An annotated guide to a 12-week old baby

First of all, momma lookin' good.

Second - WE HAVE EYELID(S)! And Ears! This means that I can start preparing the first songs that Babby can hear. A short list (please do not read any meaning into the songs, these are just my favorites at the moment):

Du Hast Where the Streets Have No Name - U2
Water Ban - Pernice Brothers
Don't Carry It All - Decemberists
Magazine - Joshua James

Anyhow, the big development of Week 12 is that of reflexes. Eyes open and close, fingers and toes clench and de-clench. I am currently 1,660 weeks old, and I have trouble with this from time to time. So let's figuratively pour one out for Babby's reflexes already being more developed than Daddy's.

In fact, if you prod your abdomen, your baby will squirm in response...

Oh, Kami's abdomen is going to get prodded - just to see what happens.

although you won't be able to feel it

Well, nevermind.

From crown to rump, your baby-to-be is just over 2 inches long (about the size of a lime) and weighs half an ounce.

Props to BabyCenter for coming up with a decent comparison of length. But I'm confused by this "crown to rump" measurement. From crown to rump I'm about three feet tall, so let's take a step back on the measurement guide.

Word Of The Week: Fundus

Fundus! The fundus is the top of the uterus. The Workdus is the bottom of the uterus. (Not true).

And now, a note from "Tracy":
"Instead of your morning coffee, try a cup of steamed milk with a shot of flavored syrup. Delicious — and good for you and your baby!"

Now, I realize this is not for me, but this is - quite frankly - preposterous. Steamed milk and a shot of flavored syrup sounds absolutely disgusting. And the only thing I will drink "instead of my morning coffee" is four cans of Red Bull. And then I will run through a brick wall. The latter I would rather do than drink a steaming cup of orange-syrupped milk.

New Favorite Pastime:
Mommy Comments! The July 2012 Birth Club is an active, opinionated, occasionally hostile group of women, which is awesome. This week, they're talking about drinking while pregnant. The conversation starts with:

Am I the only person that thinks this is so wrong? I see so many comments about how it will be ok to have a couple. Has anyone stopped to think about what this does to your baby? To me, not having a drink while pregnant is easy - I'm protecting my baby.

Vent over ;)

The winky-face is a historically clear indication that the initial SHOTS FIRED comment is over, and then nuclear war begins.

On first glance, it seems as though Baby.Raks is trying to say, "It's okay to have a drink, right? RIGHT!? RIGHT, DAMN YOU ALL?" But wait, there's a second act, one in which there is self-realized resolution. Here's the thought process:

1. I'm interested in women who drink while pregnant, I'll ask the Mommy Mafia.
2. I'm curious if anyone else has noticed the women who say it's okay to have a couple of drinks.
3. Aren't they stupid?
4. I'm not stupid.
5. Right?
6. Oh, I don't drink.

This sounds like the same "Gays are wrong! Right? I'm not gay, but I have gay friends" argument.

The comments (271 of them at last check) run the gamut, with well over 90% of them being of the "HOW DARE YOU" variety. And to have a contrary opinion in a group of pregnant women, while ill-advised at the best of times, is flat-out high-risk behavior in hot-button (overly-hyphenated) topics, like Drinking While Preggo.

My favorites, so far:
5. Lol ^

Wonderful insight. The world is a better place knowing that you laughed out loud at...something.

4. Can you be more specific? Drinking as in having A drink or drinking as in having a FEW. Cause one is perfectly ok and the other isn't.

You can imagine the shaking hands, and the secretive Google Image Search for "Mai-Tai" and "Wine Cooler." Then the internet history gets deleted.

3. I 100% agree!!! I could never drink while I am pregant! The only think I have to think about is, what you put in your body also goes to that baby. Alcohol is poison, that is why it gives us that buzz. One drink or 10 drinks it is wrong to drink while pregnant!!

There are six exclamation points in five sentences, giving us a 1.200 Exclamation Rate.

2. BUT! biggg giant BUT here!!!!!! if you care enough to come here and make an "its so wrong" post, you better not be eating lunch meat, hot dogs, soft cheeses, better not have even missed a prenatal or taken anything other than tylenol, better not be tippin back that morning cup o' joe... ect ect you get my point. alcohol is NOT the only evil no-no of pregnancy...but as a PP said, it seems to be what everyone gets stuck on

Once you wade through the grammar, punctuation, and capitalization errors ("ect ect" as it was so aptly put), this is actually a pretty good point. Drinking = Hot Dogs.

1. It's not a black and white issue. Having a drink doesn't equal getting drunk. And drinking on occasion doesn't equal being an alcoholic. We all have our own doctors, opinions, experiences and fears for a reason- so that we can make our own choices. What I actually find ridiculous is that alcohol is the holy grail of pregnancy 'sins'. Just yesterday someone posted about struggling with smoking. All the comments were so supportive, all saying relax just cut back til you quit. Don't get me wrong, I don't think smoking is the end of the world and I was pleased to see that nobody was telling her how awful she was....and yet these were the SAME women who basically tore some poor lady apart over wine on Christmas. It's just so disproportional!

This is the comment equivalent to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which started World War I. It is shocking, because it is violent and came out of nowhere - the comment board's kick to the shins. The responses approach Phariseean levels of self-righteousness, lambasting the one-woman-wolf-pack for her reckless opinions. Mommy Commenters = Vultures.

Is drinking okay? For me, yes.