drew’s news

I think we’re off the deep end. Today we had a birthday party for our dog. Uma was born in March last year, so we figured we had to do something to celebrate. Uma’s best playmate Chuffleigh lives just down the block, and Chuffleigh’s mom Karen was very enthusiastic about the our party plans! So we strolled over with a bag of goodies.
First event: get them to wear hats. Yes, dogs in little paper birthday hats. I had to distract them with the promise of snacks in order to stop them from tearing the hats off their heads and ripping them to shreds. It was actually pretty cute…

Next event: cake. Yes, doggie cake - with frosting! Daph made it with peanut butter and carrots, and the frosting was actually whipped cottage cheese. Topped off with jerky sticks for “candles”. It was like a jump ball in a basketball game as Karen put the cake down on the table, and it lasted all of 30 seconds. I guess they liked it!

We relaxed with our own cake and some drinks while the puppies proceeded to sprint around the yard for about 2 hours playing with some new presents from Karen. They’re gonna sleep good tonight!

We’re smack in the middle of the second trimester, and doing great! Daph’s belly button is still an “innie”, but I guess it probably won’t stay that way much longer. The big thrill these days is that we can clearly feel little Mr. Zenk kicking away. Daph feels it every few days, and sometimes I can too if I quietly rest my hand on her belly for a while as we are going to sleep.

As a preview of things to come, we had some friends over for lunch last weekend with their 2-year old daughter Kailani. We weren’t sure quite what to expect with our puppy Uma, who’s about as big as a toddler herself. She is generally pretty well behaved around kids when we’re out walking, but when people come to visit she gets very excited and it can be a challenge to calm her down. So we braced ourselves for chaos. When they arrived, there was the usual excessive tail-wagging and licking (um, from the puppy of course!). I think Uma thought we had brought her a playmate, because she starting running around and howling (she’s part hound) just like at the dog park when she tries to get other dogs to play with her! Little Kailani howled right back at Uma, with a huge grin on her face, and we all had a good laugh - but for sanity’s sake we wound up having to keep the dog in the kitchen while we ate lunch. It’s gonna be an adventure!