Our 2 Cats (plus a baby update)

MUFFIN
For any of you who've known us for any length of time, you know that we have 2 cats. Muffin is our older cat, a bobtail (she has no tail) that Gavin's had since he graduated high school. She tends to be temperamental and territorial. She generally doesn't like strangers, keeps to herself, and is a stickler for her schedule. At about 8:30 every night, she rounds the corner with a meow, "It's bedtime! Please come put me to bed!" And so, I follow her to the laundry room, make sure she has food and water, and close the door behind her.

Muffin is also real good at communicating if she needs food or water, or if the litter box needs to be cleaned. She'll stand there and meow at me and then walk toward the laundry room, waiting for me to follow her in there to see which of her needs needs to be fulfulled.

We think Muffy has arthritis, and so she has not adequately cleaned herself in a few years now. Therefore, she has several large spots on her back where her fur has matted together. Kinda gross, really, but also kinda sad. If we could, we would just take an electric razor and shave it all off of her, but Muffy would never allow that. We'd have to tranquilize her first. That's how temperamental she can be. (Well, and we think that skin must be quite sensitive in those areas.)

BAGEL
Then....there's our 1 year old cat, whom we've had since she was about 7 weeks old, Bagel. Yes, we decided to be silly and name her Bagel, and if we were to ever get a dog, we'd name him Biscuit! :) Bagel has been quite the addition to our family! This energetic, mischeivious, cuddly cat will warm your heart and frustrate you all in a matter of seconds. She eats too much, so we recently started trying to limit her diet. She pounces on anything that moves fast...well, and slow, namely Muffin. She sleeps in the guest bathroom at night, and sometimes she KNOWS it's bedtime and she RUNS! Ha! If she gives me too hard of a time, Gavin will go after her and pull her out from under the bed BY HER TAIL if he has to!

SISTERS
Muffin and Bagel have a true love-hate relationship. Muffin hates Bagel, and Bagel loves Muffin. All Muffin wants to do is mind her own business and sleep all day. Bagel has her spouts of energy when all she wants to do is run and wrestle and play. If Bagel gets too hyper, we lock her up in the bathroom for a "time out" session. Honestly, do you know of any other family who treats their CATS like humans the way we do? Dogs, I know LOTS of people who do, but really.....cats?? But that's just a part of my quirky family and we love it.

BABY UPDATE
We are now officially 31 weeks, praise the Lord! Last week's check up showed everything to be very normal, other than my iron levels to be a little low. So the doc's giving me some iron supplements to take every other day. Apparantly this is normal during pregnancy, because babies are little sponges and they soak up everything from us!

I've also even resorted to popping a few Tums each day to help supplement my calcium intake. A couple weeks ago, my feet were cramping HORRIBLY - quite uncomfortable! Dr. says baby's probably taking some calcium from my bones, which can cause my muscles to be a little jumpy. So.....milk, cheese, bananas & avocados (for potassium), iron....this girl gots it all!

Last night, I even had a dream about our precious one being born and our first meeting. I'm so looking forward to introducing him to you in just another month and half or so!

They estimated Baby Boy Dickson to be about 4 lbs. and that he'll probably be around 7.5 or 8 lbs by delivery.