half-way!!

I'm a week past half-way now, at 21 weeks. The whole pregnancy is 40 weeks, that is, if it goes by the book. I can feel the baby kicking, rolling, whatever she's doing, a few times a day now. At first it was a little jarring, but I'm getting used to it and now it's like a little "hello" from her throughout the day. Here are a few belly photos to show what's been happening on the outside. 

These are at 18 weeks. My goal is to get some photos of me without soaking wet hair, but the only time I take picture are before Anil and I go out to do something, and usually I've just taken a shower. 

  

We had a really busy weekend, which is uncharacteristic for us these days. We went to dinner at a BBQ place in Davis Square on Friday night with friends from college. I went outlet shopping with a friend on Saturday, but sadly, the giant maternity outlet store was a bust. I treated myself to a reeeealllly soft cashmere scarf though because, get this--it's pink. It's pink plaid--Burberry. It's my "I'm having a baby girl" present to myself, and I spent all of our lunch rationalizing the purchase (for example, it's shorter than my usual really long scarf, so it's more practical for when I'm bending over a baby). Then later that night my friend said how I could give the scarf to my daughter when she's older, and Internet, if I was still in first trimester crying-mode, I would have flooded the car. So consider that purchase entirely rationalized if not on an entirely rational level. Saturday night we watched football and ate more grilled meet (after that weekend there's probably no way that the cupcake will be a vegetarian) with friends from college, and it was so great to just relax and laugh with people that we've known for so long. Good to know that we can still be uproariously immature even when, in other ways, we're treading farther into adulthood. 

On Monday Anil and I went to the beach in New Hampshire. He and a friend went surfing and I hung out on the beach, trying to inhale as much of the salty air as possible to give the cupcake an early appreciation of it. We bought a baby t-shirt from the surf shop up there (photo below--that's our apartment behind me). For some reason the photos Anil took that day came out blurry, but the t-shirt has the store name, Cinnamon Rainbows, on it, so wherever we are next summer we can remember our chilly beach haunt up here. 

What struck me, though, is that after this whole super-busy and fun-filled weekend, my favorite part of the whole week came on Tuesday evening. Anil and I spent the afternoon doing some errands, which can be grueling, but then we came home and took Bailey running around the Chestnut Hill reservoir, our running loop near Boston College. After the run, I stretched in the grass while watching Anil and Bailey run sprints together--it was really cute. That moment was my favorite of the whole past week. Maybe it's this whole imminent family thing that we've created, but being together, doing something active in the fresh air (that's getting crisper by the day up here), and having no further responsibilities for the night than making dinner and watching TV was so calming and simple.