Bouncing boy

I like to yank my shirt up to my bra and watch my belly. Mike thinks I am nuts and laughs at me, but this evening he actually understood. I try and try to get him to watch but Tiger ALWAYS stops when his daddy is watching. I got him to come over and like always he stopped his beating around in there. So Mike walked away and a minute or two later he started up again. I called him back and this time he finally got to see. The movements are getting bigger and more pronounced. It hardly looks (and feels) like there is much of anything in between the wall of my uterus and my skin. What used to be little thumbs in one place are now large whacks that you can see in 2-3 inch movements. Sometimes it is uncomfortable, but it is so cool to watch. What it must be like to have 2 or 3 of them doing that!

I have gone through a book of baby names and highlighted the ones I like. I have presented this to my husband. I don't think he has looked at it yet. I am threatening him that I really will pick my own name and soon if he won't take this more seriously. The problem is there are still to many names that I like. I need for him to say he hates this one or that one is a possibility.

I got scared this weekend. I took Molly for a walk on a different route. We usually go to the end of our street and go up the hill on the busy county road. The speed limit is 55. There is little along the end but tall grass and then a canal and there are many many trees to obstruct a motorists' view of us. This usually isn't too bad and eventually we level out and you can see for quite a distance. But we haven't been going that far for awhile and there is no other way to get back if I get tired. No options. So instead, we walked down to the other end of the street and it loops around to the street just south of our house. It does this a couple of times so it gives us some options for how far we go and the ability to get back home a shorter route if we need to. The disadvantage to this is that there are lots of dogs. Lots of unfenced or tethered dogs. We passed a house of a dog we didn't know. His owners were outside working and he viewed us as a threat and he charged right after us. Molly is generally very happy-go-lucky. Kind of a ditsy blond actually. She has always tended to hide behind me if she thought the dog was aggressive. She might bark loudly and she has a big bark but it was from the farthest point from the other dog. For the most part, she wants to play with that other dog unless they don't like her presence. This was different and she fought. I have developed a tone that can get most dogs to back off and get her under control without much issue but not here. She has become so protective of me and she took this dog on. I didn't know what to do. The owners of the other dog just yelled at him and he didn't care. I got Molly pulled back but it was after she scuffled with him. I was scared. What do you do? We came close another time recently but between her snarling and my shooing the other dog it backed off. The funny thing was that we walked not three houses down the road and she saw another dog, one she knows and was a giant puppy again in less than three minutes. I have always wondered if she had that side in her or not. I mean I assumed she did because she is a dog, but I haven't seen it before. There have been a few times that Mike and I have had some, um, loud discussions and she will put herself right next to me between us and she sits at attention watching him, but I have never been scared before of my own dog. Mostly that I wasn't going to be able to get control of her and that it was such a physically difficult thing for me to do right now with her being such a big girl. The other dog was Lab mix as well, but whatever he was mixed with was a lot smaller than Molly's dad. She probably had about forty pounds on him. I wonder what would have happened if he had been a larger dog...

Okay, I have a baby shower question. One of my friends (J) wants to have a shower for me which is very nice. Another friend suddenly wants to help is telling her what we should do. She is also offering large amounts of money to do this and isn't sure if she will be able to make it. She is saying that J should serve alcohol and telling her what we should and should not do. Has anyone ever been to a baby shower where the guests get all liquored up??? I have not and neither has J. We are thinking that it is inappropriate. It also seems nuts to offer $500 to buy the alcohol and to put towards food. J loves to do brunch parties and have punch and rolls and fruit and that kind of thing. I think that is totally fine, as long as there is cake. She knows I am all about cake right now ;) Put even a champagne punch seems wrong to us. For God's sake I'm PREGNANT!!! Any thoughts or suggestions? It is nice of her to want to be so generous. I don't want to sound greedy but she can just give us a REALLY nice gift instead (a fraction of that would be a really nice gift). Why would you slap out that much money and not plan to be there? Odds are very slim that she is going to come. Anyway what do you think? Any experience with such baby showers?