23 Weeks Today ~

Your baby is more than 11 inches long and weighs just over a pound. His skin is red and wrinkled. Blood vessels in his lungs are developing to prepare him for breathing and he can swallow. At this point you’ve pretty much adjusted to the fact you’ve got a moving little gymnast inside of you, but now they’re going to kick up the party a notch because they can hear and react to sounds from the outside world. Loud noises heard often in utero — such as your dog barking or the roar of a vacuum cleaner — probably won't faze your baby when he hears them outside the womb. Sounds from your alarm clock, a thunder roll, or that darned car honking at you across the intersection can actually jar their little ears enough to elicit a kick or violent bout of squirming. Of course this also means that their little ears are picking up the sounds of your voice and those near you. So go ahead, sing a lullaby to your little angel—if they start kicking, it’s likely they just want you to stop… or maybe it was a kick of approval? You decide. Your baby's tiny taste buds are still growing and their bones are continuing to ossify (harden), their tiny veins are visible through their translucent yet wrinkly skin. (Think of it this way: they’ve been swimming in the equivalent of a long hot bath for the past 23 weeks, so you can’t blame them for being a little prune-like.)

Things have been pretty quiet this week. Jared was in Texas for 4 days for work, so we're taking it kind of easy. Jared did pick up the baby's changing table last week and we went looking for rockers, but didn't have any luck. Grandpa Johnson did end up finding a very nice one for us, so thanks again Grandpa J. We will get a lot of use out of it, the little guy will have lots of story times there. Thank you Grandma Brown for the Hawkeye outfits. He will really like them. Ok, so he won't really know, but we will enjoy putting him in them when the Hawks go to their bowl game this year (and any other day).