fifty facts

1. If I had been a boy, my parents would have named me Paul Christopher.

2. I love the smell of fresh laundry.

3. My favorite morning pick-me-up is Earl Grey tea.

4. I like dark chocolate better than milk chocolate.

5. I was 33 when I met my husband and 35 when I married him.

6. Aside from one pair of pink and two pairs of red, all my shoes are black.

7. I love shoes, but I refuse to sacrifice comfort for style.

8. I was born in Portland, Oregon, two weeks before the Tet offensive in Vietnam and a couple of months before the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

9. I usually identify with the Myers-Briggs type INFP, but sometimes I wonder if I am more of an INTP thinker than a feeler.

10. My ethnic heritage is German, Swiss, French-Canadian and English with a just a dash of (Protestant) Irish and Czech.

11. I put mayonnaise on my hotdogs. Most people think it's gross.

12. I took four years of high school and college French, plus community-ed conversation courses, but I learned more Spanish in the one month I spent on a Rotary Club trip to Argentina.

13. I was 1 year old the first time I saw the ocean, and my dad says when he put me down on the sand, I started running straight toward the water.

14. My first airplane ride was to San Francisco to visit my aunt when I was going into eighth grade.

15. My first trip out of the country (not including Canada) was during my junior year of college when I studied abroad at the University of Melbourne in Australia for a semester.

16. I seldom put on a full face of makeup, but I never leave the house without lipstick.

17. I can't bring myself to go vegetarian, but I won't buy meat that isn't humanely raised and chemical free. Except when I am craving a Whopper.

18. My cat George, who died in 2003, used to lick my toes with his rough tongue. I loved it.

19. I have a phobia about anyone touching the front of my neck. Except me.

20. I have loved the name Hannah for years, but now it's too popular to name a daughter.

21. It took two-and-a-half years and five intrauterine inseminations to get me pregnant at age 37.

22. I wear my pair of black Danskos almost every day.

23. The soft sound of rain falling outside is comforting to me.

24. I cry when I hear the song Porcelain by Moby. It reminds me of heartbreak, and when I met my husband, I found out that it makes him sad, too, because it reminds him of the same thing.

25. I think British comedy is brilliant, from Monty Python to BBC's original The Office.

26. One of my greatest fears is losing my mind to Alzheimer's when I get old. Or losing my husband when he is young.

27. I graduated with an English major from Columbia University in NYC.

28. I get bored watching football, but I like watching World Cup soccer because it's fast-paced and the men are so good-looking.

29. I love dreams. Having them, writing them down, thinking about them, finding insight in them. Sometimes I contemplate becoming a Jungian analyst for that reason.

30. I love to hike. Some of my most transcendent moments have occured in the middle of a tall forest.

31. I collect the state quarters, from both the Denver and Philadelphia mints. I have every state so far, but I still need some of the Philadelphia mint ones.

32. I can whistle through my tongue, but only when I'm inhaling.

33. I love taking photographs. Some people do scrapbooks; I do photo albums.

34. I have seen the movie Valley Girl, starring Nicholas Cage, more times than I can count. All but one of those times was during high school, and the last time was when I rented it with my husband last year.

35. I was raised Catholic and am a practicing Catholic now, but I drifted away from it during college and stayed away for most of my 20s.

36. If I were to join a religious order, it would probably be the Benedictines because I love their focus on hospitality, finding the holiness in every moment, and seeing each person as Christ.

37. My eyes are pure brown, which usually feels boring, although a man once compared them to caramel, which made me feel glamourous.

38. I first got contact lenses when I made the cheerleading squad in ninth grade. I didn't want to be the only cheerleader with glasses, but I was still a brainy, geeky girl at heart. A brainy, geeky girl who was good at dancing.

39. I have always admired people who have a clear sense of purpose and direction in their lives. Sometimes envied them.

40. My favorite flowers are peonies, tulips and roses.

41. When I'm cooking, I can really immerse myself in the moment and forget about my troubles.

42. Cashmere socks are one of the best things about winter.

43. I landed my first journalism job thanks to an editor I met when I was teaching at the local high school in Greenville, Mississippi. A few years later, I wrote his obituary when he died of lung cancer.

44. I read every page of Oprah magazine every month.

45. That thing that Bill Clinton did to Monica Lewinsky with the cigar? I know it was wrong, but reading about it in the investigation report was kind of exciting.

