Only seven more weeks until we actually get to *see* this baby! I'm finally at the point where I can tell if it's a head/butt or foot/knee/elbow poking out. Head/butt is round, foot/knee/elbow is pointy. This morning I was laying in bed and suddenly Julian woke up and started moving around. I could practically grab his little foot/knee/elbow as it was poking out. I gave him a little rub and he would poke me back...very cute.

I had never felt a pregnant belly before except briefly once, when my friend April let me feel hers. I remember being amazed by how hard-soft it was, not at all what I expected. It's like a basketball wearing a foam rubber coat. Hard underneath, soft on top. A very firm mattress with a pillow-top. Where the baby is, it's a little harder, and where he *isn't* it's a little softer. Kind of fascinating.

I keep hearing about how everyone wants to touch your belly when you're pregnant, but so far I haven't had *anyone* try to cop a feel without permission. I think a total stranger would be definitely skeezy, but I don't mind friends touching it at all. I think people are a little scared, or they don't want to annoy me. Sometimes I just issue an open invitation, "Hey, whoever wants to touch my belly, go ahead!" and then some people pounce on it, which is funny. Of course, those are always the times when Julian is asleep or chilling or whatever, so it's not even all that exciting, but it still has a magical talismanic quality.

During the first little movements I would put Dan's hand on my belly to feel, and he thought I was just breathing hard or something. Then we had the "Magic Calming Hand of Daddy" effect, where Julian would be rockin' and rollin', but as soon as Dan's hand would reach over to feel he would freeze. We would wait for a while, nothing...then as soon as Dan took his hand off he would start right back up again.

Finally one night Julian was doing some kung-fu moves while we were sitting on the couch and I said, "OK, NOW try to feel him!" and put Dan's hand on the spot. Per usual, Julian stopped all movement as soon as the Daddy Hand arrived, then all of a sudden a few seconds later, POW!, he gave a *massive* kick right where Dan's hand was. I think he wanted to make a good first impression or something...he was waiting until he could deliver something truly impressive. Ever since then he hasn't been shy at all, he kicks the Daddy Hand all the time, and Dan is always duly impressed. It's kind of too bad, I was hoping we could work that "Magic Calming Hand of Daddy" thing later on, it seems like it could really come in handy. ;-)

I'm still having paranoia that Baby J won't be head-down when the time comes and I'll have to go to the hospital for a C-section, so I am always feeling him to try to tell where he's at. I'm still not very good at it at all. Veronica, my nurse-midwife, is amazing. She practically waves her hands over me and can tell exactly what limb is where, how he is lying, how big he is, etc. After she pokes my belly a little bit, she says, "So to get the best heartbeat for the position that he is in, we should put the Doppler right *here*", and she always nails it dead on. Remarkable. Well, she has been doing this for 35 years, so it's not too surprising. I'm just a rank amateur. She's like a human ultrasound. I'm completely in awe of her, she's just too cool.

Only 11 more days at work before maternity leave. Strangely enough, I really like my job now and will be leaving on a very high note. Just six months ago my job was a horrible nightmare. I had a terrible manager and I got absolutely no recognition at all for the superhuman effort and horrendously long hours I had been putting in, in fact I was told that I had underperformed and was about to be laid off. Then we got a new VP of Engineering and I got a new manager, and both have been fantastic, really turned the place around. I just had my annual review and it was stellar. I got full credit and appreciation for all of my contributions towards our now award-winning software product, which is doing so well because it is "so intuitively designed that an operating manual is unnecessary" and has the "world's most easy-to-use interface". Guess who the designer was? That's right, yours truly. Lil' ol' me. :-)

I got a raise, I got some stock options, I even got a Christmas bonus that will help pay for FuzziBunz diapers and a stroller if no one buys them for us off the registry. I am pretty much on Cloud Nine after my review. It is just *sweet* to finally get credit for so much hard work when all I had gotten previously was a kick in the teeth and no thanks at all. Now everyone is telling me how great my work is, and how difficult it will be to replace me while I am gone...it just seems ironic that all this good career news comes right when I am not even focused on my career. I still get my job done, but I'm more worried about getting my closet cleaned out so that I have somewhere to put baby clothes. Life is really weird, isn't it?