22 Weeks.

At 22 weeks, the average baby is about 11 inches - just one inch less than that ruler up there. Since I expect our child to be above average in all ways, I'm just going with the ruler as a demonstration of how long the bean is this week. Yikes.

By now, our boy's lips, eyelids, eyebrows, and tooth buds under his gums have all formed. His eyes have formed as well, but the irises still lack pigment. Brown like dad or blue like mom? Or, possibly green, if he takes after his aunt and great uncle? Its kind of cool to think about. Allegedly, he has hair growing on his head too. It will be interesting to see which parent he takes after, since I think Morgan was born with a full head of hair, and I was bald for the first year of my life. According to old wives' tales (and a South American study of some variety), there is a link between how much heartburn mom has during pregnancy and the amount of hair the baby is born with. Since I've had minimal heartburn, does that mean the froglet is bald? Wonder if my mom had heartburn?

All my books tell me I'm in the happy, easy part of pregnancy, and I can't disagree. I'm not too tired, still moving around without too much trouble. I'm watching the scar from where I used to have a navel ring start to stretch out - oops. I'm disappointed that the super strong fingernails I had in the first trimester have vanished - now they're back to breaking and peeling. Oh well. I don't seem to have the thicker, faster growing hair that people talk about either - though it might be falling out slightly less than usual. My hairdresser assures me that this is temporary and after the baby is born, I'll lose all the extra hair. Great. I guess that's when I sign up for the mommy haircut? No, not really.