Baby Kicks

Baby Kylie was really active yesterday. Her movements are beginning to feel less like flops and more like nudges and kicks. At one point yesterday, I felt her nudges way up high in my abdomen. I looked down and could actually see my shirt move each time she kicked. I said to my belly, "What are you doing way up here? You usually do this much lower."

It may have had something to do with the fact that I was stuck waiting at the Social Security Office (to get my new name social security card ordered) for almost two hours with three screaming babies in close proximity. And no, these babies weren't fussy... they were screaming. And honestly, I don't blame them. The atmosphere in that office was incredibly tense and exasperating.

But it felt like Kylie was nudging me as if to say, "I hear crying babies! Do something Mom!"

Does every pregnant woman do this? Take our own experiences and transfer them onto our baby?

I've found myself lately saying things like:
"The baby is hungry" (when I'm hungry and then I feel the baby kick)
"The baby likes the music" (when I have music on and then I feel the baby kick)
"The baby says hello" (when Karen is talking to my belly and the baby kicks)
And so forth

The rational part of me knows that the baby is just moving around in there as she is supposed to do for her own growth reasons and not my emotional ones. But it seems that I can't help myself from making these little observations.

I guess it's natural since she's living inside me and at this point is "a part of me" but I wonder if I'll be able to quickly break this habit once she's born and is her own individual.

Or whether it will pass as the kicks become more usual and less "fun". (I have to admit, right now they are really fun. I laugh almost every time I feel her and delightedly announce "the baby is kicking". I know this will change soon but for right now I'm really enjoying this phase.)

Oh and one last thing about kicks. I was a cheerleader in high school (go ahead and laugh) and my family and friends like to compare her kicks to cartwheels, back handsprings and flips. I enjoy it. It makes me smile and I know it's just light-hearted fun. Yet I wonder, if in some way, we are already deciding whether she will be a little gymnast like me or a basketball player like her other mom rather than her own person who might like the tuba instead. Hmmmmm.

-Wendy
[23w, 4d]
[28 Babies R Us visits]