The countdown is on…I have three days to go before son #2 is due. Besides swollen ankles and pregnancy-induced carpal tunnel, all is well. The thing I’ve been thinking about lately, though, is chocolate. Seriously. I just heard this New York Book Review podcast with science writer Annie Murphy Paul, author of the new book Origins.   Origins is all about fetal origins, also sometimes called fetal programming. It’s the emerging science behind how what moms eat, drink, think, interact with, etc. influences the unborn child. Here’s what I like about what Paul says in the interview…She was pregnant with her second child while writing and researching the book. Instead of being left with more fear and trepidation after speaking with all the researchers, though, she was left with a greater sense of excitement and less fear. After all she learned, she came away with four things she did differently in her second pregnancy. One was eat more chocolate, which has apparently been linked to a calmer newborn disposition. So, anyhow, you can see where this going…I’m throughly enjoying my new chocolate prescription. And, in fact, my writer friend Anne S., who moved a few years ago from S. Cal to Oregon, has helped me out immensely with this. Just as I was contemplating the idea that I MUST eat more chocolate (of course, purely for my child’s happiness), a package came in the mail bearing gifts of Oregon nuts and chocolate from Pacific Hazelnut Farms in Aurora. We’ve already eaten the chocolate-covered blueberries and we’re now working on the rest. Thanks Anne — and Annie!

Oh, and if you want to know what else Annie Murphy Paul did, click here.