Itty bitty critters

It seems as if the first couple of months settling in here in Alabama have found our lives just chock full of little teeny creatures. I'll spare you the details of the SPIDERS (eww.....) that seem to inhabit every corner of everything. It's indeed been a while since we've had to deal with bugs. Oh, and just as an aside, contrary to what one may believe, Germany is not overrun with German roaches! Back on task....

One of the first things Pete and I noticed as we inspected our new house was that we have rather CLOSE neighbors. They actually live in our carport! What we first thought to be a wasp nest turned out to be a well-built swallow nest, and lo and behold, there were babies in it! They weren't really happy about their new neighbors, and on several occasions the mama and daddy birds summoned up a little swarm of their peers to let Pete know just how disgusted they were that he would have the audacity to park in their carport!

At any rate, though, we had about three weeks with our chattery little neighbors before the babies fledged. Now the neighborhood rooftops are patroled by a whole new shift of swallows!

The other teensy addition to our household is a more permanent resident. While Pete and I were getting all of our signing-in, lease-signing, and setting-up done up here in Huntsville in the middle of June, Kelsey and Morgan stayed with Grandma in Florida. They came across a stray kitten being attacked by another cat and true to her genes, Kelsey decided that we HAD to save him. She and Grandma took little "Booger" to the vet to be treated for an eye infection and to get a once-over plus his kitten shots, and when I brought all of our girls home a week later, a little black and white "baby" came home with us!

I was not thrilled with the name Kelsey had picked out for this little creature--something about the girls telling folks at church all about their "Booger" didn't sit right with me. We tried out several names, then finally after his brute personality surfaced along with a very obvious dorkiness, we settled on calling him Ty. Anyone who has ever seen video footage of the infamous Mike Tyson ear-biting and even a single episode of Extreme Makeover Home Edition with Ty Pennington running amok all over the jobsite will "get it".

The Ty monster is fitting in pretty well--even with the two other critters in the house. Ginormous (compared to Ty, anyway) Jake isn't really all that thrilled about the miniscule little ball of fluff and claws that takes every opportunity to attack him, but we already knew that this 90-pound mutt was pretty much just an overgrown baby anyway. No, Jake hasn't taken a single nip at the kitten. All he does is howl like he's being dismembered when Ty goes after his ears/legs/tail. We couldn't ask for a better cat-dog!

Cleo, our 14-year-old queen of the roost, isn't a bit pleased to be sharing the planet with Ty, but she ALLOWS him to share the windowsill, the foot of the bed, and the water dish. He does have a nasty habit of trying to get a tad too close, though, and Cleo always responds with a good swat atop the head.

As for other itty bitty critters.....still no [human] baby, and it looks now as if I may not have to have as much medical intervention as I thought! All the not-so-fun health issues have mysteriously cleared up, and baby and I are completely healthy--albeit a tad miserable in this steamy Southern summer heat! I'll hit the 37-week-mark on Sunday, and since I've never actually made it to my due date (even when medical science didn't intervene), I'm sure we'll get to meet this nameless little girl fairly soon!