Halfway there, halfway ready.

Oh Baby Cute. I'm so glad you're growing nice and big and strong. It makes me happy to look at your little skeleton face waving at me from your ultrasound photo session on Tuesday. However, a few suggestions:

• Please grow slow and steady. Pushing on my uterus with your little baby arms and legs doesn't feel good to Mommy.


• Learn to love sugar. Mommy loves sugar, so you're going to have to stay calm when she drinks her morning cranberry juice. If you roll all around and go nuts you're going to make Mommy mad and she will poke you.


• Feel free to aim high. I'd rather have you near my belly button than my bladder. Mommy's bathroom at work isn't fabulous, and someone on her floor has a bad habit of stinking up the small room with no ventilation, so I'd like to spend as little time in there as possible.


• You are just a visitor in Mommy's body. Please exercise caution when batting at her organs, or you will wear out your welcome. See the note above on poking.

Good news from our family--Daddy Cute a.k.a. Dave got a promotion! He was hand-picked to be assistant scoring director on his next project. For those who don't know, Dave scores standardized tests on a project basis for a variety of states. The new position is more responsibility, higher pay and he is traveling to Minnesota for a week to work with the education peeps there on how to score their test. He is SO excited, I am SO proud. His work is still project-based, but being a director extends the work out a lot longer on either end of the project AND he works an hour or more of overtime each day. He will also be more likely to supervise upcoming projects and be called on to serve as assistant scoring director again from time to time. SUCH good news!

I had a great meeting with the leader of the animal side of my job today. He is a cool guy, and much more accessible than my previous contact. He also has great ideas and feedback. Hooray for good supervisors and clear direction!

I also spent time chillin' with my animal peeps for a while. One of the graduate students delivered last night at Sparrow, where Baby Cute will be born. The graduate student coordinator actually attended the birth and was "in charge of holding the left leg." She had WONDERFUL things to say--about the birth, about Sparrow's facilities, about Sparrow's nurses, about the food, about her postpartum care. Let me tell you, other than my Mom, there have been very few positive birth stories for me to hear, so I was so happy to have taken the time to chat with the coordinator.

It has been a helluva week. Dave's current project is running behind, so he's been working 7am-5:30pm all week. With the car-sharing situation, that puts me at work 7:15am-5:15pm. I only worked 6-10pm at the baby store one night, but I feel like I could sleep for DAYS. Dave feels the same way. As he said this morning, this three-day weekend CAN NOT come at a better time.

We made sure to plan NOTHING to do on Saturday. Sunday we are heading to Bangor for cousin Michael's graduation party. From Bangor we'll hit Michigan City and hop on the train to Chicago. We're going to just skip the tolls and traffic and ride the commuter train to see Meredith and Jerry. Great news is that Melanie, Rob, Nate and Larry are all coming too! Hooray for Sibling-Fest Weekend!!

And if you're still reading, here is Baby Cute's 20 week status report. Can you believe we are half way???

BabyCenter: Your baby weighs about 10 1/2 ounces now. She's also around 6 1/2 inches long from head to bottom, and about 10 inches from head to heel. (For the first 20 weeks, we use measurements taken from the top of the baby's head to her bottom — known as the "crown to rump" measurement. After that, we use measurements from head to toe. This is because a baby's legs are curled up against her torso during the first half of pregnancy and are very hard to measure.)A greasy white substance called vernix caseosa coats her entire body to protect her skin during its long submersion in amniotic fluid. (This slick coating also eases the journey down the birth canal.)Your baby is swallowing more, which is good practice for her digestive system. She's also producing meconium, a black, sticky substance that's the result of cell loss, digestive secretion, and swallowed amniotic fluid. This meconium will accumulate in her bowels, and you'll see it in her first messy diaper (although a few babies pass it in utero or during delivery).

BabyGaga: you’ve got about 10.5 inches and approximately 10.5 oz of solid baby-miracle-goodness! Their little delicate bones continue to ossify and toughen while their itsy bitsy finger and toe pads are finishing up. Your little monkey now has teeth buds, although they’re hidden beneath the gum line. And finally! Their limbs have reached their relative proportions—no more alien baby! Their cute pink lips are more defined, and might be helping out in a bit of prenatal thumb-sucking. If you have a little boy, then their tiny testes are descending, though they have not yet passed the abdominal wall. What’s more, eyelashes and eyebrows are also visible. At this point, your little one really looks like a miniature baby—and we do mean miniature as your little swimmer currently weighs a mere eighth of their final birth weight. With half the pregnancy behind you, the most significant gains are yet to come!