Week 30: Cabbage

Sorry about the lack of updates on the blog! I have a bunch of stuff to add on here as soon as I have time to get pics uploaded onto the computer. In addition to the Thanksgiving weekend craziness, Brian and Ellie and I have all battled illness in the past week. Brian had some sort of stomach bug, which I got to a lesser degree a few days later. And poor Ellie was diagnosed with an ear infection and strep throat earlier this week. I didn't know that toddlers sometimes get a chest rash as a symptom of strep... that is, until the daycare workers on Tuesday called to say that she had one! She's doing much better now that she's been on antibiotics for a few days and is enjoying the extra episodes of "Dora" that her sick time bought her :)

In baby news, we're still absorbing and celebrating the BOY news we got from last week's ultrasound. The name search is officially underway... which may provide for some argument fodder over the next couple months, although we've found several that we both like. (And, no, we're not going to advertise the name possibilities on here since we've learned from the past that there are too many opinions out there.)
I'm not sure Ellie understands the whole baby brother concept yet, but she's enjoying telling people. She spent five minutes at the dinner table the other day yelling to the dogs: "It's a brother!" And she inherited an "I'm a big sister" book (along with dozens of other books — yay!) from her cousins in Nebraska, so we've been enjoying adding to her reading rotation.
Our little man continues to grow and kick and tumble around in my belly. It's a lot of fun feeling all of the movement, even though some of those jabs are starting to hurt. He's getting muscle, apparently. And since he's moving upward these days, my breath is getting shorter. Just a quarter of the way left to go, though!

Here's the week's update:
Your baby's about 15.7 inches long now, and he weighs almost 3 pounds (like a head of cabbage). A pint and a half of amniotic fluid surrounds him, but that volume will decrease as he gets bigger and takes up more room in your uterus. His eyesight continues to develop, though it's not very keen; even after he's born, he'll keep his eyes closed for a good part of the day. When he does open them, he'll respond to changes in light but will have 20/400 vision — which means he can only make out objects a few inches from her face. (Normal adult vision is 20/20.)