imagy goodness

So exciting

So I had an ultrasound this morning, and it exceeded all my expectations. The little dude was waving at us at the beginning and then proceeded to swim around while we watched. The lady pointed out all its organs including its large four-chambered heart, which was squeezing away.

OK, so I know everyone wants to know-- it looks like there's a good chance that it's a girl. We're thrilled. I'd be just as thrilled if it turned out to be a boy, but for now I'm going to call it a "she". A lot of times she was curled up with her feet crossed and so you could see the curve of her spine really well. She looked a lot like a dinosaur. But then when she looked out, her face was basically two big holes and a rectangular hole for a mouth, so she looked like Darth Vader.

Now my only hope is that people don't go out and get me only pink frilly stuff. My favorite colors are green and brown. But I do love sparkles. My kid will wear shiny, sparkly things no matter what gender.

It moves

Last night I think I felt the baby move for the first time. It was like something was sliding up and down against my belly from the inside. It was on my left side. I felt distinctly alien.

Scary image

So lately, I've been having little muscle pains in my lower belly, and I keep seeing this horrible picture that I saw in a pregnancy book of a woman's stomach muscles and how they have to split down the middle to make room for the baby. It's a scary looking sketch, and now I can't get it out of my mind. They really should warn you in the book before they show you pictures.