I know these profound things because of a medical condition called, “Crazy Nesting Hormones.”  This syndrome supposedly afflicts women in the last few weeks of their pregnancy.  Some of us, however, are overachievers and produce copious amounts of CNH up to 8 weeks in advance.  Manifestations of this condition include:

• rearranging the parental bedroom furniture because “we can’t build the crib if our bedroom isn’t in order!”
• compulsive organization of drawers/closets no one will ever see or care about.
• believing that you must buy your husband at least 2 dozen pairs of socks before the baby comes… just in case.  (Just in case of what?  I have no idea.)
• genuinely considering steam-cleaning the carpets at 7.5 months pregnant, by yourself, and thinking it’s a great idea. 
• generally crazy behavior akin to the list above.

It’s a sad state of affairs, especially for people forced to live with those afflicted by CNH.  Or work with them.  Or even be behind them in line at the grocery store (while they rearrange their items on the conveyor belt… again). 

Thank goodness there will be all that extra sleep in eight weeks.  I’m sure that will kick this nesting thing right in the butt.

It has been a very busy summer between travel and both of our jobs, which means that we are not exactly… errr… on top of the baby preparations.  We are just now finishing our baby registries, for one thing.  The nursery?  It’s still an ephemeral idea.  It will require more serious work to be realized: you know, silly things like setting up the crib and disposing of all the old stuff that continues to take up space in the former office.  (What a relief that we have wonderful people in our lives who will come and help us get it in order next weekend!) Besides, I figure that it will only make the project more interesting if we wait until I really, truly can’t get up and down off the floor. 

At least we can feel accomplished about this registry business!  We have three of them going, as listed below:

• Target [department store]
• BabyWorks [local baby store]
• Tidee Didee [cloth diaper service]

I seem to be the only Courtney Grant registered in Oregon for any of the three, so it shouldn’t be hard to find our lists.  As you will probably be able to tell, we are going with cloth diapers for the little dude (particularly at a young age) and will need help getting diaper covers, etc. to accomplish the task.  There are very few clothes on the registry, but that’s only because we figure that folks will have no problem finding cute clothing for him!  Socks and caps are much coveted for this late autumn baby too.

I will be also working on a list of emails for folks who wished to be notified the day that our guy makes an appearance.  Just think… name and weight and PICTURES when he comes!  If you want to be on the list and haven’t heard from us, be sure to let us know that you want to included.  We will want to brag about the handsome little man, and you (of course!) will want to see just who has been bouncing around in here for the last 9 months.  Here’s hoping that he has outgrown that crazy alien-looking phase from the 20-week ultrasound.

We had a busy and marvelous weekend though!  On Friday, we went to Seattle and had a fantastic lunch (Mexican food) and afternoon with my grandparents.  Then we met my other grandparents for a surprise dinner (Mexican food), along with my parents, brother, and aunt & uncle.  (This may be the first day I’ve ever seen Keith eat enough Mexican food that he didn’t want any more!)  I hadn’t seen anyone except my immediate family since the first trimester, so there was much marveling at the bowling ball that is my belly.  I did hear reports that my tummy has been much exaggerated by certain parties, though — shocking! — so it was quite satisfying to nip these crazy rumors in the bud.  Tsk, tsk.

We spent the rest of the weekend at the cabin with our friends Nick and Julie and their little dude.  It rained… but only on Sunday, which meant that we snuck in a good bit of sitting outside and poking in campfires before the drizzle came!  The little dude marveled us with all of the new skills he’s picked up lately, which included rolling over and excellent muscular control.  We are quite sure that he is gaining ground quickly in anticipation of all of the devious little boy things he will need to teach our Allosaurus.  (Just wait until the two of them are scooting around the cabin lawn next summer — chaos and mischief will reign!)  It was such a blessing to spend time with Nick and Julie again as well; it’s amazing how quickly you can pick up conversations again with old friends, even if you haven’t seen each other in months.

But now we are home… the smoky cabin clothes are in the wash… and work starts again in a few hours!  We will have to look to seeing everyone again in a little while, when we get together to celebrate the little guy’s imminent arrival.  Of course, the temperature looks to spike back into upper eighties again today.  Ah, well, maybe there will be swimming at the cabin next year.

