The size of a blueberry.

I posted this picture of myself on Instagram/Twitter with the caption "I have a secret."

Some people guessed my secret straight away, because I guess when a woman of a certain age says something like that with a certain kind of look on her face, it usually means she's growing a fifth baby even though she didn't think she was going to have any more babies, and they were going to do something permanent about it but they never did because they didn't have any money but at this rate they will run out of money even faster.

And nothing happens by accident, and really from the first moment that I thought, Hey! shouldn't my period have come already and had the first crazy inkling that something was different, I've been thrilled.

I've been very clucky lately, all but licking the faces of babies I see on the street, so here it is, another chance for cuddles and spit up, leaking breasts and newborn smell. I had a baby at twenty-two, now I get to see what it's like to have a baby at thirty-two, to have two kids ten years apart, to have an eighteen-year-old and an eight-year-old on my fortieth birthday. (Something like that, the math is making my head hurt.)

Eleanor, you can call this one "The one who was born in Thailand." Because having babies in new countries is a great way to get to know the place. Apparently.

I'm about seven weeks along. I found out at around four and a half weeks, but we had to start breathing again before I could tell everyone about it. It's been long enough since Solo was born that I notice the symptoms more clearly again. (Remember how Kid A was only three when my third baby was born? There is a whole chunk of life there that is just a fog.)

So far:

* Breathtaking exhaustion. I yawn. all. day. This one is difficult, I have to keep reminding myself that it's only for a while, that pregnancy is something special, that you can't expect to do everything you would do if you weren't pregnant. I drag my sorry self around the kitchen first thing in the morning, fall asleep over the dishes.

* Also, I can't be trusted to remember anything. I forget what conversation I'm in halfway through. I can't remember what I came to the market for, I can't remember why I came upstairs, go back down only to remember and walk back up the stairs and forget again.

* Clumsy! I trip over everything. Big, dramatic windmilling stumbles that I'm sure amuse my neighbors very much. I have to walk very carefully down the stairs because I seem to have forgotten how stairs work and I keep slipping on them.

* I'm a wee bit emotional. Very nauseous. I have a love/hate relationship with food. I think about food all the time, all the time, but am disgusted by whatever I was eating as soon as my stomach feels full and have to leave the table because of the oil coming off the lentils. Oh man, I can't even write about it. Gross.

So, pretty normal stuff. My mind has jumped ship, I'm falling down, and I care for four kids who are all thrilled about a baby while complaining about their breath.

Especially YaYa. She didn't stop jumping around the room for an hour after we told them.

(Oh, also, I'm starting to write about Christian Spirituality on the Shekina Community blog. Today I wrote about Practice.)