I've got my orange crush.

I hate orange soda. There aren't many food type things I have aversions to - liver, lamb, lassi (not sure why they all start with L?) - but orange soda is at the top of my list. I think it stems from having gotten violently ill in someone's van as a child after having had an orange soda from Jack in the Box.

(The details I've retained about this story versus the ones I've lost fascinate me. Who's van was I in? Randi's parents, maybe? I'm pretty sure my parents weren't there, and I think that's part of the trauma of the story for me. But why do I remember Jack in the Box and not who I was actually with?)

I put aside my aversion yesterday morning and headed to the Kaiser lab to chug 50 grams of flat orange soda flavored glucose drink. This is a standard pregnancy test at about 28 weeks, and is intended to diagnose possible gestational diabetes. The nice lady at the lab gave me my bottle of "Glucola" and a straw and told me I had seven minutes to drink it down. When I returned the empty bottle (I recommend not reading the ingredients or the probable side effects while trying to get the stuff down), she told me to return an hour later for my blood draw. The whole experience wasn't as bad as I expected. I had a little bit of queasiness while waiting, and make sure I ate as soon as possible after my blood draw. Later in the afternoon, I realized my heart was racing and my hands were shaking, but a piece of toast solved that. And, happily, I passed the test. They wanted my blood sugar to be under 139, and I came in at 117. Yay me.

There's apparently some debate about when the third trimester starts. Half my resources say last week, the rest say this week. I opted for last week, but if anyone prefers the other measurement, rest assured that I am now thoroughly, solidly in my third trimester. This week, the froglet (or Og, as my mom has started calling him), is up to about 2.5 pounds and doubled in weight in the last month. His little brain has been smooth until now, but is started to develop the grooves that make it look like a normal brain. Cool. Morgan periodically will announce that he wants a smart baby, and turn up the Mozart, so hopefully those grooves are getting bits of classical music tucked into them, along with all the pop crap I tend to expose Og to.