As I mentioned earlier this week, my birthday is tomorrow… the big 2-9. And while this number is getting a little high for my comfort, I have to admit, I feel pretty good being able to say I’m still in my twenties. It sounds so youthful, right?

Plus, besides being pregnant, I pretty much look 18, so that works!

Anyway, I digress. Last night I celebrated my birthday with two very special little ladies… my very close friends, Erica and Carrie. We went to this Southern Italian restaurant and ate some good (and some okay) food. The restaurant is new to my area… Salotto Zarletti. What I can say is that they make a VERY good pizza. My favorite was the prosciutto con rucola. It had arugula and a delish tomato sauce… very tasty. The salad – an asparagus salad – was tasty, but tiny. All-in-all, dinner was good, but not amazing!

So the ladies crowd this year was a little small, as my sweet friend Kate is officially moved away and living in Seattle <TEAR> and our other friend, Ashley, was unable to make it. Regardless, we had a great time. After dinner, the ladies took me to go see “The Other Woman,” which was perfectly stupid and entertaining. Definitely a movie you can wait to watch on TV, but it was $5 movie night (with free popcorn) at the theater, so who could resist? It was really fun! I haven’t been to a movie with my girlfriends since I was… I don’t even know? Back in high school? Middle School?

Either way, it was a great little date night with my gals and felt like an evening that would be harder to pull off once baby girl comes. I’m lucky to have such great friends.

In other news, poor little Toby got his first tick… and it was nasty. He was licking his paw a ton last night, so we thought he had some sort of allergic reaction to something (we didn’t see anything on him). We gave him half a children’s Benadryl (a secret remedy our vet clued us in on) and went to bed. This morning, he was still licking, so I checked out his paw again and found this…

Honestly, at first, I didn’t know what it was. My instinct was to grab a kleenex and pull the thing out… then I thought, hmmm… might want to wait on that.

Close-up of the NASTY, giant tick.

That’s his, “Mommy, I have an owie” face.

I decided to take Tobers to the vet so he could make sure the entire tick was removed and didn’t do any damage to our little guy. I love our vet. He’s really awesome. He removed the tick, which was dead, and suggested a monthly flea and tick treatment that works better than Frontline. While Frontline kills fleas and ticks once they bite your pet, this other drug – Vectra – repels them and burns the sh*t out of them if they land on your pup. Anyway, we’ll bring Tobers back in three weeks for his regularly scheduled heartworm blood test, at which point they’ll test for any tick-related illness that could have been transferred.

Until then, hopefully Toby stays tick-free.

Symptoms

My back is not comfortable. Some moments are better than others, but it’s really not great. Especially if I have to pee or am feeling bloated… which is probably about 50% of my day. I swear, I literally pee every 45-60 minutes. It’s insane. And for some reason, I’m SO bloated. My diet hasn’t changed, so it shouldn’t be that, but oofta. Not fun.

While I recognize that was a lot of bitching, I must say this, even on my worst of days (in terms of symptoms), I think I’ve had a pretty dang easy pregnancy. I’ve heard some pretty crazy stories. Plus, relatively speaking, I’ve managed to keep the vast majority of my pregnancy weight gain in my belly (and some in the boobs), which helps me to miss my old body a LITTLE less. Although, I really do miss it.

Okay, I’m done complaining. It’s a good day! My baby is playing around as I type and we’re both happy as can be!