the japanese writing says, “teacher, i forgot my bathing cap”. (color pencil drawing)

i don’t know what’s going on in my womb world. my belly has started to get really big, especially in the last week. i can now clearly see a curved line at the bottom where the womb begins to stick out. my belly button is almost flat. it’s not inside out yet, but i can see the inside. it looks like my body wants to be extroverted, unlike its mental counterpart.

poko-chan is doing well, i think and hope. it’s becoming more active. it’s so active that even paul could feel it. he was very happy. i feel its movement more at night in the bed than during the day when i’m active. usually what happens is that poko-chan starts off by kicking at the top left and proceeds to the bottom and the right and comes back to the initial position. it’s an acrobatic baby. sometimes i can’t fall asleep because it’s so active. last night, i was lying in bed listening to kruder and dorfmeister and poko-chan started dancing in the womb club.

since i’ve been in my second trimester, i feel more energetic. i started taking an aqua fitness class. i used to go to the gym to walk on a treadmill in the first trimester, but it got really boring. it’s probably better to go for a walk outside, but it’s -20℃ (with a windchill of -30℃) and the sidewalk is frozen. i don’t want to catch a cold. and i especially want to avoid a situation where i fall on the ice and my belly explodes and i give birth to the baby on the icy sidewalk and our baby gets frozen and slides away from me with the umbilical cord still attached. that would be pretty embarrassing.

so i decided to take an aqua fitness class. my gym is one minute walk from my apartment. it’s not an aqua fitness for pregnant woman — the members are mostly grandpas and grandmas. it shouldn’t be too hard on my body. perfect. i feel much better and poko-chan seems to like it too. after class, i can feel it doing aerobics and swimming around its indoor pool.

actually, my drawing is misleading. i never wear a bathing cap.