Bean Anderson

OK, folks – prepare for a mini-novel from your friendly co-author, Susan. There’s so much to update you on… We reached 33 weeks today – getting so close to the end it’s impossible to imagine that in two months Little Bean will be here. We are just bursting with anticipation!

Here’s what Babycenter.com has to say about this milestone:

This week, your baby weighs a little over 4 pounds and is approximately 17.2 inches long. She's rapidly losing that wrinkled, alien look and her bones are hardening. Her skull, however, will stay soft until after birth, to make it easier to squeeze through the birth canal. You may be waddling a bit now, as your baby fills out even more of your belly. It may be harder to sleep comfortably, too.

That last part is true – I’ve been having more and more difficultly sleeping. The main reason is that it is so difficult to move around or turn over; that and the need to go to the bathroom every 3 hours!

The coolest thing is that Little Bean has been so active lately – or, at least, it seems that way. Because she’s running out of room to wiggle her movements are much more forceful. It’s awesome for now, but I know soon it will be closer to having the wind knocked out of me as she gets bigger and stronger.

Tomorrow is another milestone for me in my career; it is the final day on my project in Seattle that I’ve been working on for nearly two years. Doc says no more travel and I say ‘Yay, doc’. Anyhow, it’s been a sad week as I say my goodbyes; it’s almost as if I’m quitting my job because I won’t be seeing my clients again. I'll be working from the Portland office between now and when I give birth.

I talked to my mom today; she’s having the LASIK eye surgery on Thursday and we’re both so excited for her. I had the surgery done about 4 years ago and it was a major life-changing event. It’s amazing how meaningful it is to be able to see the clock in the middle of the night.

Speaking of mom, we mention below how much I miss her these days. Since she lives in Kansas I only get to see her about twice a year and being pregnant has really turned on the ‘I want my mommy’ hormones. It was so bad this year that I just *had* to fly home to see her for Mother’s Day. Her visit for the birth means so much to me (and to Sheryl too). It’s really hard being so far from her and the rest of my family that’s not here.

On Thursday this week my best friend, Niki, will be visiting along with her fiance Pat. We'll be sure to share lots of photos as we take them. More later, folks!

It's still summer but there are Fall cues everywhere. The way the sunlight breaks and bends through the shades and there's no need to close them. Normally, in summer, it's too hot to sit in the room with the shades open. Bean can see light now through the skin/uterus/amniotic fluid.


I so want to be in New York protesting outside of the RNC. I can't believe Bernie Kerick is up there touting that we had to go to war with Iraq, that the Patriot Act makes this a safer world... That Bush is our future, safety and security? Kerick is the Former Police Commissioner of New York during 9/11. What next? Oh yes, a former US Prosecutor touting the virtues of the Patriot Act. Please. Turn out the lights. I'm not going to last very long watching this party's convention.

Now that we've been without company for over a week, Jack the cat is being his normal social self. He still panics and runs away when we move too fast or come around a corner and surprise him, but he's not acting out.

Susan's friend Niki is coming this week to visit. She's bringing her fiance, Patrick. Niki is back in the states after a few years in France. Both she and Patrick live in Montana. Susan's mom sent us this baby book in the shape of a caterpillar.

In the recent past I attended this workshop instructed by Carlos Cortes. I picked up and just started reading his book The Children Are Watching; How the Media Teach About Diversity.

We're 33 weeks on Tuesday. Wow. We start the Birthing From Within class this week. I think it's surprising that their mission statement includes the sentence "We teach about birth from four perspectives: mother, father, baby and culture." So much of parenting curriculum and literature is written from the mother/father paradigm. A good facilitator shifts to parent or partner instead of exclusively using the word "father" when the audience contains single mothers, mothers with non-father partners, gay parents... Hopefully our facilitator will be a good one.

Susan has this game going with little bean. She finds a bean foot and lightly pushes in on her belly and then the baby pushes back. You can actually see the belly rise from the push. Jack was curious so he came over to check out the scene.