46. I adore the Harry Potter books and cannot wait until our son is old enough for me to read them to him - or to read them himself, God willing.

47. Ballet is a combination of spiritual artistry, physical exercise and mental stimulation, and that's why I love taking adult ballet classes.

48. I wore Petite Cherie cologne on my wedding day.

49. Sylvia Plath and Raymond Carver are two writers whose work can really mess with my head.

50. I would love to spend a summer - or a year - living in western Ireland.

speaking of nelson mandela

An addendum to my previous post: My friend Liz P. sent me a link today to this test, where you can figure out where you fit on a political compass. The "compass" is divided into four quadrants based on two scales, a social scale (Authoritarian to Libertarian) and an economic scale (Left to Right). I ended up in the Left-Libertarian quadrant, keeping company with none other than Nelson Mandela, Ghandi and the Dalai Lama. I'll take that!

freedom

I am so incredibly thrilled about the news that Christian Science Monitor writer Jill Carroll is free! Following her story in the past few months has made me so anxious, given the awful outcomes that have happened to other kidnapped Americans, such as Daniel Pearl and Tom Fox. At a time when things are spiraling out of control in the Middle East, this news, however small in the larger scheme of things, renews my faith that all is not hopeless in our world. Thank God. I am only imagining the happiness and relief Jill's family must be feeling right now.

It makes me think back to another close call this past fall - involving another Carroll. (No relation.) This time, it was an Irish journalist named Rory Carroll who was kidnapped in Baghdad. Few people in America heard about his disappearance, but I did because his mother, Kate, was our tour guide when Steve and I were in Ireland in August and September, and we grew to love her very much. On the evening of Oct. 19, she e-mailed me with a message that made my heart drop: "My beloved son, Rory, has been captured in Iraq.  He (we) need all the prayers that you can spare." The following day, after I opened the e-mail, I was unable to work. All I could do was pull up news reports on Google to find out what was happening. That afternoon, good news came: He had been released after just 36 hours. He was in good spirits and had been treated well, just like Jill Carroll is reporting. He even joked about singing U2 songs and drawing exaggerated maps of the British Isles to convince his captors that he was Irish, not British or American. What's more, his freedom came on his mother's birthday.

On MPR's Midmorning program today, I caught part of an interview with Ahmed Kathrada, a South African anti-apartheid activist who spent 30 years imprisoned on Robbin Island with Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisalu and other political prisoners. (He has a new memoir out.) He talked about how the men kept their spirits up even as they labored in a lime pit and were treated unequally according to the grade of their racial makeup. (As a man of Indian descent, Kathrada was given more sugar in his coffee and more meat for dinner than the black men; and he was allowed to wear socks and long pants, a privilege not allowed blacks because they were considered "boys," not men.) I was riveted by the interview, in part because Nelson Mandela's autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom is one of the books that changed my life when I read it a few years ago. I was so profoundly moved by the way Mandela (and others with him) treated their guards with dignity and humanity even when that treatment was denied them. His kindness and compassion, combined with an integrity that caused him never to back down from his beliefs, left a lasting impression on me. That they ever would be released from Robbin Island seemed like an impossibility at times, so their freedom after 30 years was a thing of joy.

What a good day for freedom.

spring cleaning

Yesterday, the Pottery Barn catalog came in the mail, and I threw it in the stack we have going next to the toilet, which is where I get a lot of my catalog reading done. It's fitting, I guess. Crate and Barrel, Pottery Barn, Williams-Sonoma, Ballard Designs ... they all remind me that I am so much more like Bridget Jones than Martha Stewart in the homemaking department. Barely hanging on. But with the best intentions.

I like to imagine that in my truly grown-up, Pottery Barn life, we will set our table for casual summer dinner parties with crisp, freshly ironed linen tablecloths and the perfect Tuscan-glazed stoneware, with strings of lanterns glimmering across the garden-decked lawn, or that I will concoct delicate, whimsical cupcakes by hand for my children's birthday parties ... but who am I kidding? That's not our life. Our dishwasher leaves horribly large spots on the glasses, and I can't be bothered to wash them by hand unless people are coming over, and sometimes not even then. I can't figure out how to get the rotty smell out of our garbage disposal, and we don't change the sheets as often as we should. I imagine the people who live in Pottery Barn houses - they don't have dust on top of the refrigerator, and they iron their pillowcases and tablecloths. Still, our house is not filthy. It can be messy and cluttered and wrinkled, but it's also cozy and homey, and I like it this way. It feels real and comfortable. And sometimes parts of it are even sparkling clean, like last week when I scrubbed the kitchen sink to a shine and really went at the countertops. I do that not because of some anal need for a perfect house but because it makes me feel good, and it makes Steve happy, and it delights me to see him happy, especially when he's had a long day. So I do it for love. (And sometimes, I do other things for love and let the housework slide!)

