SEASON'S GREETINGS AND ALL THAT....

SEASON'S GREETINGS AND ALL THAT....

I feel like once you're in December, you blink and you're in mid-January. So before this holiday season gallops by, it's time for another blog update.

Charm is now in month 7 of her pregnancy. Thanks to my law partner and friend Yoshi, Charm had a professional photography session recently -- one of the photos is to the right. (Photographer is Barbara Bower.) Charm does look wider to me, or at least fuller in the belly, but it could be all those holiday parties. Foal-to-be is now between 9-17 lbs and 14-28 inches, and has hair on his/her tail. Planning for Charm's baby shower (March 22) is under way. Yup, I'm really having a baby shower for a horse. It did occur to me that I should consider also having a graduation party for my son, Jordan. After observing that I have been planning a horsey baby shower and hadn't even started a plan for my only child's high school graduation (what's your point, Jordan?), he declined. Drew has promised him a graduation cruise, so don't feel too sorry for the boy. College apps are in, and we are waiting on responses... Gators? 'Noles? We'll see. (The Seminoles have a HORSE, Renegade, as part of its mascot ... need we say anything more?)

For Hanukkah, Drew and Jordan gave me a Breyer's Horse Mystery Foal Surprise set, which has a mare, a stallion, and a "surprise" foal hidden behind a closed stall door. (Picture attached.) Drew picked out a set with a black and white stallion, but he had to buy a second set to try to match Charm's coloring. (He picked a palomino -- there were no buckskin paints.) The "surprise foal" is a black and white overo paint. We might get close with a black and white tobiano foal -- since Mr. Bo Buttons is homozygous tobiano, we will definitely have a tobiano baby, which means color and white across the body, white legs, color face with possible white markings.

I am strangely nervous about Charm's pregnancy -- more nervous than I was when I was pregnant myself 18 years ago. I had an interesting pregnancy, with my mother going through cancer surgery and treatment, and Drew spending a month in a hospital being treated for MRSA. It was a stressful time but I had a strong bond with Jordan (we called him Cubby when he was in utero) because he and I went through all of that together. I never really worried about his health though -- not the way that I worry about Charm's baby. Not sure what that's about, except that maybe it's that Charm cannot communicate (at least not verbally) how she's feeling. Maybe I should not have picked now to re-read All Creatures Great And Small, James Herriot's autobiography of his life as a country vet. It's a great book -- funny and well-written -- but A LOT OF STUFF HAPPENS with animal pregnancy and birth. Charm seems happy and healthy and I will just have to go with that for now. And, I'm going back to junk TV instead of reading. Masters of Sex, anyone?

Wishing everyone a fabulous holiday season and the very best New Year. Cheers.

Amy B. Beller