Apologies for another one of these prenatal posts, but it's kind of the dominating feature right now. If you're sick of them, check back in a few months.

SNG and I went to the doctor yesterday for the 24-week checkup, and while I am in perfect health and the IHPE seems to be in perfect health, IHPE also seems to have grown a lot more than they expected her to over the past 4 weeks. WHY?

Here's what Dr. MD-and-so-I-don't-have-to-listen-to-your-opinions thinks:
* perhaps she is going through a growth spurt
* perhaps there is a lot more fluid in there (hence the distinctive "I just stole a soccer ball and hid it under my shirt" look)
* perhaps I am carrying it "differently" (What does THAT mean? Under my arm? By its ankles? I mean, honestly, how many ways are there to carry a baby before it is born?)
* maybe I'm eating too much and all the fat has gone straight to my midsection (since my bo-hindie is roughly the same size it was 4 weeks ago)

Here's what I think:
* my anterior expansion coincides with 2 events: 1) a glucose tolerance test, which often causes as much problem as it detects in people and 2) a subsequent MONSTER increase in appetite, particularly for sweet things. My weight has bounded steadily upwards since. That sort of coincides with hypothesis #4 above, only DR. MASIDHTLTYO probably doesn't believe that a diagnostic test can actually cause a change in a patient.
* I still suspect that the doctors have my due date wrong by about a week to 10 days. If so, then I'm actually at 25-26 weeks, not 24. Why do I think this? Well, Dr. Just-out-of-school-and-can't-operate-the-old-timey-equipment-and-have-to-get-someone-else-to-help just didn't instill a feeling of great confidence when she took the fetal measurement at my 8-week appointment, and that's what they've based the due date on.

Time will tell.

Anyway, the upshot is that they ordered another ultrasound in "a week or, at most, 2 weeks from now." Yeah, great, but they don't even have any appointments available until THREE weeks from now. This is when I have to come back for my next regular visit anyway, but they can't do both appointments on the same day, or even at the same office. So 2 days in a row, I'll miss a few hours of work for doctor visits. On the plus-side, I get more SUPER-4-D PICTURES! Yay! And the Dr said that between 24 and 28 weeks is when it's best to see pictures because you get the best images possible. On the minus side, they're going to do another glucose tolerance test. Rats.

I'm psyched about the extra ultrasound. I also hope that the IHPE's growth trajectory decelerates by that time, because at this rate I'm seriously going to split open like a September watermelon in a rainy summer.

IN NON-NATAL NEWS:
Today I'm flying to Rockville (suburb of DC) to teach the rest of the week. Fun.

Last weekend we didn't clean out the garage to put stuff into the shed. But we did buy some wood strip for our kayak refinishing project.

Our friend Kiltman was in town and stayed with us last weekend, which was really great because for some reason, he and I never manage to keep in touch over email, only in person. But whenever we do get back in touch, things just pick up wherever they left off.

Sunday I took a solo mountain bike ride and went a little faster than I had been going for the previous weeks. I will not tell you what my average speeds were because it's shameful, but I will say that for a 1 hour ride, I was able to average a speed of about 1.5 mph faster than the last 3 times I rode the same route. Vroom! Go Cat. Meanwhile, SNG went on a group ride with the bike shop for the first time in many months and hammered through 30 miles at a (much faster) very respectable clip.

Saturday we bought a truckload of mulch and mulched the backyard. Mulch is steamy and smelly. The weather was beautiful, so it was tolerable. If it had also been hot and sticky and mosquito-ey, I'd have claimed prenatal fatigue and stayed on the sofa watching Spongebob reruns.

I had my first Kibbi sandwich from the middle eastern cafe around the corner. OMG I will definitely be eating more of those. Maybe that explains the belly expansion?