Will has put on a couple of growth spurts the last month or so, and because of the way I'm carrying him, it makes me look like I'm about ready to pop. He's really high and all in the front. I've had several people tell me you can't even tell I'm pregnant from the back. So anyone who hasn't seen me in the last couple of weeks (which is most of you), you'll be surprised next time you do. I'm hoping I'll have a weekly photo to upload later this afternoon once Steve gets home. I went to the doctor yesterday and she was very impressed with how well everything was going. I'd gained four pounds, which is just about perfect at this stage, and she was super impressed when I told her where to listen for his heartbeat and how he was laying. As she was measuring my belly, she did a double take and asked me how big I was when I was born. I told her nine pounds something (which I THINK is right, let me know if I'm wrong, Mom) and she said that Will was well on his way to being that big. Steve was also a big baby. But we were expecting this, so no biggie. He's really long. His head is resting just above my left hip bone and his body crosses my belly so his butt hits right against my right rib cage. It's been stretching out my ribs on both sides more, which isn't so fun, but it's not as painful as it was at first.

   Ramsey gave us a fright last weekend. Steve was working the morning shift, so he was long gone by the time me and the dogs got up. After I got dressed, I opened Ramsey's crate to let him out (we trained him as a puppy to sleep in a crate and he did so every night until just recently) and I noticed something odd. Usually he's really calm in his crate until you open the door. Then he's like a greyhound at a track. He runs around the room, grabs a toy, runs into the hall, back into the room, slams into Tippy, runs around some more, etc. Well, Saturday morning when I opened his crate he was sitting facing the wall, and it took him several seconds to stand up and even longer to turn around to walk out. And he didn't even walk out, he limped. He was arching his back and struggling to put down either of his back feet. He had absolutely no interest in any of his toys. For anyone who's ever met Ramsey, you know that he doesn't do anything without a toy in his mouth. I guess you could say he's got an oral fixation. When we got to the bottom of the stairs, he couldn't get his back legs to work one at a time on them, so he tried jumping up a couple of steps with both back legs (his front legs were fine) and promptly fell back onto his butt. He just could not climb them. I'm sure you can guess that I was pretty freaking concerned at this point. He had been completely fine when he went to bed the night before. I knew he needed to go out, so I grabbed a leash and went back downstairs and took him outside via our exterior bedroom door. He didn't really have a problem outside, but he still wasn't his usual self. He even managed to climb the five steps to our front porch, so he stayed upstairs the rest of the day. Sitting was really difficult for him; he more just let his back end drop onto the ground rather than lower it. I actually had to help him stand up from a sitting position because it was so difficult for him. I called Steve and told him what was going on, and that I couldn't do anything because I had the taller vehicle, the truck, and there was no way Ramsey could jump into by himself. And also no way I could lift an 80 pound dog by myself to take him to the vet. Not to mention that it was Saturday, so our local vet in Julian was closed. Figures. It always happens that way, doesn't it? Steve said he had a couple of things he needed to get done at work but would try to get off early to come home and help me. I didn't have a problem with this because Ramsey didn't seem to be in any kind of pain; he just couldn't really do anything with his back end. So I brought up his new doggie bed and he slept on that and I tried to kill time and take my mind off it until Steve came home. He did manage to get off about three hours early and we grabbed a blanket to put in the back of the car as soon as he got home. Both the dogs know what this means, and started getting really excited. Tippy was not super happy about being ignored all day, but she was fine. Ramsey tried to walk over to the door, and did make it on his own. He even walked out to the car by himself with a little more pep than I'd seen earlier. Steve heled him get in and we three drove down to the Adobe Animal Hospital in Ramona. Now, Ramsey gets really carsick, even on short drives. Always has. That's what the blanket's for in the back. But this time, he didn't even look like he was going to get sick. Maybe it was that he was laying down the whole time and more able to cushion himself against the turns, not seeing the passing scenery. Maybe it was that his body had more important things to be doing, like fixing his hind end. I don't know. We got to the vet and he just about jumped out of the car and walked (yes, WALKED normally) over to the bushes to pee. We went inside and as we were talking to the receptionist and filling out forms, our oh-so-well trained puppy took a huge dump on their tile floor. Needless to say, Steve and I were pretty embarrassed about the steaming Eiffel tower he left behind. The receptionist didn't seem to mind one bit; she just called for a "cleanup on aisle three" and went right back to work. So we walked over and sat down, waiting for the doctor, and the poor unfortunate soul who had to use a two-handed shovel to scoop our sweet little boy's droppings came out of the back. Just because it smelled good, Ramsey choose a spot right in front of the poor guy and peed, just to top things off. Luckily for us, the doctor came at this point and we didn't have to stare at the significant messes our pooch had made. Ramsey loves being in new environments, meeting new people. Just call him Mr. Social. I don't know if that was taking his mind off things or if he'd just been faking it to get a call ride (unlikely since his IQ is about on the same level as a brick), but he didn't have any problems the whole time we were at the vets. The doctor couldn't find anything wrong with him, and said it was probably that he had just slept funny and gotten a cramp. I figure that's as good of an explanation as we're likely to get, 'cause I don't have a better one. Once we got home, he seemed to be a little under the weather again, but not nearly as bad. By the end of the night, he even wanted to play a little fetch. We decided that, just to be safe, we were going to have him stop using his crate to sleep in. I'd been planning on phasing it out anyway, and had bought the aforementioned new dog bed just for that purpose. He seemed really confused when we didn't open his crate door that night, but slept happily on the floor and his dog bed. He was completely fine the next morning, and has been fine since. I guess it's just one of those things. I'm just very glad we don't have any huge vet bills to face or a half-paralyzed dog or something. Now that I've gone on for several minutes too long about a subject not at all related to babies on this baby blog, I'll sign off. :D