We’ve been all pumped up about starting our life as a family. After stopping the film, however, we couldn’t quite look each other straight in the eye. We laughed that we’re a far cry from Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson in Mommy and Daddy mode, but we both went to bed that night with a creeping question in our minds: Is this the end of ‘us’ as we know ourselves? Are we destined to lose our life passions in the midst of the diapers and drooling and domestic grind?

So I wanted to throw this to all of you: Given that babies, and kids, demand a huge amount of energy and time (and of course we love this about them), how do you make time for you? How do you make time for your relationship with your partner? What kinds of things, big or small, have you managed to work into your days to strike a good balance? Tips? Tricks? I’d love to hear about what you’re going through right now-- whatever phase you’re in-- and how you’re making it all work… for you.

We’re beginning to wonder aloud: how will our cats cope with the baby? We’ve put a net on the crib, and are secretly planning to kick them out of the bedroom altogether… this will definitely disrupt Zen’s hard-set cuddling routine. We’re not sure how she’ll react. We have friends whose cat became so depressed upon the arrival of a baby that it lost enough weight to land itself in the hospital with an IV drip. Another rebelled by pooping all over its owners’ rugs. This leads to our other lurking question, as-yet-unspoken but undoubtedly there: once the baby’s born, as much as we love our cats, how will we cope with them?

As I count down the weeks to the big birth day, in addition to preparing for labor (more on our childbirth classes later), I'm also making sure to do lots of baby care prep by practicing my skills on our dog Lucy.

For example, I'm making sure Lucy sleeps on her back to reduce the risk of SIDS. (I swear she likes sleeping this way!)

A pregnancy is hard on a cat. First of all. There's no good lap space left. You try to rest your head and paws against this mountainous belly and either you slide down, or the belly moves and you slide down.

And then there's all the new stuff.

You. Must. Investigate. The. New. Stuff.

You sit on top of the co-sleeper. You crawl inside the storage space in the bottom of the co-sleeper.

People yell at you and shoo you away. But you are just doing your job.

Must. Spread. Scent. And. Fur.