It's midnight, a brand new year, and our neighbors are setting off bottle rockets to celebrate. Assholes.

First of all, Bugs is completely phobic about fireworks of any kind. He heard the first little "pop pop" from outside and started quaking uncontrollably. Then some bigger explosions happened and he flipped. Right now he is alternately hiding in the closet, running back over to me and trying to sit on my non-existent lap, trying to squeeze under the bed, running out to the living room, and then he goes through his Freak Out Routine again. Back to the closet at the moment. Oh, now he's back and running in circles crying, with his ears flattened back against his head. And farting. Poor dog.

This is the same dog who RAN AWAY for the first time ever this summer when he heard a loud popping noise. I can't remember what the noise was, but Bugs was outside at the time and he apparently just freaked out, took off down the street running and kept going. We finally found him three streets away, after almost losing our minds with worry, of course...posting "LOST DOG" signs and photos and all that.

So he would probably be in another county by now if he weren't shut in the house.

Nice, there's some kind of Piccolo Pete action going on right now and I think Bugs is going to throw up.

I just heard Julian yelp in his bed a few minutes ago too. But I guess he went back to sleep. Oh well, actually he just walked into the room. Bugs is practically attacking him, pouncing on him and licking him. Sigh. Julian said he woke up scared from the loud noises.

Dan just called me from Ray and Lisa's New Year party. I decided to stay home and have a quiet NYE, and get Julian to bed early. I'm not so into socializing lately. No one knows what to say to an extremely pregnant woman. Once they've covered, "When are you due?" and "How are you feeling?", then people slink off elsewhere as fast as they can. And the physical discomfort I'm in doesn't exactly inspire me to exchange glib, witty banter with my fellow human beings. I just want to hole up with a good book and some cookie dough and count off the days until this baby comes. So I sent Dan off to have fun, got Julian in bed on time (and took a little nap with him), then I got up and read for a while until the fireworks started going off and the dog went nuts and now Julian is awake and out of bed....

On that note, time to get this boy back into his bed. Maybe we'll have a midnight snack first. Might as well. Dan is coming home soon and then Bugs will bark and wake everyone up anyway, so might as well eat. We went to Buca di Beppo this afternoon for lunch and brought home meatballs and chicken cannelloni for dinner so I wouldn't have to cook, but then we never ate it. So it's still in the fridge...waiting to be eaten. Here we come!