Your baby now weighs about 2 1/2 pounds (like a butternut squash) and is a tad over 15 inches long from head to heel. His muscles and lungs are continuing to mature, and his head is growing bigger to make room for his developing brain. To meet his increasing nutritional demands, you'll need plenty of protein, vitamins C, folic acid, and iron. And because his bones are soaking up lots of calcium, be sure to drink your milk (or find another good source of calcium, such as cheese, yogurt, or enriched orange juice). This trimester, about 250 milligrams of calcium are deposited in your baby's hardening skeleton each day.
However, it looks like Baby M is requiring so much iron these days that he/she is taking all of mine! The good news is that I passed my glucose screening test, but the blood test showed that I've got a bout of anemia. It's pretty common to develop anemia at this point in pregnancy, so now all I have to do is take an additional vitamin and start eating steak and spinach like it's going out of style. If only cookies had iron in them, this wouldn't be an issue.
Last night I took a night off from all the writing and research I've been doing for school, and Jer and I put up our Christmas tree. I've been feeling a little out of sync with the holidays this season (which is highly unusual for me), but now that our tree is up, I can't help but get excited!
As I awoke today with a bit of a Christmas buzz, I thought about everything that our Christmas tree represents to me. Adorned with a mix of ornaments from my childhood and ones that Jeremy and I have purchased throughout our 10 years together, it in many ways represents Christmases past, present and future.
Growing up, my parents had a way of making Christmas a magical time for me and my sisters. Our house was (and still is) always decorated from top to bottom with endless Christmas decorations, and each one of us girls would put up a small Christmas tree of our own in our bedrooms. At night we would spend time driving around in the family van looking at Christmas lights and listening to Christmas songs, and every year we would make our annual trip to Kraynak's, where we could walk through the display of animated Christmas scenes and pick out our very own Christmas ornament. In addition to the baking, the traditional Italian fish dinner on Christmas Eve, the magic and mystery of Sam the Elf, and the awesome sight of our Christmas tree gleaming bright behind a mound of wrapped gifts on Christmas morning, there is the sense of warmth, love and family that always surrounded us kids each and every year.
Growing up, my parents had a way of making Christmas a magical time for me and my sisters. Our house was (and still is) always decorated from top to bottom with endless Christmas decorations, and each one of us girls would put up a small Christmas tree of our own in our bedrooms. At night we would spend time driving around in the family van looking at Christmas lights and listening to Christmas songs, and every year we would make our annual trip to Kraynak's, where we could walk through the display of animated Christmas scenes and pick out our very own Christmas ornament. In addition to the baking, the traditional Italian fish dinner on Christmas Eve, the magic and mystery of Sam the Elf, and the awesome sight of our Christmas tree gleaming bright behind a mound of wrapped gifts on Christmas morning, there is the sense of warmth, love and family that always surrounded us kids each and every year.
This year, as I pull out many of those very same Christmas decorations that I remember as a kid, I can't help but look forward to all the Christmases to come. Next year at this time, we'll have our very own family to build memories with and to carry on the traditions of the past. And Baby M will have a very Merry Christmas, indeed!
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