We’ll check back when there is excitement to report.

So am I. I grew up with 3 grandmothers, 2 grandfathers, and a great-grandmother for my entire childhood. Most of us lived in the same area, so I saw them all the time. And as for the grandma and grandpa who lived far away? We got to go on spectacular road trips to visit them in the summers. (Totally awesome.)

Since I joined the Great World of Grown-Up Peoples, I’ve been lucky enough to retain these stellar stats. (One exception: my great-grandmother passed away in 2007, but remained classy and Norweigan to the very end!) Do you realize what this means? Allosaurus is going to have 2 grandmothers, 2 grandfathers, 3 great-grandmothers, and 2 great-grandfathers. I’m not kidding. He is going to be so adored it isn’t even funny.

And as for his mom and dad, well, we are really blessed to have so much enthusiastic family support!  That’s why it was a blast to have my mom and dad visit us this weekend with one of my grandmas. We spent Friday and Saturday baby shopping, determining just exactly what this little dude needs for his grand debut in October. Conclusions we have reached:

• Monkeys are awesome. Let’s theme the nursery with monkeys and nickname him Monkey Butt. (Yes, my son, this is where the nickname originated.)
• The apartment needs to be rearranged to maximize storage. Solution: Dad and Keith will use their ninja spatial planning skills to redesign the baby closet.
• Grown-ups should get to have the same fuzzy textures that babies get. It’s totally unfair.
• No matter how cute that outfit is, remind yourself, “Diaper blowout. Unholy amounts of poop. Get over it.”
• Prior to nursing, milking/barn jokes are still funny. After the baby comes? Probably not so much.
• Birth in the 1950s and 60s is not to be repeated.  Let us avoid that model forever after.
• It is the God-given responsibility of grandparents and great-grandparents to teach you things that Mom probably wouldn’t have. (True example from my childhood: map and conquer all 9 dungeons of the original Zelda game on Nintendo.)

We came home from our excursions with some amazing and lovely stuff… including a CRIB and CHANGING TABLE from Allosaurus’ great-grandma! Ta-da! This means that, no matter what else we do or don’t acomplish in the next 11 weeks, he will have somewhere to lay his head when he arrives. There is also a fuzzy (but washable) place to divest him of that blown-out diaper.  We are incredibly grateful for the gifts and promise to post pictures when all is set up.

P.S. I’ve been getting a lot of questions about registries and baby showers. The registries will be posted next week, if you are interested. I have no idea about that shower stuff!

Keith, King of the Knives, cut Krys’ cake with great ferocity and skill. He was rewarded with an extra piece for this brave work.

That is all we have to report.  Well, we also report that the cake is completely demolished.  (There were 7 grown men playing a game of Dominion within arm’s reach — what did you expect?)  But mostly, we just report of Courtney’s ninja baking skills and Keith’s dangerous knife work.  Huzzah!

In this city, it is expected that you not only will, but should be as vocal as humanly possible about your views on everything.  Passionately believe that you know the only way to do it!  Explain to everyone why they ought to be more like you!  And gosh darn it, you better put a bumper sticker on your car so that everyone knows all of the time!  (My favorite bumper sticker: Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.  That’s just plain good advice, isn’t it?)

Of course, Keith and I are perverse people and feel that it is very fun to mess with this sort of passionate self-interest when we encounter it.  For that’s what much of it is: self-centered arrogance and the idea that it is acceptable to bully and guilt people into being just like you.  So when we run into it, we like to find unusual ways to respond.

One of Portland’s favorite drums to beat is eat and buy locally.  Now, we do think that this a good idea for many reasons… but it is not necessary to accost people over it, now is it?  So we find that the quickest way to silence that drum is to mention Veronica.  It goes like this.

