The rest of the Pork Chop family

I figure maybe it's time you meet the rest of the gang.

The human male in the photo is Husband, otherwise known as Father of Chopita, otherwise known as Mo. I refer to him as Husband not to cloister him in anonymity; rather, it's what I call him. He in turn calls me Wife. I think it started as a joke sometime after our wedding - the novelty of being husband and wife made it funny. Now it's habit. I don't plan to start calling him "dad" or answering to "mom" once the kid is here, but I guess it could happen. I just don't see myself answering to "mother" when it's just the two of us in a Denny's 30 years from now. Anyway, that's Husband. He is handsome and funny and wonderful and manages to be perfect at least 85% of the time.

The cat on the table is Meester, given name Mack. He is going to get his own post eventually, because he is Alpha Pet and the recipient of 98% of my affections. I have already started to worry about how he will react to the baby and how our relationship will change. That may sound crazy, but it's true. He is 17 pounds of big male cat and he bosses the rest of us around accordingly.

Cat with his back to you is Womper, given name Jack. We started calling him Womper because his little canine teeth stick out of his mouth like a vampire...somehow it bastardized to Womper. He's more of a standard model cat than his brother, spooking easily and barfing on a regular basis.

The dog is Rocco, usually referred to as Dog. He only outweighs Meester by four pounds, and that combined with the fact that he was threatened within an inch of his life if he got near the cats when they were kittens means that he is totally their bitch. Womper tends to be nicer to him than Meester, who will usually swat him for no particular reason whenever the opportunity arises. Rocco is nine years old and either very, very good or very, very bad depending on the day you catch him. He's usually good for some sort of entertaining shenanigans, anyway.

So that's it - the family to which little Chopita will be born. I'm really hoping that I don't feel the way I hear some people say they feel, that once the baby is born the pets fade into the background as "just pets." It breaks my heart to think of the dynamic changing that way. We've been this little family for over three years - we got the kittens about a month after our wedding. I still remember getting up early to go see them in their little kitten nursery, locked away from dog jaws. I didn't mind at all scooping their little kitten poop or cleaning up their food mess, I was just glad to spend time and get to know them. I'm guessing that's going to be kind of what it's like to have a baby, right?