Ladies and gentlemen, the baby stomach...

Check out Margaret! The Bean is definitely making his or her presence known in the second photo there. Margaret can feel the Bean moving around inside her, which fascinates me. I can't feel it from the outside yet, but he or she is apparently pretty active. This picture was taken Christmas day at Margaret's mother's house in front of the Christmas tree. We are now right about at the halfway mark. The scare from a couple of weeks ago seems to have been relegated to our rearview mirror, but we remain on the lookout for problems. The doctors don't know for sure why Margaret was bleeding that Saturday afternoon, but the likely suspect was a burst blood vessel, the flow from which was increased when her blood pressure went up when she discovered she was bleeding. After a week in bed Margaret was given the green light yesterday by the doctor to go back to work. She has promised to take it easy.
Christmas was nice and quiet, just the way I like it. I gave Margaret the Wusthof Santoku chef's knife she has long been coveting. Yeah, that's right - I gave a hormonal pregnant woman a big sharp knife. What can I say? I like to live on the edge. Margaret surprised me with Sirius satellite radio. Sweet! After four days of being able to listen to whatever style of music caught my fancy, I have to say that I might not ever listen to "terrestrial" radio again. We're talking three channels of NPR, two channels of Howard Stern, and a music station called "Outlaw Country" that plays all the good old school country music by the likes of folks such as Merle Haggard, Junior Brown and Carl Perkins. The only problem I have with the setup is picking what station to listen to. I find myself channel surfing on the radio like I do on the TV.
We also received lots of gifts for the Bean, including some clothes, an incredibly soft blanket, and, yes, even a popcorn popper. That's yours truly holding said popper in the other picture above. That essential toy came courtesy of Margaret's mother, who surprised me with it Christmas Eve after reading an earlier blog entry. It was pretty funny to watch all of the grownups, all of whom claimed to have had a popper of their own in their youth, take ours for a spin. Seriously, everyone had to try it out. There is something just satisfyng about the way those plastic balls pop around under that clear plastic dome. Hopefully the Bean will be as enthusiastic about the toy as I always have.