My tummy just rumbled, and it was somewhere under my left boob. It’s all baby these days in my ex-tummy location. Sometimes I feel it move on opposite sides at the same time, as if it’s stretching for a big yawn or checking the dimensions of its little home. I haven’t managed to identify any body parts yet, mind you.
I swear I just felt something long move in there, like an arm or a leg. And then I had a flash of an “Oh my God, it’s really a baby.”
But really, what’s it doing when it feels like it’s playing the bongos on my tummy? I’d pay real money to see what’s going on in there. I suppose I just have to wait a few more weeks for my next ultrasound.
Back after Christmas, with a bigger tummy and lots more kicking. At my appointment on Monday I’d put on 8lbs in the whole pregnancy, which while still not a lot for this stage, does mean that in the last month I put on as much as in the previous almost-five combined. Anyway, judging by the amount of activity going on in there most of the time, everything’s just hunky dory. And I’ve officially grown out of everything but real maternity gear.
So over the holidays I let my guard slip a little. I stopped being all optimistic about where we lived and when people asked how it was, I was more inclined to say “Well, it’s a place to live, and we’ll be moving soon” or something equally unflattering. Driving back from the airport on our return, all I could think was how alien it all was, still, after 18 months, and how really the only thing making us come back was the fact that all our stuff was here. Oh, and our jobs, I suppose. But there are good things too about here: I just have to dig a little deeper to find them.
Things I do appreciate about living here, in no particular order:
Mixer taps. It’s not that they don’t exist in Dublin, just not in the houses we were staying in. It makes washing your face a pain when one side of the sink has water a degree or two away from ice and the other is boiling and never the twain shall meet unless you actually go to the trouble of putting in the plug and filling the sink.
Warmth. I know the climate is a mixed blessing and I complain about the damned heat and the stupid lack of seasons, but it is nice to be able to walk around in a towel after your shower and not have to throw on the first clothes you can see because it’s just too cold to linger in less than five layers.
Not living out of a suitcase. Having all my stuff and a place to put it. Which I suppose is how I define home these days.
Turtles. I saw one at lunchtime, in its natural habitat. Don’t get that in Dublin in December.
Plentiful and cheap maternity wear. There’s a lot more over here than there is at home, though I did well out of the sales over Christmas.
Our car. Driving my own car makes me feel like a grown up.
Better skin. I’d hardly been home a week when my cuticles were starting to shred and I was getting dry patches on my legs. I don’t know if it’s the humidity or the mildness here, but those are two things I don’t have to worry about. (Of course, I have to weigh that against the better hair I always seem to have at home, but let us not speak of that.)
Martin Luther King day. Of course, there are more public holidays at home, but there isn’t one next Monday. Nyah nyah.