One time, I visited some people whose home will never be mistaken for a Pottery Barn catalog. ("Some people" means I don't ever want this to get back to them.) Their stuff was everywhere, spilling down the staircases and crammed along the hallway walls. Even the bathroom counters were piled up with papers from work, paperback books, empty bowls with the spoons stuck to the old ice cream on the bottom. That scared me silly. The minute I left their house, I called Steve on my cell phone to describe the trauma scene. "Let's never let that happen to us," I told him. As soon as I got home, we started picking up crap: The old magazines piled up on our coffee table. The three days' worth of newspapers and receipts and rubber bands scattered over the dining room table. The stray Kleenexes that end up under the bed after sex. The scare lasted for a few weeks, but you know how it is. People slip back into their old, cluttery habits.

Before I moved in with Steve, I hired a woman to come over once a month and clean my apartment. It was a good deal for both of us: She was a single mom who worked at Northwest Airlines but needed the extra cash, and I was an irregular, spotty housekeeper who loved coming home once a month to the sweet smell of Murphy's wood oil, a scent that made me feel extraordinarily well-cared-for. It was worth the $35 plus tip. Sometimes I tell Steve that I'd like to hire a housekeeper again. He, as protector of the budget, raises his eyebrow and convinces me that together, we could do just as good a job ourselves. And we roll up our sleeves and scrub the bathroom clean, and that ends the discussion for another month or so. (I should mention that Steve pulls his fair share of the cleaning load around the house.) However, I think - I hope - he's softening to the idea now that I'm pregnant and he knows how hard the first year of parenthood will be. Perhaps, if we can shift some things around, we can make it work.

Meanwhile, I've got spring cleaning on the brain. I read the April issue of Real Simple on the plane home Sunday; it was dedicated to cleaning house in manageable ways: Small steps. Pleasurable products. Fifteen minutes at a time, with happy music playing. It inspired me. I've already gone online to order some microfiber cleaning towels recommended in one article - I just know they will change my life! And the other night, killing time at Eq-life, I bought a bottle of Caldrea's rose pink peppercorn linen spray. The bottle itself is exquisite, and the scent takes me back to a beautiful, idyllic part of my childhood. I changed our sheets, sprayed them all over, and breathed happily all night. Even today, they still smell good. It makes me want to iron something.

Spring cleaning. I feel like Bridget Jones starting a fresh page in her diary, full of optimism and resolve. I think I'm ready to get started.

foursomes

This one has been making the rounds ... I got my copy from my friend Elizabeth in Mississippi and so far have not answered it. So, here you go, Lizba. :)

Four jobs you have had in your life:
Babysitter
Movie theater ticket and concession salesperson
High school English teacher
Newspaper reporter

Four movies you would watch over and over:
Hannah and Her Sisters
Amelie
Love Actually
Red from the Blue/White/Red trilogy by Krzysztof Kieslowski

Four places you have lived:
Portland, Oregon
Melbourne, Australia
New York, New York
Greenville, Mississippi
(... and that doesn’t include where I live now!)
  
Four TV shows you love to watch:
The Office
The Sopranos
The Apprentice
Scrubs
   
Four places you have been on vacation:
San Francisco
Panama
Paris
Scotland

Four Web sites you visit daily:
Hotmail (to check my e-mail)
Star Tribune (because it’s my home page)
Beliefnet
MSN boards

Four of your favorite foods:
Ambrosia apples that are in all the stores right now
Fresh blueberries, raspberries and strawberries with cream
Dark chocolate
Homemade macaroni and cheese

Four places you would rather be right now:
In a hot bathtub
On Minnesota’s North Shore
Back in New York
At home with my husband and a hot cup of tea

dream :: childbirth

My dream last night:

I start to go into labor, so Steve and I drive to the hospital. At the first sign of pain, Steve says he is getting me some drugs. Suddenly, it is hours later, and the baby is born, and I don't remember anything - much less the birth. It turns out I was so drugged out that I lost my memory of it. Steve doesn't get why I'm angry about not remembering the pain of childbirth. "Isn't that what you'd want?" he says. I say, "I've been waiting all my life to go through this experience. Of course I wanted to be able to remember it!" I ask him to tell me all the details, and it saddens me so much that this life-changing event can only be accessed through the memories of others.

