Well hello, 26 weeks.  We finally meet.  This is the last week of my second trimester, and from what I’ve been told, 3rd trimester reverts back to feeling a lot like I did in first, but with a bigger belly and more nesting.  So I’m going to enjoy these last 6 days of “second trimester glory” while they last.

To honor the end of second trimester, I actually let someone take a picture of me and my belly.  I’ve been getting a lot of questions (mostly filtered by Angel from his family) about the presence of photos, to which I always responded that I don’t feel real cute and don’t need photographic evidence to remember that.  Well, today I guess I thought I looked cute, so I had hubby take a picture of me after I was ready for work:

Hubby doesn’t know how to count to 3 before snapping but I have to take the good with the bad.  For some reason this morning, my phone wasn’t appreciating the “focus” feature, but whatever.  It’s big.  I think that comes across.

Mini Me is almost 2 pounds now.  I think I should celebrate this milestone with a two-pound box of chocolates.  You know, in order to really get a good visual.  And those flutters and sweet movements that I was feeling before?  Yeah, those now feel like a rabid mongoose flipping out inside of a burlap sack (if I knew what that really felt like).  In the last few weeks he has fully developed all 5 of his senses like a goddamn GENIUS child, and books now say that I have gained 16-22 pounds if I’ve been following a “nutritious and sensible diet plan.”  Bite me, books.  Little Man is perfecting his breathing with some nasty amniotic fluid but that will help him when he takes his first breath of air, so awwww.  You breath that fluid in and out and swim around while you still have the “room.”

I think in the last few weeks I’ve come as close to loving pregnancy as I’m ever going to get.  I’ve started nesting, nagging Angel to finish up painting the room, and went Danny Tanner on my kitchen.  I have the cleanest kitchen in the state.  Seriously, I scrubbed the inside of my fridge like my life depended on it because for some reason I couldn’t relax my mind knowing that there was possibly a bottle of salad dressing that expired last week!  I’m also loving the way that I look in maternity outfits (finally) because I have enough of a belly to make them look the way that they are supposed to.  So I look good, and I feel good, and I’m ready to quit while I’m ahead. I don’t mean that, Little Man.  Stay in there as long as you need to.

And sleep!  Oh my God, the sleep!  I missed sleeping!  I’m back to going to sleep early, waking up at a reasonable hour, sleeping through the night (less bathroom breaks at 1 and 4 exactly- which is odd), no crazy baby dreams, no anxiety.  Just me and my sleep.

This must be the amazingness that everyone speaks of second trimester.  I’ll do my best not to feel cheated that I didn’t get this feeling until the second trimester was ending.

Let’s check in with how my adorable husband is handling me rounding the bases home:

• Sympathy cravings- sausage? really?
• Nesting
• Loss of sleep due to crazy baby dreams

I usually forward him my “your baby is 26 weeks!” emails on Monday mornings and at about 9am this morning he was asking me where it was.  So I’ll throw “baby anxiety” onto the end of the list for completeness:

• Anxiety

It appears that I’ve lost all of these symptoms, and the poor guy’s gotten them!  This proves that it really is a team effort.  So other than feeling like a total Goddess, my week has been pretty dull.  I would talk about my new baby rocker, but that’s going to require a post all of its own (Coming to a blog near you).