Sometimes I wake up and find him sitting on Susan's belly as if he were incubating the baby. There's less of that these days as Susan is mostly side sleeping now. We got our hypnobabies manual/program in the mail yesterday. We're excited about the possibilities. Talked to mom this morning. Dad was out putting compost in the soil in preparation for the Fall garden. His garden is fenced in to keep out the deer. There are a lot of deer in that area and they have high vegetation intake. Mom is touting the virtues of cloth diapers; she was glad that we are planning to use them instead of the plastic ones. She said that with one baby, doing laundry is not that big of a deal. Of course, mom did it with twins. A friend's son and his wife had twins and they gave up on cloth diapers even with a diaper service. The mom said it just wasn't worth the time involved.

Here's a word for you--tump. It means to cause to tip over according to Merriam Webster's online dictionary. My sister brought it into the conversation when she was visiting us as a word used frequently in Texas. "Watch it! You're going to tump that over."

Pamela and I went to Dante's last night to see Johnette Napolitano play bass and sing. Her band is Concrete Blonde and Pamela's been going to see them ever since they came to Boston in their early touring days. Napolitano has gone through a lot of iterations of looks and her current one is pretty fun. She has a new album but still played some of the oldies like Joey from her Bloodletting album. People were packed and stacked in Dante's and it was crazy hot and smoky. A little claustrophobic for me. I lasted about 2 hours in the front of the stage and then headed for the back in search of some fresher air. It was a claustrophobic day for me. I didn't know that being in tight spaces freaked me out but I ran into that yesterday when I had an MRI. I went in to the exam room calm and collected. I was flat on the table. The tech put a pillow under my knees to ease possible back strain since I was going to be in the machine for two full sets of tests (read about 45 minutes). He explained the process, and packaged my head so it wouldn't move, put a couple of pieces of tape across my forehead to remind me not to move, put a cloth over my eyes, and rolled me in the tube. Once in, I couldn't breathe, my heart was racing, and I panicked. I had to get out of there. I started saying I need out I need out. The tech pulled me out, kept me calm enough to allow him to get everything off of me, and sat me up.

Wow, lot's of things going through my head, including embarrassment. So, I sit there and try to regain my composure. I talk to the tech. I'm thinking I don't know if I can get back in there. I ask if this happens to a lot of people. He says about 1/3rd. I ask how they get over it. He says, some people just chalk it up to psychological and retry, some go back to their Doctor and get a prescription for Valium or some other drug, and some are so bad that they have to have an anesthesiologist come in (he points to the machine to the right).

I decided to try it again with no cloth over my eyes and the tech suggested a fan at the back of the tube blowing in to get some air circulating. He prepared me and rolled me back in the tube. With a brain scan they put this cage over your face that's pretty invasive. It's the scan device. I closed my eyes and started singing this song in my head and for 45 minutes I sang that song from beginning to end over and over again. I tried to sing a different song one time and my heart started racing so I went back to the original. Anyway, the sounds of an MRI are pretty weird too. Click click, hammer gun hammer gun hammer gun in fast repetitions, air horn sounds for 1 to 2 minutes. When I came out and saw Susan my eyes started tearing up. I think that 45 minutes of trying not to panic in the MRI machine just totally made it easy for me to cry when I got in a safe space. I feel for people who have these scans a lot and I hope I never have to have another one. Results in a week or so.

We got a package from Susan's mom today. Can't wait to open it. She did some re-sale store shopping for baby goods. She got her ticket yesterday. She's coming in for the birth and we're really excited about that. Susan's always longed to see her mom, but with this pregnancy that longing is magnified.

Well folks, we reached 32 weeks today and my belly is impossibly big. I asked the doctor on Friday how it was possible that I could grow any more?!? She laughed and assured me that my body will figure it out. For women with short torsos – like mine – growth is going to occur more and more in the horizontal direction.

Here's what Babycenter.com has to say about Baby Bean (and me!) at 32 weeks:

“By now, your baby probably weighs almost 4 pounds and is almost 17 inches long, taking up a lot of space in your uterus. She has tiny toenails now, and her fingernails have grown in, too. Some babies have a head of hair already; others have only peach fuzz.