Even worse, I've been discharged from my room, and they are sending me home on the same day I've had the baby. I am furious! I try to stop a couple of nurses as they pass - beg them to put me back in a room: I need more time to let my body rest and heal. I need support. I need help learning to breastfeed. But the hospital is crowded, and every room is taken. At one point, the nurses reluctantly set up a gurney for me in the middle of a cafeteria. The roof is dripping, and I am again furious that this is all they can offer me, after all the promises of a comfortable birthing center room that I cannot even remember.

Meanwhile, the baby (a boy) is bonding with my mother more than with me. But then he leans toward me and gives me a big kiss. I take him in my arms, and he and I become inseparable. This is the one bright spot of the dream.

halfway there, my little sweet potato

Today I am officially 20 weeks pregnant! My weekly e-mail from BabyCenter.com:

Congratulations! You've hit the halfway mark in your pregnancy. By now your baby is about the size of a large sweet potato, and a creamy, whitish substance called vernix caseosa is starting to cover his skin. This coating will protect his skin from weeks of bathing in amniotic fluid but will most likely disappear by the time he's born. Your baby is swallowing more these days, which is good practice for his digestive system.

vignettes from nyc

Steve and I returned yesterday from our long weekend in New York, where my college friend Regina was married. We had such a good time. The whole weekend was ... relaxed, which isn’t a word commonly associated with NYC. We slept in every morning, ate leisurely breakfasts in our B&B room, and gave ourselves plenty of time to do whatever we felt like. Here are a few tales from our trip:

• Our B&B hosts in Soho were really nice and welcoming. Joan is a therapist; her husband has the same name that we already are calling our baby, so it felt like synchronicity. Their townhouse had a big fisheye window in the front door, which set it apart from other places around it. Restaurants were everywhere - Thai, Italian, French, Indian. We felt like we were really living in a neighborhood.

• On our first afternoon, we walked up and down Spring and Prince Streets, which are full of art galleries and the types of shops Minnesotans might find at the Galleria or Southdale but with lots more character. Eventually, we found Dean and DeLuca on the corner of Prince and Broadway and bought a baguette, a hunk of “artisan” cheese, some olives and a slice of double chocolate souffle. It was too chilly to eat at a park, so we took it back to our room and devoured it - it was one of our favorite meals of the whole trip.



• I love traveling with Steve. I’m more of a planner than he is, but we both have the same style of sightseeing, which is to pick a place to go and then just wander without too much of an agenda. I don’t have to wonder if he’s having a good time or wishing we were doing something else. We just know, or we tell each other and accept each other. More than that, I feel free with him to truly be myself without self-consciousness - without that extra (sometimes exhausting) layer of awareness that I find myself putting on with other people. It is rare for me to find kindred spirits like that, and I feel so lucky to be married to him.

• At the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Steve went off exploring for a bit while I rested my feet. I sat in my favorite spot, in the room in the American wing with all the sculptures and Tiffany windows. I used to go there during college to reflect and get away from the stresses of life, and it felt much the same now. I can't imagine how I must have looked, gazing rather tiredly at the sculpture of Pan the Piper, but a few minutes later, a Japanese woman came up to me and introduced herself in broken English. She said she was an artist and had been watching me sit there and thought I had a certain “look.” (Maybe it was the pregnancy “glow” - people have been telling me I have it.) She wondered if I’d be willing to e-mail her a photo of myself so she could do an oil painting of me. She was nice, and I was flattered, so I agreed to check out her Web site and think about it.

• Good deals found at Century 21: An $86 pair of Ralph Lauren sunglasses for $19.99 (for me). A $198 Joseph Abboud jacket for $99 (for Steve). Bad deals: No dressing rooms for men’s clothes, and women can’t try on bras before they buy. Who buys bras without trying them on first?

• We had cable in our B&B, and one night, we found a late-night repeat of Sunday’s episode of The Sopranos. Most of it took place in Tony’s dream state, while he was in a coma after being shot. In his dream, he was stuck in Costa Mesa, away from his family, his wallet and briefcase (his identity? his soul?) lost. Instead, he is stuck with the wallet and briefcase of another man, Kevin Finnerty (in-Finnerty - infinity?). He found out he had early stages of Alzheimers, and by the end of the episode, he sat at the edge of his hotel bed looking out the window at a strange light flare in the distance. He seemed so alone and desolate, and it felt so real and so heartbreakingly sad that I started to sob, and I lay on our bed with my forehead pressed up against Steve’s, just crying and holding onto him for dear life. Just in time, we found an episode of The Office to watch for levity.

