Ahypothetical

Over the past week or so, the sprout has really started to move around (and do so pretty much all the time). S/he seems to have a pretty steady routine: we wake up in the late morning, demand breakfast, do some calisthenics, have a day, and stay up late watching movies and doing more calisthenics. It's certainly pretty cute to feel a little thwap from time to time, but there's a side effect that I wasn't quite expecting, too. As some of you may recall from the first couple of posts I put up, I started off by connecting to the baby-growing process via the gadgetry. In large part, that had to do with it seeming kind of hypothetical -- I mean, there wasn't really any physical evidence, Beth seemed just as normal as ever (ahem), and we needed to use a machine to even see the kid, so for all we really knew we could have been watching ultrasound data from a baby in South Island, New Zealand. (Yes, I chose New Zealand. It's far, vaguely mysterious, and full of sheep.) In the last week, though, the sprout has stopped being a hypothetical construct and started being a member of the family. I suspect this happened earlier for Beth, who isn't here to ask just at the moment, but being able to actually feel the motions that the sprout is performing (my guess? Tai Chi.) has made this process real for me, and done so all at once. (For example, the thought process goes like this: The sprout responds to meal times; well, *I* respond to meal times, too!! Yay!!) It's the first of many surprising things s/he will do, I'm sure.

And speaking of awkward grammatical constructions, we'll hopefully be finding out (to use Will Baldwin's phrasing) whether we're having a sprout or a sproutette this coming Wednesday. Just *think* how much simpler the pronouns will be!

(Lastly, this is another iPhone-composed post. Evidently, it works well when you're *not* stuck on a plane, too.)