“Lime vs. shrimp,” or “Is this baby shrinking?”

At the suggestion of a couple friends, I went to BabyCenter.com and signed up for their e-mail newsletter, which sends an update each week on developments in your pregnancy.

It’s a very cool service that demystifies the process somewhat, especially for the dad-to-be, who can sometimes feel like days go by without anything happening and start to annoy their wives with prying questions about how they’re feeling.

This might make me a jerk – but I don’t think so – but Megan can’t feel the baby moving yet, and she isn’t showing, so it’s kind of a relief to hear her gagging at the smell of hairspray or complaining of fatigue or nausea. It’s a sign things are still going as planned.

But I digress. The BabyCenter e-mails show you one of those moderately creepy fetus pictures that make you worry your wife has an alien growing inside her, and they tell you about important developments – Butterbean is developing reflexes this week! – and give you an update on the baby’s size as it relates to some sort of food.

This is where it gets worrisome. BabyCenter says the little mo is about the size of a lime (a little more than 2 inches long and weighs about half an ounce) which is cool to know. But I, of course, peeked ahead to next week *SPOILER ALERT!* to see the next size comparison is “medium shrimp.”

Now, I don’t know where these folks get their shrimp, or their limes for that matter, but at the Publix store I frequent, the limes tend to be bigger than the shrimp. So let’s hope Butterbean isn’t a little Benjamin Button.

(**SPOILER ALERT 2** At points in the future development, the baby will be the size of a banana and a cucumber. First-round NBA draft pick! Woohoo!)