Flips and Flutters | Motherhood Memories

While I was pregnant with Jonah, maybe about 16 weeks along or so and still staying at my moms while we were preparing to move into our old/new home in Belhaven, I remember waking up one morning and feeling a huge thud in my belly. It was just after I'd been asked at the OB if I had started to feel him move and I said no, or at least nothing that I can really pinpoint up until this point. Then, that morning as I work up in my childhood bedroom, I remember saying it felt like he turned a flip - from one side to the other or from the top to the bottom I can't exactly remember, but that was the first time I KNEW for sure THAT feeling was a baby moving inside of me. For the first time, it was reassurance and scary and surreal all at the same time. A baby was really really really growing inside of me and he was definitely doing summersaults.

When I think back on that story, it seems a little foreshadowing to what our future together would look like. Jonah's favorite thing to do around the house now nearly five years from that morning? Jumps and flips off of the bed onto a pile of pillows. He wakes up rolling and wrestling with Ezra.  He sits on the back of his Nod chair until it slowly falls over causing him to flip off onto the floor.

With Ezra, I swear I felt him move at 10/11 weeks. Little flutters, like several in a row. It would happen in little increments - really fast and then nothing for a while, but it consistently happened until he was big enough to jam all of his little body parts into my ribs and everything else he could reach from in there. He was constantly pushing his little booty against my sides forming a hard lump you could clearly feel from the outside. Today when I picked him up, we chased and chased around the yard. Head down, running as fast as his little legs would take him, but once we got home, he landed on my hip and snuggled up to me so close and shook his head "no" when I asked him if he wanted to go help brother feed the dog (a favorite activity of his), then nuzzled right back onto my shoulder. Sweet boy. Not soon after though he was back to fluttering around the house and dumping all the buckets out in playroom floor.

I saw a post tonight on instagram by a mommy who is feeling the reassurance of her new baby fluttering in her belly and it took me back to that first big thump with my big boy and all those little flutters so early with Ezra. I thought of how those little tiny instances are reflected in their personalities. These are little things I so badly wish to remember. Down to every little detail. So, here they are captured in my little time capsule to share with all of you.