The kids.

It's been an eventful first week of life for these little pups. The runt of the litter just wasn't strong enough to survive no matter how much we tried to help her. So now the numbers are down to 7. These little guys are growing like crazy and even showing bits and pieces of their personalities. They've picked up names along the way. I'll admit that I got some help from my new 9-year old friend, Micah, to come up with names for all of them. I just wish Micah had been around to help me take these photos. Do you have any idea how tricky it is to get 3 puppies to pose for a photo at once? I'm afraid these are the best shots you'll get with a photographer of my low caliber.


Three of the females are white so far, but getting freckles on their noses and ears. That means pretty soon they won't need to be marked with nail polish in order to distinguish between them. From left to right: Hope, Pinkie, and Olivia.






There are 3 lookalikes with eye patches: Curly, Larry, and Moe.




Last but not least: Batman. He's the explorer of the group.

The Big Day

Waiting became a group activity. Belle helped keep Tazz company all day long and even helped break in the whelping box. She left me to handle the phone calls from folks wanting play-by-plays. What a pal. Thanks, Belle.




Finally, Tazz's water broke just after midnight (how come nobody told me it would be green?!? kind of a gross surprise, if you ask me). And we all spent a sleepless night waiting for something to happen. At 7am the first puppy showed up and within an hour the total was up to 5. The last 3 must have been busy doing their make-up and didn't sneak into the mix until a couple hours later. The late ones were all girls...wouldn't you know it.
The final breakdown: 5 girls and 3 boys. (Mary T, you're the big winner with your guess of 8).

Once the puppies grow a little bit, get names and stop looking like gerbils, I will post some more photos.

Still waiting...

No puppies yet, folks. I don't know if I've ever waited this hard in my life! Seriously, even the UPS guy asked this afternoon if Tazz had her puppies yet. sigh
Thanks for all of the guesses. Judging by the way Tazz's belly keeps stretching every day, Andrea you might just win. Win what? I don't know.

Waiting

No one loves 100 degree weather more than a pregnant woman. Between the heat and the puppies that are due any minute now. all our poor little buddyTazz can do is wait.

This week I'm taking care of our friends' house and dogs and maybe, just maybe, I'll be helping Tazz deliver some puppies. It's my rookie year as a midwife, so I'm banking on nature to cover my back on this one.

The photo doesn't do Tazz's swelling justice, but trust me, she's enormous. When she lays on the floor her whole belly is alive with who knows how many puppies jostling around like a pack of WWF wrestlers. Either that or I am about to witness the next sequel in the Alien series before it hits theaters. I'd prefer the former.

Remember those games where you have to guess how many jellybeans are in the jar? Let's play our own version. Go ahead and leave your guess in the comment box.

Here are our family guesses:

Deb: 12

Emily: 11 puppies and 1 kitten

Thrillseekers and Babysitters.

Sometimes the only place to hide from the relentless wind and 105 degree heat is on our back porch. Few know this better than our newest tenants. This pair of barn swallows (I like to think of them as Maxwell and 99) spends the afternoon on our ceiling fan, which turns softly with the what little wind reaches the porch.
They've grown quite comfortable with people, dogs and even the cat moving through the area. Perhaps a little bit too comfortable...so every once in a while I like to give them a little thrill by turning on the fan. They go nuts squawking and flying about. But as soon as the fan turns off, they're right back for more. Action junkies.

Tell you what, Maxwell and 99, you can hang out on our fan just as long as you keep on babysitting Hannah. Deal? Deal.