The Parsonage Family: And the child lept in her womb...

Sunday, September 21, 2008

And the child lept in her womb...

Baby Kate (we are going on the assumption that it's a girl now) has been kicking a lot in the last couple weeks, and it is so thrilling. It's amazing to feel her moving around, to know she's there and that she's okay.

I've been thinking recently about the verse in Luke's birth narrative, when a knocked-up Mary goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth, who was pregnant with John the Baptist at the time. It says "when Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child lept in her womb." When this passage is read aloud every Christmas, it seems so supernatural, as if it's totally unheard of for a child to leap within the womb and it couldn't be anything other than a great omen of messianic coming. Now, it seems so real, like a perfectly normal--if positively glorious and miraculous--occurance.

Nonetheless, it makes me think of how people are prone to ascribe significance to those most energetic kicks. I don't know if the timing of baby's kicks actually have any correlation to what's going on ouside the womb, but it's kind of fun to take stock of what I could know about my daughter's tastes if there is any validity to the theory. She likes...