My cute niece and nephew...

My brother's little girl and boy

The biggest fun is when you're doing something you're not supposed to do: throwing the parmesan cheese off the table and then licking it from the floor!!!

These pictures are just too cute not to show off!

Nog geen baby!

We zijn 2 weken verder dan de vorige post, en ik loop nog altijd rond met een dikke buik! (Foto hiernaast is 2 dagen geleden genomen in Cedars-Sinai na mijn bezoek aan de gynaecoloog) De dokter zal dan misschien toch wat te voorbarig zijn geweest? Voor mij geen probleem, ik ben blij eindelijk wat tot rust te kunnen komen! Sinds eind vorige week hoef ik niet meer te werken (ik neem nu mijn resterende vakantiedagen op en dan vanaf 28 okt. zwangerschapsverlof) en dat bevalt me uitstekend :-) Vervelen doe ik me niet, integendeel, de dagen vliegen voorbij!

Vorige week zijn we erin geslaagd naar de LA Kids Consignment Sale te gaan en daar hebben we deze Bugaboo Frog stroller voor een mooi prijsje op de kop kunnen tikken! Nu zijn we, denk ik, echt wel van alle basisbenodigdheden voorzien. Enkel nog de baby!

Ook de lessen zitten erop en we hebben zelfs een "certificate" gekregen (zo Amerikaans!). IN THEORIE zijn we dus alvast bekwaam, eens zien hoe we het er in de praktijk gaan van afbrengen! Dat zal waarschijnlijk een heel ander paar mouwen zijn!!!

Verder ben ik aan het uitzoeken of we het navelstrengbloed van de baby zouden kunnen doneren. De stamcellen die zich hierin bevinden kunnen mensenlevens redden! Wel, die donatie is hier in de US blijkbaar geen evidentie! Volgens wat ik tot nu toe te weten gekomen ben, is dit enkel maar in bepaalde ziekenhuizen mogelijk, en Cedars Sinai doet geen "public cord blood donation"! Wat wel mogelijk is, is het navelstrengbloed te laten afnemen en privé te laten bewaren in een "family cord blood bank" zoals Cord Blood Registry, ViaCord, Stemcyte, Cryo-Cell, etc... mits een behoorlijk prijskaartje natuurlijk (aangezien je het bloed en de stamcellen in dit geval bewaart voor eigen gebruik). We zijn er nog niet uit wat we nu al dan niet gaan doen. Ik vraag me af hoe dit in België geregeld is. Kun je daar zonder probleem doneren?

Anyway, dat was genoeg baby-talk, 4 november is nog voor een andere reden belangrijk: de verkiezingen! Wij kunnen dan wel niet stemmen, maar we volgen de debatten en de verslaggeving toch op de voet. Wat we nog het leukste vinden, zijn de sketches van Saturday Night Live, echt geweldig! Tina Fey als Sarah Palin en Amy Poehler als Hillary Clinton of als journaliste Katie Couric, we liggen vaak in een deuk! Ondertussen wil ik jullie ook niet volgende e-mail onthouden die ik onlangs in mijn mailbox vond:

Dear Family & Friends, recent statements by McCain and Palin make this recycled humor letter more poignant and politically on target than ever. Let's just give those "real" Americans their own country!

Dear Red States:

We've decided we're leaving. We intend to form our own country, and we're taking the other Blue States with us. In case you aren't aware, that includes California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and all the Northeast. It may even include Florida and Ohio, they are seriously considering it. We've given them until Nov. 4th to decide. We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation, and especially to the people of the new country. Since we're dropping the middle states we're calling it United America, or simply the U.A.

To sum up briefly: You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states. We get stem cell research and the best beaches. We get the Statue of Liberty. You get Dollywood. You can take Ted Nugent. We're keeping Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel. You get WorldCom. We get Intel and Microsoft. You get Ole' Miss. We get Harvard and 85 percent of America's venture capital and entrepreneurs. You get Alabama. We get two-thirds of the tax revenue, you get to make the red states pay their fair share.

Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the Christian Coalition's, we get a bunch of happy families. You get a bunch of single moms, and the highest concentration of pregnant unwed teenagers. Please be aware that the U.A. will be pro-choice and anti-war, and we're going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They have kids they're apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and they don't care if you don't show pictures of their children's caskets coming home. We do wish you success in Iraq, and hope that the WMDs turn up, really we do, but we're not willing to spend our resources in Bush's Quagmire. We'd rather spend it on taking care of sick people, and educating our children.

With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80 percent of the country's fresh water, more than 90 percent of the pineapple and lettuce, 92 percent of the nation's fresh fruit, 95 percent of America's quality wines, 90 percent of all cheese, 90 percent of the high tech industry, most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools plus Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT. With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 88 percent of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs), 92 percent of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100 percent of the tornadoes, 90 percent of the hurricanes, 99 percent of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100 percent of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia. We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you.

Additionally, 38 percent of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62 percent believe life is sacred unless we're discussing the war, the death penalty or gun laws, 44 percent say that evolution is only a theory, 53 percent that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61 percent of you crazy Redies believe you are people with higher morals then we Bluies..

Finally, we're taking the good pot, too. You can have that dirt weed they grow in Mexico.

Peace out,

Blue States

Grappig, jammer dat het niet echt kan!

De laatste loodjes???

So, here's another picture of me, taken last week at the Westside Pavilion shopping mall in West Los Angeles. Hard to believe, but I'm 35 weeks pregnant in this pic, and it doesn't show really, does it? I haven't gained all that much weight either, which is very strange, because I had no trouble adding on the pounds BEFORE I got pregnant!!! And I swear, I AM eating plenty of food! But I have stopped drinking alcohol... (or at least, I drink very little, maybe 1 glass every 2-3 weeks). Could that be it???

Anyway, I am not complaining. I still feel great, so I wasn't ready for the news my doctor broke on my last prenatal visit (Thursday). The doctor examined me and sort of matter-of-factly said: Have you packed your bag for the hospital yet? Me: NO, what do you mean??? Doctor: Well, the baby's very low already, you're 80% effaced and 1 cm dilated, you might not make it until next Thursday (which is my next doctor's appointment). I was completely and utterly shocked!!! I am so not ready yet for delivering this baby!!! I am still working until next Wednesday, I still have a bunch of classes lined up (breastfeeding, infant CPR, etc)... After leaving the doctor's practice, I arrived at work and started crying! Which is stupid of course, because the baby is perfectly healthy (36 weeks now) so there really is no problem. I guess I just wasn't expecting this at all! But now, the news has sunk in, and I realize it is not up to me, our little miss is in charge and will decide when she will come out! I do take it really easy now and try to get as much rest as possible, while still trying to get things done (pick up the carseat, wash new baby clothes, start packing hospital bag, get e-mail and address list updated and organized,...)

Good thing we started early on getting the nursery ready! It is still a work in progress, but this is what it looks like now (pictures are a bit blurry, because they were taken with the cell phone).



Well, that's the news for now! We'll keep you updated!

Better late than never...

I finally got around to making an on-line album with some of my favorite Mexico pictures. Click here to see the entire album. Enjoy!