Baby it's cold outside...

Five whole months in, and all's well. Baby Costello is swimming around in Cara's rapidly expanding belly just fine, and the babe has developed a serious knack for yoga... At Cara's prenatal yoga class, the baby gets right into it – particularly after the leg-lifts. Apparently Frank Lloyd Wright was onto something with the whole “compress and release” design theme. Baby Costello loves it.

And baby it's cold outside, but baby momma is well prepared. Cara is now equipped with a wonderful, expandable, down coat so she and baby are warm as can be even in the coldest cold, and Santa brought them some YakTrax, so Cara's as sure-footed in the slippery stuff as she's ever been – despite her rapidly changing center-of-gravity!

And as requests for baby-belly pictures continue to pour in, rest assured that we're working in it... Cara's growing the belly admirably, and one of these days Tommy will snap the aforementioned photo.

In terms of timing ans size and whatnot, Cara's at 22 weeks, or roughly 5 months. Baby's now about the size of a good european beer: A proper pint-size kid if there ever was one.

20 weeks and growing....

As I write this, I'm using our very first Chrismas present: a brand spanking new netbook. Tommy bought it for "us" so that I could be better about posting on our blog while he works on his papers for school. I've already claimed it as mine-- and it's been pretty darn handy so far!

So here's the baby/mama update: I'm now at 20 weeks which is officially the half-way point! I've started to feel some baby kicks/punches/headbutts. At first I wasn't so sure what the tiny pops I was feeling were... but now there's no mistaking it. It's a strange sensation, but very reassuring all the same!

As my belly gets bigger, I've been increasingly curious about the little bugger in there-- including whether it's a boy or girl. I've found/been told innumerable ways to predict--- but these "methods" all seem to contradict eachother. According to the Chinese birth chart- I'm having a boy. According to the fact that I experienced morning sickness- I'm having a girl. According to my salty cravings- it's a boy. According to my juice/fruit cravings- it's a girl. The list goes on. So-- only 20 more weeks (give or take a few weeks) to know for sure!

Baby Footage!

Okay, so the quality is roughly akin to late 19th century film, but hey, all things considered, it's footage of a baby in Cara's belly!  I considered jazzing it up in post, but, well, I've got a paper to write.

Chances are you've either had a kid and your ultrasound looked, well, the same, or you haven't had a kid and this grey-on-black blob footage is what it is.  As for us, it's a first look at the baby without a tail...  Cara can now feel it dancing, and I'm trying to teach it to count.  Seriously, I read that you can teach the baby to count while it's in the womb.  We hope to be on to basic algebra by the holidays.