Lots of women blog about their prenatal experience, right? So, my dear reader(s), I apologize if all these funky maternity-styley-observations wear thin, but I just have to share. It's for posteriority, you know. Someday, probably on Inch-high's prom night, I'll pull out the ultrasound picture of her little bottom and some old blog entries and won't she just be delighted? Or horrified, whatever. Any attention is good attention, as my dog has taught me.

Although I've felt her kicking around in there for a few weeks now, today I FELT her kicking. Like, I had my hand on my stomach (scratching-- stretching skin gets itchy) and Jab! Jab! Poke! she triple-punched my hand like a Bruce Lee extra. It feels very odd, too: sort of like eating a bad curry from outer space, only without the nausea. For Red Dwarf fans out there, remember the revenge of the Chicken Vindaloo? Apparently, I am cooking an alien chicken vindaloo. Like a biological Julia Child.

This story ties back to the subject, honest:
In Eagle Pass, TX-- the town where my mother grew up and where all the cousins and I spent our summer and Christmas vacations together on the family ranch-- there is an old legend of the Abuelita (little old lady in spanish) Who Walks on the old loop highway at night. According to lore, she was a victim of a hit-and-run accident, or perhaps picked up and killed, or perhaps just died of starvation after hitchhiking for many moons (depending on whom you ask). If you drive the old highway alone at night, sometimes you can still see her walking, walking, walking: a ghost! If you pass her, she disappears. And then REAPPEARS IN YOUR BACKSEAT (whoooooooooo!).

Fast-forward to now. I've been walking. A lot. To work, from work, after lunch, after dinner, all hours. SNG walks with me whenever he can. I am not riding much and running usually feels too joggly ("Never, never, never shake a baby chicken vindaloo!") so I walk. Walk, walk, walk. On a good day I alternate jog-walk in 1/4 mile intervals.

On Sunday, one of our neighbors, whose boys sell scout popcorn every year, came up to us and said "Well, you are just the walking queen, aren't you? I don't go anywhere that I don't see you walking around! When I was pregnant I just wanted to sit around eating bonbons, blah blah blah..." I gave her my half-true excuse that I was trying to keep my blood sugar under control (only half of the story-- I am also trying to keep my SANITY when I can't go get a super-intense workout and walking feels better than eating bonbons on the couch). Then SNG and I walked a little more.

It only occured to me later that I am becoming the legend of the Walking Pregnant Lady of Windy Woods. Pass me by, and I'll end up in your backseat! (Whooooooooooo!)