"The Princess and the Piece of Kibble"

Satori is expecting and is on "bedrest", which means that, just like with human mamas, she has to just lie around peacefully in her whelping box to give her litter the best chance of reaching full-term.   (This usually means that I have to just lie around in her whelping box too, to keep her company!) Every 3-5 hours (Yes, all day and all night long!) we run a monitoring session from an amazing electronic monitor that sends data via the phoneline to a canine whelping consulting service in Colorado, so that we have a better idea of what is going on in there!
http://www.whelpwise.com/testing/whelp-wise-service.html

Miss Satori is a highly intelligent--and fairly calculating-- canine "L.A.P." (or "Labradoodle Australian Princess").  We have conducted the Princess-Test and she has passed with flying colors!  Just like a true Princess, Satori will not accept kibble...or even roast chicken..except fed directly from our fingers in appropriately bite-sized morsels:

Acceptable

"I Don't Think So..."

Not Acceptable

Satori prefers NOT to be by herself too much, so when we are not looking after the other babies, we are spending a lot of time together... (note: the coffee is mine) 

5 days and counting with no progress

Meanwhile, here at Golden Gate Central HQ, while the pups and mama's needs (and whims!) are being catered to, the human contingent are demonstrating god-like forbearance and patience.  I could take a photo of the piles of laundry choking up the laundry room, the dishes on the kitchen counter, or possibly just the in-box of unopened emails on my Gmail account, but somehow this picture is emblematic of the situation: