twenty six weeks

*i am getting tired of bump pictures, so here is a glimpse of baby kelly, taken about thirteen weeks ago. i think that is one cute little button nose, if i do say so myself.


dear baby:

this week, as you tumble all about in my tummy, i can't stop thinking back to the time when you were so small it would have taken a microscope to see you. seeing dates on calendars and photographs instantly makes me think about you. for instance, i look at our pictures from our day trip to monterey and can't believe that you were growing inside me and we had no idea. or i think about November and how that glass of wine suddenly didn't taste quite right, but i still didn't know you existed. or i will pick up a file at work and see something i did on december 1st and realize that was the day we learned about you. or i stumble across an old december bank statement and i instantly scan to the 2nd, curious to remember where i shopped on the first day i knew i was an expectant mother.

yesterday, we opened a new container of dishwasher soap and i said to your daddy, "can you believe that we may still be using this very same container of soap when our baby is here?" i remember doing the same thing before our wedding...buying a new bottle of shampoo and thinking that our wedding was so close i may not have to buy another bottle of shampoo until after i became mrs. lauren kelly. i don't know, i guess i quanitfiy time in terms of liquids...but somehow, it does make it tangible and it helps rationalize what a confusing thing time is: it passes so quikcly, yet it can seem so long.

i just can't quite fathom yet that the next time i open a new container of soap, you may be sweetly sleeping in your crib down the hall...

or perhaps you will be screaming in my arms.

but either way, i will be grateful and i won't be able to help but think back to yesterday when i opened that soap, and when you were still but just a dream...