Your blood volume (the plasma plus red blood cells) is now about 40 to 50 percent greater than before you became pregnant to accommodate the needs of you and your baby. (This extra amount also helps make up for any blood you'll lose when giving birth.) You're also gaining a pound a week now, and roughly half of that goes right to your baby. With your uterus pushing up near your diaphragm and adding pressure on your abdomen, you may be dealing with heartburn more often or feeling a little short of breath. To help with shortness of breath, try eating smaller quantities more often (rather than three daily feasts) and sleeping propped up. Those smaller meals should help with the heartburn, too.

You may also be getting sudden, sharp pain radiating from your buttocks (usually on one side) down your thighs and legs. Because it starts with your sciatic nerve (which right now is being pressed on by your growing uterus), the pain is called sciatica. Try using a heating pad or changing positions while you sit or sleep to give you some relief for now. The problem is likely to disappear altogether after you give birth. If it's very uncomfortable or if you feel any area of numbness, be sure to mention it to your healthcare provider.”

The good news is that I haven’t had too much heart burn and no sciatica to speak of (knock on wood!). I am suffering through some stiffness and some round ligament pain (sort of like when you get a stitch in your side when running). >>Side note: Sheryl says using the word ‘stitch’ reveals my mid-western slang. I say no – but I am getting proven wrong as I poll people on this topic. Hurumph.

Sheryl and I dropped out of our hospital birthing classes last week; we’d just had enough of wasting our time. Essentially, we decided that we were learning nothing in the hospital courses and the delivery and curriculum were so poor. We start a replacement class on September 2nd – it’s a Birthing From Within series; you can read about it at http://www.movingthrough.com/birth.html. It's a bit on the softer, earth-momma side of things, but I think we'll enjoy it much more than the stale lectures at the hospital.

Cheers, all!

Two weekends ago at the coast it was gray like it was today in Portland. People seemed happier at work today. Portlanders can only take so much sunshine... Susan's swelling is really pronounced, especially around the ankles, but Dr. Hotltzman says that's normal for some people and there are no other complicating symptoms present. She suggested swimming and keeping the feet up as much as possible. Here's Susan in the cooler coast weather.

We've decided to host a No on 36 house party through Basic Rights Oregon next month. Is anyone else feeling the financial pinch of all of these campaigns? There are so many important causes and more and more I feel the weight of George Bush's actions. Every week it seems someone is at my door, Oregon Natural Resources Council or friends of Gifford Pinchot National Forest et al. I go snow shoeing in the Gifford Pinchot. It's an awesome forest. Dave Sullivan postulated in one his new songs that we should make Bush stay in office for another 4 years and demand that he clean up the mess he has created.

Yesterday was a music/musician themed day. We started off at the Jerry Garcia sculpture at McMenamins Edgefield. Can you see him?

Then family friend C.K. came by. He's producing Monday Night Gig, a film about what it's like to be in a band.

Here's Shelly and Kirsten checking out the Monday Night Gig site. C.K. also produced The Sexy Chef. You can rent it at most Portland home grown video stores.

Yesterday evening we had a MoveOn.org benefit at Haven's Coffee Shop on Division. That's a rocking coffee house serving Stumptown coffee. Great windows. And they have vegan desserts. Stacey and I played a song together. Here's a picture of us practicing earlier in the day.

Laural Winter read some new poems. Her spoken word is awesome.

Dave Sullivan wrapped up with guitar and singing. If you ever get the chance, go see this man. He sang some new stuff including "They took my picture at a demonstration." Besides being an excellent guitar player and singer, he is a true performer. He and his band have another cd coming out soon. They just finished recording and are into the mixing from what I can gather.

Everyone departed today. The house is very quiet. Susan and Jack the cat are napping. Our visit with Dr. Holtzman went really well yesterday. Everything is on normal track. Stacey went with us to hear the heart beat of the baby. It sounds like a gallop on a static filled radio station.

The family went to the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic area today. The Columbia River Highway was the first scenic highway in America. The Vista House at Crown Point is a great stopping point with an awesome view of the gorge. Here's a picture of Stacey, Kirsten and Robin at the point.

