Kicking around

Witch baby has gotten around into a different position, or something, because the last 18 hours or so have been really quite active. Carl even felt the kicks through my abdomen last night, over and over, cheering the future soccer player on all the while.

We talked about girls' names but we didn't get very far and mostly were being silly. I think I might have to actually get a book out of the library. I think it's partly this kind of bad feeling: but we have a little girl and we named her Emily Hope, and that was perfect. Poor witch baby. We discussed Amelia but it's the same name, fundamentally, and that's not nice; witch baby is his or her own person. As a middle name it might be okay, but I think we have one of those chosen.

I'm craving fish, but this has to be balanced against mercury and PCB concerns (I wonder if the Omega eggs would be a decent substitute?). What I would really like is smoked salmon but that's bad, bad, bad. I'll read up on fish today and do something tomorrow, maybe a chowder (last week's fish was halibut). Tonight's dinner is chili 'cause that's the plan, and the beans are all cooked nicely and we have mushrooms and peppers and carrots aching to be included. Really. They jump up and down whenever I open the fridge.

Yesterday I ended up at the grocery store twice (I didn't realize we needed cat food the first time; they sell Iams there which isn't awful) and each time I really wanted salami, another pregnancy no-no. I think I'm suffering a little from a sense of restriction: feta, blue cheese, salami, real coffee, a glass of wine, prosciutto, pate - I seem to miss them all, more than I did the first time. Some of those can be consumed during breastfeeding and some not so much, but if we get to breast feeding this time I will just be glad for that.

I'm glad the spring produce will soon be coming in because there *are* so many yummy things that we can eat. Today's yummy thing is not seasonal: avocado.

I am definitely in the second/third trimester obsession with food stage. Normally food is a big part of our day anyway, but I do remember this: a kind of biological engine idling constantly rumbling about fattening up both maternal stores and the baby. This is where a little calorie counting goes a long way towards not gaining Way Too Much weight, although that doesn't seem to be one of my problems thus far. Portion awareness is good, because it's all too easy to hit the bottom of the frozen yoghurt container!

Later, in the video store there was a little girl running around who was probably just a bit older than Emily would be, and for some reason she struck me as being like Emily although I don't really know what the criteria was, except that she was running around behind me. I sort of found it disturbing; I was sad but also had this sense of shock like a horror flick where the child ghost appears or something. That was new and strange, and I wonder if it was actually a kinderlynn reaction or something.