Not a Head of Cauliflower

I used to read blogs and roll my eyes because all they could talk about were potty training and sleepless nights. Well, I've found myself completely enthralled with a certain Baby Girl, and she's not even out in the world yet.

On Monday Chris and I took advantage of his day off (why do they offer up MLK and not President's Day? President's Day is one of my favorites) and headed to Chicago, specifically to the Museum of Science and Industry. We'd heard ravings and it happens to be free for most of January, so we decided, along with the rest of Indiana and Illinois, to visit.

You would have though the lines were for Disneyland

You! the exhibit was my favorite part of the museum. Possibly because I really dig knowing what's in food and how our bodies work, and possibly because it was at the beginning of our day and my feet hadn't swollen up and ran of out of room in my shoes and I hadn't visited nearly every bathroom in the museum. (My formerly infamous small bladder is plain ridiculous now.)

I was completely mesmerized by the real fetuses. The line was long, so we just butted in at the end. Sadly, the fetus collection jumps from 26 weeks to 38 weeks, and I was exactly 28 weeks that day. It completely blew my mind to see this perfect little baby, albeit male, and think that our Baby Girl is a real live baby. She's not a head of cauliflower, as suggested by silly books. She's a baby. One that's perfectly human.

28 weeks, on the money. All pregnancy shots should be taken in a fun-house mirror. As long as it's the right fun-house mirror...

It took me a little while before I could tear myself away from the exhibit. A mom came through with three pre-teen little girls. As they were looking at the 38 week baby, the mom was making comments about having a baby and they were amazed that a baby that big could fit in a belly. I told them, "I have one that big [26 weeks] in my tummy." One of the girls was so adorable in excitedly asking, "Do you know what it is?" I told her it was a girl, she asked if we had a name and I told her. She gushed, "Ohhh, that's so beautiful." It was a really sweet exchange.

It's kind of blown my mind to imagine a baby in my stomach and have an actual size reference for her, rather than some produce from the grocery store. It makes me all the more excited to meet her. Though after the museum we went shopping for baby gear and it stressed me out in a huge way. So many choices! So much money! So much unnecessary stuff! But some stuff still necessary in order to legally bring her home from the hospital. Chris got into it, and my goodness, he's going to be one adorable daddy-o.