Keep heading East along the gorge and you get to Hood River, the windsurfing capital of the world, where John Kerry spent some time windsurfing after his recent visit to Portland. There are many Falls along the scenic highway. The family stopped first at Latourell Falls and did an easy 1/2 mile trek to the top. Then the went to the more spectacular Multnomah Falls. MF is a double falls about 650 feet in height. There's a bridge at the lower Falls. It's a perfect place for picture taking. Here are Shelly and Robin.

The climb to the top is about a mile up on a very steep grade with a lot of switchbacks. Here are Kirsten and Robin being exhausted at one of the resting points.

When you finally make your way to the top it's very exciting. When you look over the ledge it's somewhat frightening to view how high you've climbed.


In case you haven't been keeping track, we just past 31 weeks on Tuesday! Susan is very hot right now. The Texans just laugh at us because it's cool to them. We go see Dr. Holtzman tomorrow for our regular check-up. After this week we increase visits to every other week.

We're finally back in Portland for longer than a night. We returned to Portland from Cannon Beach Saturday evening. Here's a photo of my sister, Shelly and our niece, Robin, at Haystack.

The next morning we packed up bright and early and Amtraked to Seattle. It was the first visit to Seattle for both Kirsten and Robin. We checked in to the hotel and promptly walked towards Pike's Market.

We went to the top of the Space Needle and afterwards decided to ride the Duck. Susan mentioned that in her earlier blog. Here's a picture of Kirsten, Stacey and Robin outside the Duck boat with their quackers.

Bright and early on Monday morning we caught the Victoria Clipper and began our trip to Friday Harbor for whale watching. Shelly brought me some gadget fold-up glasses from Texas (+2.00). Very useful for me and good fun for the girls. Here's Stacey wearing them.


And here's Robin.

The trip to Friday Harbor was about 4 hours. The girls slept much of the way.

On our whale excursion we saw a lot of orca whales but they're a bugger to photograph! Here's the best pic I have.

Docked in Oak Harbor was the ship, Lady Washington, they used in Pirates of the Caribbean. We could walk to it from the dock. It's a very impressive ship. It"s home harbor is Gray Harbor. Here are a couple of photos.


The next morning we took the sea plane to Oak Harbor via Kenmore Air. This was the first trip for everyone except Shelly on a sea plane. The ride is awesome and very smooth.

The view of downtown Seattle from the sea plane was spectacular.

When we returned to Seattle we went back to Pike's market for some crab. Here's Stacey.

Here's Robin.

Here's Shelly.

Here's Kirsten.

Then we bought the last of the Ranier cherries for the season at this market stand.

The next day we went to the Seattle Art Museum for the Van Gough to Mondrian exhibit. The girls really liked the pointism style. We saw a Pablo Picasso creation pre-cubism and thought that he walked into his calling when he turned his attention to the cubist style.

We wanted to go to the Children's Museum, but they turned us away at the door, saying entrance required that a child be present in the group. Who would've known? The girls did a mock protest march chanting "Children's Museum, that's a lie, You don't care if big kid's cry!" Then we went to the Experience Music Project. We jammed in the jam room and then the girls sang I Love Rock and Roll on the big stage calling their band the "Pirettes." Silly pirate jokes were told by all the entire trip. What's a Pirate's favorite fast food restaurant? Arrrrr-bys.
Then we met up with Susan (just coming in from work) and went to the train station. This is the group, sans Susan and Sheryl, waiting at the Amtrak Station.

So, last night I had the most disturbing dream. Now, I know that it’s normal to be having anxiety dreams at this stage of pregnancy and all I can say is that my poor little mind is worried like crazy that I won’t be able to participate in the birth for whatever reason. First it was dreams of Sheryl surprisingly bringing home our child while I waited (and often it turned out to be a boy instead).

Last night, I dreamt that I went to the doctor for a regular check up and she said we had to wait for another doctor. When I asked why she said it was because that doctor was going to be the one to sew me up. Then I realized she’d already done a c-section without my permission and no one was present nor did anyone know about it. Yikes. The dream progressed and they brought me my daughter finally and she was covered in grey fur (like Jack the Cat). Then I couldn’t find a phone to call anyone; I felt pretty helpless. It was too weird.

