Ok, hippo is an exaggeration. But my appetite has kicked in at a ridiculous level.

This morning, I ate breakfast around 6:30-7. Yogurt & tea.

By 9, I was starving. Bagel with cream cheese & chai.

Noon, starving again. Frozen lunch of veggies/chicken/rice/cheese, where I couldn’t eat most of the chicken. And crackers and water.

By 2, hungry again. Cookies.

It’s 3:30 now, and I’m feeling peckish. There are about half a cup of shelled pistachios left; I predict they won’t make it until 4.

I must really be in the big growth spurt they say starts around 16 weeks. As I understand it, Lil Smudge is a bit larger than an avocado right now, swimming around inside my cantalope-sized uterus. (I thought Kaz Cooke was joking when she said that everyone wants to compare the baby to fruit. She calls them the fruit brigade. But it IS the prevailing metaphor!)

Anyway, Lil Smudge weighs something like 3.5 oz, and will double in weight over the next 3 weeks. According to one of the pregnancy web sites I’m addicted to reading, if this rate of growth continued, Smudge would be 13 feet tall at the age of one month. (And then we’d really have to drop the "Lil" off from Lil Smudge.)

Ok, the pistachios didn’t even make it to 3:35.

As my belly is expanding into a more convenient place to prop a book while reclining on the couch, I found a shocking disadvantage! Propping my book on my belly is seriously uncomfortable! I’m pretty sure that’s never been the case before, but Lil Smudge does not like being a bookrest. Lil Bulge, my pre-pregnancy tummy, had no such complaints.