35 weeks

I remember posting something about feeling sleek like a seal. While my belly continues to impress me, it is 45" diameter of taut flesh and sleek isn't exactly how I would currently describe myself. Here is a picture from 35 weeks. You can tell where my vanity lies when I tell you that I spent more time trying to photoshop out the pile of laundry behind me than to cover up my pink bits. It is a week later now, and the belly has dropped. There is a huge amount of pressure in my nether bits, and my bladder is being regularly poked and palpated by the baby. Quite cool, and more uncomfortable than I would have imagined, although it is so bizarre that it is easy to have a good sense of humor about it. Pequita is blooming in so many ways. She is verbalizing a lot, learning how to yell and whisper, and playing with her voice much of the time. She is particularly pleased with the call and response game - she makes a noise, we mimic it, and she chortles with pleasure. Her love for her tongue manifests in much spitting and long Bronx cheers. Delightful! She is also beginning to crawl, and can spin in circles and scoot short distances. She has started to pull herself up on our bodies and furniture. She is still wobbly, but her desire is so strong that she tries repeatedly until she succeeds. We have been holding off on offering her real food, relying on breastmilk and a little formula as needed. Today, we stopped for ice cream cones and she was so motivated by all the licking that she grabbed repeatedly. I touched my double scoop of black raspberry to her lips, and she was startled by the temperature, but sucked it off. After her trying to grab the whole cone and me pinning her arms to her sides, she enjoyed several more tastes. By the third or fourth, she had figured out that opening her mouth and sucking a little garnered her a better sample. She is a pro now. So many things in our evolving parenting style aren't what we expected - we have many more plastic toys than we intended, we watch TV with her in the room sometimes (volume very low, only while she is engrossed in her toys). Feeding her ice cream as her first food was never on the agenda, but here we are. Homestead Mama is inordinately proud of her. Tomorrow: bananas and rice cereal, like normal healthy people.