“Do you know where your eggs come from?  Do you know the conditions those chickens live in? How can you —”

“Yes.  Have you met Veronica?  She is a black-and-white speckled chicken who lives in SE Portland with two other of her lady friends.  They have a posh coop that they live in together with a large yard to strut around.  Veronica herself is sassy and has fancy feathers on her feet.  Her eggs are narrow, brown, and extremely delicious.  We have a good relationship going: we buy her eggs, and she gets absolutely spoiled by the coop’s landlord, 11-year-old Paige.  What’s your chicken like?”

“Uhh –”

And thus ends the exchange.  The moral of the story is: if you try acting superior, you end up getting one-up’d by a chicken.

P.S. Veronica and her lady friends recently gained two new roommates!  When I stopped by to see our favorite urban farmer yesterday, I got to meet Juliet (left) and Ruby (right).  Paige posed them for a picture for me.  What cute chicks!

Last week, I also downloaded a new application to my phone.  This application tells me helpful things about my pregnancy like:

• You have exactly 14 weeks left until your due date.  That’s 98 days!  Shouldn’t you be creating a registry or something?
• Good news: your uterus should be the size of a basketball by now!  Haha, and you wondered why turning over in bed is getting so awkward.
• Has your belly button popped out yet?  No?  It will soon.  I’ll keep reminding you so that you can check in the shower each day.
• The baby recognizes your voice and Keith’s voice, even if he doesn’t know what you’re saying.  But he can pick up your tone.  Don’t you love that he gets to hear you being Mean Librarian Lady at work?
• Your baby is the size of an eggplant.

(Well, maybe the pregnancy tracker application isn’t quite that… chatty.  I may have interpreted the tone of voice rather freely, if you must know.  Whatever.  The factual parts are true.)

The eggplant thing was a disturbing new development that we’ve been puzzling over.  What does that MEAN? When our pasta alla norma recipe says “2 large eggplants,” we have learned by experience that Jamie Oliver really means “2 large eggplants by London standards, which should not be confused with your freakishly large American eggplants.” We must also consider Thai eggplants, which are really quite petite little things. They are delicious. But which one is the baby?

You see, this is the problem with using fruit to specify the baby’s growth. It’s just silly. There is too much produce in the world. It is also confusing for proud parents who recently consumed the odd produce, therefore causing them to feel like guilty cannibals at dinner. Nicknaming the baby after a dinosaur? Perfectly acceptable. Eating the baby’s comparison produce at dinner? Concerning, to say the least.

To alleviate this concern, we are returning to Keith’s system of comparing the baby’s size to an animal. At 2 lbs and 9″ (rump to crown of head), Allosaurus is a robust, Spokane-sized squirrel. Happy squirrel day, baby. We love you.

So, here’s what happened: Josh went to return our keys at the main house, and while he was gone, the older stag went through that gate to the yard next door. Then Josh returned, noticed the young stag, and stood by the gate so as not to spook him. But the young stag really, really wanted to get to where the other guy was. So he kept creeping closer and closer to Josh, who had no idea why this deer wanted him to move! Eventually Josh stepped away from the gate and the young stag bolted through… but not before a lot of measuring each other up, like real men do.

Keith looks manly in front of the entrance to the Garden of the Gods. Insert dramatic music here!

So much towering sandstone.

More sandstone. Still pretty.

Courtney in front of some of the gorgeous sandstone. One day, we will use this photo to prove to Allosaurus that he was really in the Garden of the Gods! (Although his view was less than optimal, but hey, you take what you can get.)

Being the sharp-eyed ladies we are, Chris and I noticed some hawks (or other awesome bird) nesting in the shade of the rocks. I helpfully point them out to Keith.

Yes, Josh and Chris were really with us! Here’s some proof. Don’t let them ever tell you that they aren’t in great shape, because they could out-hike Keith and I any day of the week (pregnant or not).

I love how Keith’s shirt is a beer shirt. This is very appropriate for a beer garden, err, city park — don’t you think?

If you get tired of looking at the rock formations, don’t forget the ENORMOUS MOUNTAINS on your doorstep!

Keith, Chris, and Josh in front of yet another gnarly rock. Notice the lovely halo effect the sun has on the camera. It makes them look like the holy family, come down from the mountain to… well, I’m not sure what, but they look very powerful.