"How big of a disaster is this, on a scale of 9 to 10?" —Joan Callamezzo

Folks, I'm at the end of my rope with the animals. I really don't have the perspective right now to discern if this is how they always are and it just bothers me more, or if they're acting up because they sense the upcoming changes, but either way I'm over it.

Bonnie and Zoe "cuddling" on our bed  their Playhouse of Horrors.

Cody and Bonnie have yet to make friends with the new dogs in our new backyard-neighbor's house, even though they've lived there for over two months. Every time all the dogs are out in the two yards simultaneously, they meet at the fence for a quick run-through of The Dogpocalypse. It's to the point that Bonnie frequently begs to go outside just so she can stand on the porch and bark in their general direction.

Cody persists in his belief that he's just a human who poops outside and therefore can't stand to be in our enormous, beautiful, fenced yard in this glorious weather for more than four minutes at a time. After that, he comes to the back door and pounds on it—that's not an exaggeration—while whining until I let him back in. And he's been sassing me. The other day, while I repeatedly warned him not to, he looked me in the eyes and knocked two throw pillows off the couch so he could get up and pretend to lick his paw when what he really wanted to do was lick the couch itself. He knows how I feel about the throw pillows.

Nighttime, though, is a repeated battle that I never win. At this stage in pregnancy, getting and staying comfortable can be a challenge. But the animals add a level of awfulness that have me on the brink of throwing everybody out of the house altogether.

Cody's favorite wee hours activity alternates between licking himself loudly and long, literally waking me up to a disgusting squelching sound—if it were on a noise machine, would be called Gurgling Swamp—and pacing the room and the hall, occasionally looking out the window to growl at the dust particles he's disturbed when nosing through the blinds.

Once Bonnie hears Cody doing anything, she's up, because her Indefatigable Enthusiasm for Life won't let her stay in bed if there's a swamp to explore or a dust bunny to chastise. Her most annoying quality, though, is nighttime licking. One night last week I woke up because my foot was on a wet patch: She had licked "her paw" so much that an eight-inch Circle of Dampness had penetrated the quilt and both layers of our sheets. When I yelled at her then shoved her over to Noah's side of the bed, she proceeded to do the same thing over there.

Taking a much-needed nap since they spend so many hours keeping me awake during the night.

The cat might be the worst offender because not only is she a nuisance herself, she's also an instigator. The dogs can't relax when she's haughtily flaunting her antics, and haughtily flaunting her antics is her favorite activity of day or night. The greatest trick she performs, though, is barfing from high places, such as sitting on our linens trunk and horking over the side onto the floor at 2 a.m. Last night's performance was especially classic, since she vommed onto a pillow Noah had tossed on the floor. Then when we throw her out and close the bedroom door, within two hours she stands outside and mewls into what I think is a megaphone she keeps handy for just that purpose until Noah either lets her back in our room or (my personal preference) throws her outside and comes back to bed.

Zoe the cat has been on a Three Strikes You're Out policy (with a two-strike handicap) for some time now. If she appears to be considering a jump into the bathroom sink (where she sometimes enjoys a good pee)? Strike three, she's outside. If she begins meowing loudly or acting like she forgets where her food bowl is? Strike three, she's outside. I'm thinking of considering dusk as a strike three, because although she has no power over the revolutions of the Earth and Sun in the cosmos, she certainly takes advantage of them.

I think it's time to apply the Two-Strike-Handicapped Three Strikes You're Out policy with the dogs. I simply must get more sleep. They would have a pin turned in their noses, as my Irish kin would say, but I don't care. They can sleep in the living room or the office until further notice. And I may even get them an early Christmas present: citronella anti-bark collars. Because nothing says shut the heck up like a spray of lemon scent to the face.