• Steve and I spent Friday afternoon having lunch with my college friend Cathy at her apartment on the Upper West Side. They live on the 16th floor of a building that overlooks Broadway and has some cool views of other buildings in the area. She had her second baby boy in November, so we had plenty to talk about in the parenthood area. (Plus, she sent me home with some of her maternity clothes.) It is always refreshing to see Cathy. She is one of the kindest and most grounded people I know, and she also happens to be fantastically talented and accomplished on top of that.

• That night, we had tickets to see the American Repertory Ballet perform at Symphony Space. The show was amazing. It was four shorter pieces, fairly modern, each with its own unique style. There were moments that took my breath away. Thanks, New Yorker magazine, for the heads-up!

• We were less than pleased with the New York subway system. Those Metro cards didn’t work half the time - you would think formal training was necessary to learn to swipe them just right, and we apparently didn’t have the knack. I don’t know how many trains we barely missed because we couldn’t swipe our way through the turnstile in time. I miss the old dollar tokens, but those days are long gone.

• But the subway wasn’t all bad. One time, a man stood up and gave me his seat when he saw I was pregnant. Another time, we witnessed complete strangers discussing the proper care of a big plant someone had hauled onto the train. And one night, as a street musician played classic rock songs on his guitar, a couple spontaneously started dancing together. At those moments, New York seemed profoundly human and beautiful, not at all like the tough-edged veneer that sometimes gives the city a bad name.

• Regina and Richard’s wedding was a lot of fun - and it really reflected their personalities. It was an evening affair in a downtown loft and decidedly non-traditional in the best of ways - no attendants, no tuxes, no garter or bouquet tosses. The bride honored her Catholic heritage by having a reading by the Jesuit theologian-scientist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (which Cathy read very nicely in her “litigator” voice). The groom honored his Jewish-Polish roots by having his sister read a Jewish text in both English and Yiddish.


The first dance was to God Only Knows by the Beach Boys (one of my favorite songs, too!). Richard is really into music and knows a bunch of musicians, so the band was made up of some of his friends. I forget their name, but it was foodie - Custard Cakes? Custard Cupcakes? At any rate, they rocked. At one point, Richard even got up and sang a song to Regina with them - it was cute. We had left by the time everybody danced the hora, but at brunch the next morning, Richard’s sister said it was one of the most rocking, punky versions of Hava Nagila ever heard - and that even the older relatives were out on the dance floor. Brunch was at Les Halles, a French bistro-style restaurant near Wall Street, and I’m so glad we had time to stop by before we left for the airport. The pastries were delectable, the families were relaxed and happy, and it was great to see Richard and Regina one last time.

dream :: teacher

Last night I had this dream:

I return to my old high school and meet Mr. C., my senior history teacher. He is still handsome after all these years, and I feel my old crush coming back. But I don't say or do anything. I am pregnant, after all, and he is much older than me. (In the dream, I am not aware of being married.)

We are going somewhere together; I can't remember where, but I think he is going to help me with something. On the way, he says he needs to stop for a moment. The setting becomes a bathroom. He says he needs to take a quick shower and that he will just be a minute. I sit down on the toilet seat lid to wait. As he begins to undress, I close my eyes and tell him I won't look. I reach somewhat over my head to take hold of a towel rack on the wall behind me. Somehow, this allows me to lean back and relax.

Then, with my eyes still closed, I feel his hands gently covering my hands and wrists, as if he were going to hold them there, and he kisses me on the mouth. His kisses are light, but electric, and full of promise, and they take my breath away. I am completely undone. And then he stops, and I am breathless, and my eyes are still closed.

At that moment, I woke up. I was breathing in and out so hard that you might have thought I had just sprinted around the block. I haven't been able to stop thinking about this dream, or (guiltily) wishing I could go back into it to see what happens next.

I tend to believe that dream characters like this one (so far-removed from the actual person) represent an aspect of my own personality more than they represent the actual person. What qualities of Mr. C. do I have that I might be connecting with in some powerful, passionate way at this moment of my life? (And why does this dream take place in a bathroom, of all places? And is it significant that my eyes are closed?) I don't have answers ... but it's giving me a lot to think about.