It’s been a busy weekend! On Friday and Saturday we went to the Oregon Coast for some relaxation and beach walking. On Sunday morning we caught the train to Seattle and spent our afternoon playing tourist. We had lunch in Pike’s Place Market, went up to the top of the Space Needle, then we road the Duck of Seattle. Now, if you’ve never heard of the Duck of Seattle, let me fill you in… It’s a company that has a fleet of those military vehicles that can drive on land and boat on water; we drove along the waterfront and through downtown then we ‘drove’ into Lake Union and went boating about. The views were spectacular – the driver/entertainment left a lot to be desired.

On Monday, Sheryl and the family took the Victoria Clipper to Friday Harbor and got to see the whales; I had a fantastic time working as usual (right…). Today they’re off to Oak Harbor via a SeaPlane! Crazy.

I’m sure Sheryl will chime in with some pictures soon – have a great week everyone!

Family came bearing gifts for Bean. We had fun opening these.

This one we refer to as the "Aunt Shelly" outfit.

And these little washing mitts are going to provide years of fun.

We're having a blast with our guests, so posts might be infrequent. We went to Rimsky Korsakoffee's tonight to see our friend Pamela play guitar. And Rimsky's has great tea and desserts. Hope you all are well. Susan drank some licorice tea tonight and got all flushed. Licorice raises blood pressure. No more licorice tea!

30 Weeks!!!

Little Bean has met a huge milestone this week as viability becomes more and more solid. My belly continues to get bigger and bigger and she's becoming very active at times. On Monday night I was actually able to see my belly moving as she performed her nightly acrobatics - too weird. Here's what Babycenter.com has to say about Baby Bean at 30 weeks:

Your baby's lungs and digestive tract are almost fully developed. And while your baby may soon grow more slowly in length, she will continue to put on the pounds. Your baby's a bit more than 15 1/2 inches long now, and she weighs almost 3 pounds. A pint and a half of amniotic fluid surrounds her, but that volume will decrease as she gets bigger and fills out your uterus.

This week your baby continues to open and shut her eyes. She can probably see what's going on in utero, distinguish light from dark, and even track a light source. If you shine a light on a your belly, your baby may move her head to follow the light or even reach out to touch the moving glow. Some researchers think baring your belly to light stimulates visual development. But don't expect 20/20 vision when your baby is born — newborns can see a distance of only about 8 to 12 inches. (Children with normal vision, don't reach 20/20 vision until about age seven to nine.) And to complete the picture, new eyebrows and eyelashes now frame your little one's peepers.

It's going to be a busy week with our family in town so we'll try and keep you all updated with excursions and photos!

A friend gave us this outfit for bean. We like the attached booties a lot. I'm sure I'll get tired of taking silly little pictures one day, but maybe not.

I like it that this outfit came from a little girl whose parents named her Morgan Lewis (middle name) after her grandmother's wife. These parents also brought their babies (twins) and along with their brothers, sisters, uncles, and other relatives, stood up while their mother and her wife testified at the marriage testimonies at Multnomah County. It was so beautiful.
Another co-worker told me about baby clothes at a garage sale for 50 cents each. I gave her some money and she brought back a bag of clothes in a variety of sizes, including oshkosh overalls. Score!
We had our first doula interview last Friday. We have a few more, I think. Susan's sort of keeping that schedule. The doula asked some really good questions about our goals and expectations. When I told her that I wanted to photograph the whole process, she offered some advice. She said that photographing the birth in black and white film (or converting them to b&w from digital) softens the feel of it all. Nice.
Stacey and Kirsten flew in last night--they promptly left for a day trip to the coast this morning. My sister and niece are flying in tomorrow. We're super excited to have family visiting. They're all excited to see a pregnant Susan too. She's in Seattle on a business trip but comes home tomorrow night as well. The only thing that could make it all better is if the Jack the cat would not be so freaked out when we have company. Susan has scheduled a vet visit for him on Thursday. He is in such a bad space right now.

Susan here, checking in again. It's been a slow weekend as Sheryl is busy nursing an infected tooth. The antibiotics are finally starting to work, so hopefully our gal Sheryl will be joining us online again soon.

