So we have chosen a middle name for our little Emma. "Emma Marie" it is! Thanks for all your suggestions, they helped a lot.

Emma is approximately 7.5 inches today from head to rump and weighs approximately 10 ounces. She's a kicker and usually starts-up when we are talking secretly about her. Elena's and Emma's weight gain has been good. Ten pounds in five months. According to our graph, Elena and Emma's combined body weight dropped 4 pounds in April. This was probably due to all the walking we had done in Italy (approximately five miles a day). Elena has been eating quite normally and regularly for a pregnant woman (which essentially means, all the time) so she is in excellent shape going into the second half of our pregnancy. We are not walking anywhere near as much as we should so we are definitely going to have to pick it up if we are to keep Elena and Emma at a comfortable and healthy weight throughout the later days of the pregnancy.

I have read two stories to little Emma at bedtime in the last month. "Because God Gave us You", and "The Five Chinese Brothers". I don't have a favorite childrens book yet but it is fun reading them and showing Emma the pictures and making funny voices. I tell Emma to get out her periscope to see the pictures which she protrudes through Elena's belly button. Elena laughs when I say this which makes her belly jump and wiggle. I do so look forward to raising my little Emma and being there for her as she grows and making her my number one priority. I want to shape her life and instill values in her so that she is a reflection of Elena and me. I want the traits and characteristics that drew Elena to me, and me to her, to be the fertilizer that permeates the soil of Emma's developing world so she blossoms into the beautiful flower that I know she will one day be. I eagerly await the opportunity to see the world through her eyes, hold her hand, and share with her the joys of discovery and wonderment the world holds. As it is for all parents, this is an opportunity to once again become a child. To laugh, to play, to imagine, to pretend, to lose ones inhibitions and sing out loud, to pitch a tent in the living room, to build a fort in the den. While Emma grows, I will regress and meet her half-way between the present and my past, in the magical land of make-believe, all along cherishing the limited time we have. As I know, as all parents do, how short that time is and how quickly it will end. When moments of wonder, surprise and amazement, will be replaced with teenage independence, the mall, boys, and the uncoolness of parents. And I will be left with the memories of the precious times we once shared, and how one upon a time I was the world to her and how she will always be the world to me.