What I remember about him from high school, off the top of my head:
* He was handsome in an older, professorial type of way.
* He was in his early 40s, and his face was tan with deep-etched laugh lines at the corners of his eyes.
* He was extremely intelligent and scholarly.
* I'd heard he might have been born in Britain.
* He was the first teacher I had who encouraged us to strive to be "scholars," and I took that seriously.
* He was funny, and he could be cynical and sarcastic if he wanted to.
* He was married. (Did he meet his wife at Lewis and Clark? Was her name Rachel? These details are fuzzy - just like the picture I posted, which is the only one I could find during a Google search.)
* He drove a blue Honda Prelude.
* We toilet-papered his house one night.
* I was his teacher's aid the second semester of my senior year. I admit this did not help alleviate my crush.

happy birthday to my sister!

In honor of my littlest sis, Ellen, on her 27th birthday, here are 10 things I love about her:

1. Her curly, blonde, Sarah Jessica Parker hair.
2. Her clever wit and raucous sense of humor.
3. Her ability to get a dance floor moving.
4. Her stylish fashion sense.
5. Her huggability.
6. Her sense of adventure and love of travel.
7. Her sensitivity to life's injustices.
8. Her love of animals.
9. Her close relationship with our mom.
10. Her ability to imitate all the characters on "Star Trek: The Next Generation."

meeting eva marie

Last night, Vanessa and I went over to visit Roxy and Dave and see their new, 4-day-old baby, Eva Marie. Dave answered the door with Eva curled in one crook of his arm, a bottle in her mouth. The moment I looked into her big, brown eyes, my own eyes teared up. It hit me that this little peanut was what Dave and Roxy had been working so long and so hard for - the daily shots, the drugs, the constant early-morning trips to the doctor to get monitored. Now, here she was, the fruit of all their efforts, right there in the flesh - all six perfect pounds of her. And Stephen and I have shared their journey so closely - it's been our journey, too. Before too long, we will be where they are, in the sleepless daze of new parenthood. All this hit me all at once as I stood in the doorway staring at Eva's darling face.

I don't mean to sound like such a sap: It's the hormones. I seem to cry a lot these days, especially when something is momentous and meaningful, and yesterday was what you would call a Big Day. So it was a tremendous relief to hear Dave and Roxy talk about how much Eva farts and poops and how you can smell it from across the room. That got everyone laughing, and my equilibrium rebalanced itself. (And when I got home, Steve was just putting in the tape of last week's The Office, so we got to giggle some more.)

I sat on their couch and held the peanut facing me, with her head rested in one of my hands, so I could watch her face. She has Dave's chin. I could have sat there for hours watching the expressions she came up with. Sometimes she cocked her eyebrow. Another time she looked like she was smiling, and then she was grimacing, and then she was sticking her tongue out. Babies are so funny and amazing that way.

I took a few pictures, too, but the best moments were away from the camera. I'll post one here as soon as I can.

that's funny ... i *am* a writer

I warn you now: I am a sucker for quizzes, polls, lists and self-exploration in general. Here's one I found circulating in the blogosphere.

You Should Get a PhD in Liberal Arts (like political science, literature, or philosophy)

You're a great thinker and a true philosopher. You'd make a talented professor or writer.

What Advanced Degree Should You Get?

ignore this post

(You can ignore the images below ... this is where I put the pictures for my profile.)

welcomes and introductions

It's my first post on this blog, and what better place to begin than to introduce you to the original "Lemmondrop" - our baby boy? (In case you're wondering, the name was first coined by our friends Vanessa and John.) Obviously, we have not met him in person. That will come in August. This photo was taken this morning at the perinatal clinic at United Hospital in downtown St. Paul. When the ultrasound tech typed out the word "BOY" on the black-and-white monitor over our heads, I started to cry. I was not prepared for how deeply emotional I would feel at that moment. I was insanely happy, but there was also this sudden sinking in of the knowledge that this is really, actually real - this pregnancy, this tiny boy, wiggling and rolling and bumping his little feet against the insides of my belly, as if in preparation for skateboarding and skipping stones and riding his bike and the things that boys will do. What a wild, wonderful trip! I know next to nothing about boys, and this news freaks me out as much as it makes me giddy, but I know I am going to love this boy with all my heart. Our son. I love him to pieces already.

Oh, and I think he looks just like Stephen!