20 weeks and our return to DC

I do think the headless belly picture are a little creepy, but there are reasons. We usually take these in the morning for it is otherwise nearly impossible to catch me before I change into pajamas when I get home from work. They're headless because the time when Kenny can take my picture before going to work is the time when my hair is still wet and I have no makeup on. In other news, this shirt is from my mother-in-law. I can't explain why, but it makes me feel like a beautiful catepillar.

This has been the week of the being run down—hence, my failing to post until today. Belly continues to grow. I think my body is just wimping out about moving the extra blood through the system and carrying the extra belly in front. I’ve been going to bed at 9 or 9:30---getting a hefty 9 to 9.5 hours of sleep—and still stumbling around like I was up all night. I dropped a mug of hot cocoa the other day because I think I fell asleep while filling it up.

Enough complaining though. I am officially at the stage where strangers on the street comment on my belly. It’s amazing how much your belly can grow without people thinking you look pregnant. I guess we all give each other lots of allowances to just be fat.

While we were in DC 3 strangers, in one day, commented on the belly. One older guy who had just finished playing tennis asked me if it was my first and urged us to wait and be surprised about the baby’s sex. One cocktail waitress looked at me and assured me that they had non-alcoholic drinks too. One bouncer scolded Kenny for his role in the matter and what he had gotten himself into. Hmm, funny how two of those exchanges happened at bars.

Speaking of DC, I never did a lovely post I had planned to do about it. Being in DC was great. It’s very strange to go on vacation to a place that feels more like home than where you live. I’m still working on bonding with Chicago and am sure I will one day feel the same for it that I feel for DC. DC is just so easy to love because it’s small in size but big in city-ness. In DC, I was never lost. I knew where places where and had favorite places. I took a nap in Dupont Circle. I could walk between neighborhoods in no time. We stayed with our friends Kate and Kyle. They threw us a BBQ so that we could get together with all of our people at once. It felt so normal to be with all of them and so sad that it wasn’t really normal anymore.

This is Kyle and Kate on our trip to see the rebuilt Eastern Market. We lived in the Eastern Market neighborhood when the market burnt down. It's now rebuilt and a surprising nice shade of pink.

My friends Lindsey and Molly threw me a baby shower. It was nice to have girl time and get all sorts of adorable things for baby. Below see baby’s first piece of DC propaganda.