the Dare-Smith babies and the sinkhole...

No No No, not twins (although my Husband was convinced there would be). I am referring to the baby and the Winston. Mr. Winston, as I call him lately.

I got bored with my thesis yesterday (but I must say that my boredom set in AFTER I submitted a section to my committee) so I decided it was time for Winston to visit the 2^nd floor Smith Spa. Dave has insisted that we not get him groomed until the weather warms up, and I decided that yesterday, since most of the snow has melted, that it was warm enough – so we had a hair-cutting-extravaganza in the sink of my bathroom (and I must mention that it snowed last night – figures).

I’ve added a few pictures of him – three are of him sitting in his special perch – where he watches us when we leave/come home – from the 3^rd floor dormer window. Dave says that we can’t take him back to daycare just yet, because the other pups will make fun of him due to the low-budget hairdo. I say nonsense, although I must admit that while Winston was extremely well behaved during the cutting/styling process, there is one small tuft of hair on him bum that he won’t let me cut. So, he’s got a mullet. Yeah. I said mullet. And its blonde while the rest of the hair on his tail is nearly black. Priceless. Now everyone is gonna know we’re really from Arkansas. :)

The baby is great! The ultrasound on Friday revealed a baby that was growing right on schedule – according to her measurements 6 weeks 4 days (and Friday was 6 weeks 3 days! Baby had a sweet little heartbeat – 118 beats per minute which they say will speed up – and it was a little tough to hold onto because the baby is so small! We saw Dr. Pruna (the ob) afterwards and she was really excited. She and I made a deal that if I would do the first trimester screening at 12 weeks, then she wouldn’t ask me to have any further ultrasounds until then. And really, she insisted that we do the screening, since we’ve have a history with genetic problems now…which I am fine with. Oh, and she’s checking my progesterone levels.

It is raining again. Springtime is so wet here – with all the snow melting the ground is plain soggy. That, in part, explains the growing sinkhole in the yard beside the house – last night it more than tripled in size! Dave said this morning that if you stand near it you can hear the water running into it and falling a really long way….I feel like this is the beginning of a Stephen King story….. Paul (the best man) is coming over later (he does excavation) and he’s gonna work on filling it in. Apparently, Denise has had this problem before.

SO, today is 6 weeks 6 days and the baby is the size of a blueberry. Nausea has been coming and going – Friday night I went shopping at Wal-Mart with Denise and before we were done with checkout I had to bold for the bathroom. I’m still not sure which was worse – throwing up a cheese calzone or throwing up in the Wal-Mart bathroom. Yuckie.

Then entire time I’ve been sitting here writing this email, Mr. Winston has been barking at me. I took a video – so all of you that don’t understand why I take him to daycare will get it – It’s really hard to get any work done when the puppy barks at my feet all day long. He’s so needy. And cute. And soooooo needy. And when I uploaded the video and he could hear the barking, he went nuts. I picked him up and tried to show him that it was the computer, but he just worked himself into a frenzy. Oh well, maybe he’s not the smartest of pups…. And I had to delete the video – too big :)

Love you all!

TTFN!

Mrs. Smith

PS – if any of you ever tell that I let you see the picture of Dave in the bee suit he’d never forgive me. But it was too funny to keep to myself!