My mom sent Bean a table, bench and chair set. Just her size. I put the bench in front of the fireplace so you can get a feel for its tiny size.

The seat of the little chairs barely reach the baseboards! How cute are they?!? We'll likely move them up to Bean's room soon.


Mom says she has another package for Little Bean - all newborn clothes. We're going to have one well-dressed daughter.

Our daughter, Stacey, is coming for a visit this week along with her roommate and Sheryl's twin and her daughter. All in all, we're going to have a houseful this next couple of weeks. We just can't wait to have our family here to visit. We are already planning our day trips as well as a few days up in Seattle.

Hi All - Susan here with a quick update on our first birthing / prenatal class. Yawn. Sheryl and I were both underwhelmed. We're a tough group to please, though, given we both have a lot of experience with training and facilitation. Sheryl is afraid we'll learn nothing in the class; I imagine we'll learn some.

The toughest part of the evening, I think, was the lack of diversity. Now, we both knew that going in as two women would automatically cause some head scratching, and we both had to deal with being 'exceptions'. (For example, the instructor apologized for the outdated manual that - while including the term partner - still referred to the partner as a 'him'. I had to deal with all of the other moms mentioning husband-specific terminology in one of our brainstorming sessions.)

However, as I mentioned above, we expected those types of things to happen and I did my best not to be annoyed - although I think the hormones got the better of me. Anyhow - what was the most shocking was the video the instructor showed at the beginning of the class. It was filmed sometime in the 80's and it included interviews of couples discussing different things related to being pregnant (food, emotions, etc.) Well, every single couple (of about 10 couples) was white. No diversity whatsoever - it was too weird.

Given it is 2004, you'd think the curriculum would be at least from the last 10 years or so, but our instructor was saddled with those old-style laminated posters that showed the baby's development - you know, the kind you had in grade school?!? I would have expected at least taking advantage of modern day technology such as PowerPoint and video of the body changes over time.

Anyhow, enough complaining! There was some comic relief today too as a couple of the men donned the 'empathy belly' to simulate what it felt to be ~8 months pregnant. They were too funny trying to maneuver their bellies around. Let's hope next week is better...

Is this battle royal over marriage privilege unaware or is it privilege aware? I think it started out as a heterosexual unawareness and then shifted into privilege aware for many of the most extreme heteros who embrace and spew their bigotry and hate. I can't really waste my energy on these people. There are thousands upon thousands of people who have a wider range of alternatives in their heads than the closed minded man + female = the right family presumably competent to raise children better than any other combination. I keep going back to this art project site out of Australia called Hey Hetero because I really think they're on to something. Maybe we can start having some meaningful dialogue when the heterosexual group recognizes that it has a culture and is not the group by which everyone else is measured.

• Heterosexuality, of all possible sexualities, is virtually never articulated per se. Like ‘whiteness’, its power is everywhere apparent, but named nowhere. Viewers of the 'Hey, Hetero!' artworks are invited to consider that heterosexuality has a culture, with customs, costumes, rituals and exclusive rights all its own. The project does not suggest that all heterosexuals experience their identity similarly, nor that heterosexuality is monolithic. But heterosexuality is both common to the majority of the population and entirely undiscussed as a phenomenon. Look, for contrast, at the scrutiny aimed at gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender communities by church and state policies, legislatures and the media.

If you have the time, go check out the Portland Communique's Our Constitution is not the place for social disagreement. The Communique is another great daily read, and it is also has the most comprehensive collection of marriage equality articles related to the state of Oregon. It's amazing to look at all that has happened in the past 6 months.

We have our first doula interview this week. Really exciting. Susan's mother has said that she wants to be here for the birth which has just made Susan really happy. Me too. It seems like time is flying by these days.

