Looking to Spring as the Baby Kicks

Home from a weekend away, we look out our kitchen windows to see a scurry of robins, flickers, and smaller birds tossing aside garden compost and yanking worms from the earth. Yes, no snow graces the ground; do the robins think it is spring? Then I wonder if they are robins. I do a little research and discover that American Robins can be just about anywhere year round. Well, perhaps they are just reminding us of the gift we will receive this spring: a squirmy baby.

Our little bump is halfway to the exit now. My worrying still comes more often than my husband would like, but now that I'm over the nausea I have some time to enjoy the experience with a little more gusto- especially since I can feel the baby move.

All my mother friends and all the websites have called the quickening a feeling of bubbles or butterfly fluttering. Those sensations haven't sounded right for my experience. But over the last week I know that something has been going on inside my tummy. I finally figured out a way to describe it. Imagine a fish inside you, swimming around, then suddenly it bumps into the side of the "bowl". Our little fish truly lives up to the name bump, now!

I want to sing and read and talk to bump, but the series of illnesses in our house keep dragging us along, and now my cough interrupts my voice. Spring health would be a blessing about this time. Christmas is just a couple of days away; however, and I don't want to rush past all the joy of this season just to get to the next.

So bump and I sit by the tree and enjoy the changing colors of the lights and this moment. And I talk to bump in my head and know that the little one hears me when I feel another tap.

Creative Commons

John Benson ibm4381