The Due Date!!

... has come and gone ...

For some inexplicable reason all of my text is underlined. Sorry about that...
The first few pictures below were taken in mid-June by a talented photographer friend of ours who is days away from moving to Portland. If anyone knows someone in Portland looking for a great and economical photographer for any sort of event, please call Kim! Here's her website:
http://www.catscradlephoto.com/

This is the beeb's closeup. I feel certain that s/he was smiling when this was taken.

Mike always gets the giggles when he pats my round tummy.

I'm sure that we were discussing something really deep about the shape of the belly at this moment. We really only talk about deep things.

Grampa has begun to make lists of demands for how she should still be loved once the beeb arrives. She prefers purple paper and leaves the lists in inconspicuous places, like in the middle of the beeb's diaper changing area.

Here comes the random underlining again... When not making lists, Gramps continues her usual very intensive indoor prowling activities.

These are pictures from the due date... which Mike celebrated by having a cool one (as his Grampa calls brews) while I gave him a long overdue foot rub. I celebrated by dancing with the chickens.

Pregnant? Or a hieroglyphic Egyptian?

One of my uncles told me that my face got rounder every time he saw me (which was twice in two weeks). I wanted to make sure that I was keeping up that pattern of growth...

I'd say that the right side view is porkier than the left...

The seamstress that I go to used this view to make her determination that the beeb is a boy (as most folks have tended to venture). The acupuncturist and chiropractor both think it's a girl. Maybe if it takes a long time to get here I'll try to organize a battle royale between them??

Really, I swear I'm not choking gramps in this picture. Just scratching under the chin...
She came out for a little Kodak moment with the materials that Mike is using to make a shelf for our living room, and then proceeded to do some exploring.


Grampa and the ladies have met twice now, and the above is a good representation of their pattern of behavior: Gramps doesn't really even notice that the chickens are there and is totally uninterested, but the chickens are super curious about her and follow her around initially.

They followed her into this corner and basically had her surrounded. One got within six inches of her, and she didn't even notice. She turned around to get out of the corner that she'd worked herself into and at that point Japamala backed away. I'm not sure if this means that Gramps is fearless, clueless, or just really aloof. Or magical. I think I'll go with magical.