Very Special Guests

Tonight, Wes and I had some very special dinner guests. Fin and the Baren came over to hang out with us while their parents went to dinner at a nearby chophouse and then to Navy Pier to see "Much Ado About Nothing" at the Shakespeare Theater. The four us had a pretty good night all in all. Wes and I had spaghetti with mild Italian sausage and crusty bread with garlic and butter for dinner; Fin and the Baren had breastmilk (not mine). We played on a pile of blankets I put down and in the Exersaucer (though I opted out of my Exersaucer time). The most interesting part of the night, though, was seeing Lucy encounter the babies. She's been around small children before -- HP's and TWA Pilot's kids both played with Lucy when she was just a baby dog -- but I don't think she's ever been around infants this young before. She's never been nervous around little kids before, and certainly never aggressive. Usually she just gives kids a sniff, licks anything good off their hands, and then moves on looking for another dog. Tonight, though, she's was just freaked out. When I first brought the boys in, she wouldn't get within a few feet of their car seats and let out a few small barks just to let them know she was keeping her eye on them. She slowly got bolder over the course of the evening, approaching them while Wes or I were holding them and getting sniff of a foot or hand or hind end (it is the dog way of say "howdoyado"). She would approach Fin in the Exersaucer, kind of stretching out to get a whiff of what was going on, and then jump and scatter away when Fin moved or hit a toy. It was hilarious. It's like she knew they weren't like Wes or me, but they didn't seem to be animals like squirrels or cats either. The boys were interested in her, too. They didn't reach out for her or anything like that (and we had an eye on all three of them all night to monitor what was happening), but you could see them tracking her and trying to follow her as she paced around the room. Lucy was, naturally, very interested in diaper changing. Guess this is a good prelim for whomever we introduce to the family in the next few years.

Meanwhile, Fin is currently asleep in the corner of our big king-sized bed, snoozing soundly. The Baren, however, is simply not ready for bed. He fussed wildly when I tried to put him down, so he's currently on my lap as I type -- and starting to fuss again. Guess this, too, is a good prelim for me.