On Monday I woke up with what felt like a film over my left eye so I went to see my eye doctor. She diagnosed optic neuritis and sent me off to an opthamolgist neurologist at the Casey Eye Institute who after hours of testing confirmed the diagnosis but wants to have an MRI study to rule out a few things. He believes that the scan will come back normal, but the outside possibilities are tumor or spots in the white matter, both of which would require a different treatment plan. The second of which is an indicator of an MS path as combined with the acute optic neuritis event. The current plan is to just ride it out for 3 weeks or so until my vision in my left eye returns to normal or near normal. As it is, I'm not seeing very well out of that eye. Everything is blurry and hues are diminished. For example, they would show me something red with my good eye and say if this is $1.00 worth of red, how much is this? Then they would move the object to my bad eye. "25to 30 cents," I'd say. It's pretty darned frightening to suddenly have something wrong with you. It made me very contemplative and reflective (yes, even more than normal!). But I'm feeling better about it all after the visit to the neurologist.

29 weeks!!

By now, Baby Bean is about 2-1/2 pounds and over 14 inches long. From here on out her efforts will be to fill out her little frame and to grow her smart brain. Here's more info on week 29 from Babycenter.com:

Her muscles and lungs are continuing to mature, and her head is growing bigger to accommodate her brain — which is busy developing billions of neurons. With her rapid growth, it's no surprise that your baby's nutritional needs reach their peak during this trimester. To keep yourself and her well nourished, you'll need plenty of protein, vitamin C, folic acid, iron and calcium. (About 200 milligrams of calcium is deposited in your baby's skeleton — which is now hardening — every day.)

I sometimes feel as if I'm going to pop because she is taking up so much room. If she lays side to side it's not too bad, but tonight she's 'gone vertical' and is busy stretching and squashing my insides. I wouldn't trade it for the world, though; it just means our little gal is feisty (just like her mommas)! Here's how my belly is looking these days...

I was happily existing today in my various silos of work, catching up with co-workers, arranging events for a vacation, taking care of appointments, etc. Then, I found a copy of Thomas Frank's "What's the matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America", left for me by a friend. The first page I opened my eyes focused in on the words "...Kansas, a hotbed of leftist reform movements a hundred years ago that today ranks among the nation's most eager audience for bearers of backlash buncombe." I laughed out loud at the phrase "bearers of backlash buncombe." Then, I read Lies About Measure 36 and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them on the Portland Communique. And the silos started intersecting... My hot buttons started going off like crazy: lesbian parent, christian, democrat... We were all offended. In this article I found some relief when I read the second phrase that made me laugh-out-loud today. It was when BiX referred to the Defense of Marriage Coalition as "The Special Rights for Heterosexuals Campaign." The truth is, the dialogue will never be good with this group of people and special rights is exactly what they want to maintain. They want to freeze things just as they are. They're scared to death that if they give an inch they're going to have to give everything. So, they reframe it, as all bad campaigns reframe things and they add things too, like "same sex marriage will hurt children."

Susan and I have been relaxing/chilling in our own ways this weekend. We've checked out and watched some movies (Election and Moulin Rouge) and a series disc for Smallville. Somebody Saaaaaaaaaaaave Me... She was in charge of a big 2 1/2 day work event last week and I went to a course at the Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication. Consequently both of our heads and hearts were spinning spinning spinning. Yesterday afternoon I finished the guest room. We didn't have many "before" shots of this room. I think that was because the energy the previous occupant generated in that room wasn't good energy. Here's a before photo I was able to find:

All those discs on the wall are attached with double sided stickers. He took the cases and the discs but left us the gooey mess and repair work from tearing them off the wall. I think that if you look at this arrangement--bed, speakers behind the bed, movies on the wall--you kind of get an idea about the person living in the room. What you don't see is the stacks upon stacks of empty plates, most with dried food. Anyway, here's the newest version of the room.

We were talking last night about how sherbert we're being in this house, at least for the bedrooms. Bean's room reminds us of orange sherbert, this room lime sherbert, and our room lemon sherbert (the original color).
My twin sister sent over a name for us to ponder for Bean. It's Carson. She's coming up for a visit in a few weeks. Susan is having normal anxiety dreams and emotions right now. Bean is really growing. She's probably close to 3 lbs. Good news--the gestational diabetes screen came back negative. Susan is anemic, however, and we're working on ways to get her iron up including eating beef (or "eating cow" as Susan says) and taking some supplements. Susan has been craving more iron rich food lately anyway. It's pretty common for pregnant women to be iron deficient. Ready or not, 29 weeks here we come! Meet you on Tuesday.