what a baby feels like inside my belly

at first, a butterfly. a flutter. a first kiss. like that feeling when you first drop off the tall part of a roller coaster, but this time the feeling is so brief you wonder if it's just an odd gas bubble or an effect from yesterday's yoga class. but then it happens again, and you can recognize that it's different.

later, a twitch. like when your eyelid starts twitching and you can't stop it and it sort of tickles. 

then a thump. like when the dentist has your mouth all numbed up but the anesthetic is starting to wear off and you can feel pressure, so you flick your cheek with your middle finger to make sure it's still attached. it's like that.

later, a jab. most people say, "oh, she's kicking." she does kick, i suppose, but how am i supposed to know if it's a kick or a slap or a kiss with a fist? so, it's a jab. i'm not sure what body parts are moving which ways, but all of a sudden there will be a pretty decent knock to the belly wall coming from the inside. this one's hard to explain because i don't think there's anything like it. but, you can feel it on the outside by now.

sometimes, a strum. imagine if your ab muscles were stretched to tension, like guitar strings. and then a little tiny foot or hand or knee moved quickly across one of them, catching just slightly so that if it was an instrument it would produce a loud, clear note. it's not comfortable, but not painful. she's quite the musician on my insides.

lately, a bucket of lizards or snakes or eels or other slithery reptiles who are wrapped up in a knot like those snakes on that one Indiana Jones movie that they tried to serve for dinner. imagine what that big snake felt like with all those baby snakes writhing around inside. across the belly to the left, and then a flip or a spin, sliding all about. and you can see it and feel it from the outside. to dan it feels like a flutter, to me it feels like a zoo.

lately, a constant combination.

and i still have three months left.

thanks, El Jefe, for reminding me to write this stuff down.