You say bambina, I say jicama …

(By Erik)

For those of you who might be wondering, our little girl is about the size of a jicama.

Yeah, I had to look that up, too. Turns out a jicama (HEE-kah-mah), also known as a “Mexican potato,” “Mexican turnip” or “yam bean,” is a large-ish root that looks a bit like a big onion. It’s got a sweet and starchy flavor and usually is eaten raw — sometimes with salt, lemon or lime juice and powdered chili.

That’s my girl! Olé!

Why am I comparing our daughter to a Central American vegetable? Every week we get an e-mail from a Web site called BabyCenter that tells us how our baby is growing. For some reason, the site’s writers feel compelled to compare the baby’s size to the size of fruits, vegetables and other food items.

Reaching the milestone of the jicama proves to us that, after 32 weeks of pregnancy, BabyCenter is running out of foods to compare our child to.

If you’d like to chart our little girl’s progress, then please follow us up the food chain as we explore the various things Maggie has been the size of thus far.

Weeks 1-3: Too small to register as food, but there’s a reference in the Week 2 description to pancakes, for some reason.
Week 4: poppy seed
Week 5: sesame seed
Week 6: lentil bean
Week 7: blueberry (We've left seeds and beans and are into fruit!)
Week 8: kidney bean (Whoops! No we're not!)
Week 9: grape
Week 10: kumquat (I thought these were HUGE.)
Week 11: fig
Week 12: lime
Week 13: medium shrimp (We've crossed over into seafood!)
Week 14: lemon (And we're back to sour citrus!)
Week 15: apple
Week 16: avocado
Week 17: turnip
Week 18: bell pepper
Week 19: large heirloom tomato (I suppose this is a tomato that's passed down from generation to generation.)
Week 20: banana (Seems like the kid got smaller, but this fruit is used only as a measure of length.)
Week 21: carrot (Same as above. I thought bananas were the same size as carrots.)
Week 22: spaghetti squash (That's Amore!)
Week 23: large mango
Week 24: ear of corn (We're back to measuring length only.)
Week 25: average rutabaga (We contemplated naming her Average Rutabaga Tryggestad at this point.)
Week 26: English hothouse cucumber (Spot on!)
Week 27: Head of cauliflower
Week 28: Chinese cabbage (We contemplated naming her Bok Choy Tryggestad at this point.)
Week 29: butternut squash
Week 30: head of cabbage
Week 31: four navel oranges (Actually, the entry here just says, "Try carrying four navel oranges." Not sure if that's supposed to approximate the size and weight of the kid or if they just thinks it's a good idea to have citrus on hand at all times.)
Week 32: large jicama (or “jicama grande,” I’m guessing.)

Lord willing, we will enter week 33 on Thursday, at which point we’ll graduate from jicama to pineapple.

Imagine delivering one of those! Ouch!

I really hope we make it to 34 weeks. From there it's pretty much melons until the baby arrives.

Until then, aloha!

Baby gifts

We finally got our baby registries done this weekend. If you'd like to take a look at them, follow these links:

Our Target registry

Our Babies "R" Us registry

Thanks a bundle (of joy)!

This week: Beat those Wildcats! Next week: Go Wildcats!

(By Erik)

I never thought I’d be this disappointed after a Georgia Bulldogs win.

That’s right, the Dawgs finished their SEC season 6-2 with a hard-fought-yet-convincing 24-13 win over 23rd-ranked Kentucky. That puts Georgia temporarily in first place in the SEC East (despite losing to South Carolina and being destroyed by Tennessee earlier in the season).

So why am I disappointed? It’s all because of Vandy.

The Vanderbilt Commodores could have sealed the SEC East in Georgia’s favor with a win over Tennessee today. And, shortly after Georgia’s win, the score was 23-9 with Vandy on top. But, alas, the Commodores managed to rip defeat from the jaws of victory, losing to Tennessee 24-23.

So, the Bulldog nation will be rooting for — guess who — Kentucky next week as they take on the Vols. A win by the Wildcats will send Georgia to the SEC championship game against top-ranked LSU. The game that Georgia actually plays next weekend almost will be a sideshow. It’s our annual rivalry game with Georgia Tech. Since Tech is in the ACC, it’s a non-conference game and it doesn’t factor into who goes to the SEC championship. (So the Bulldogs could lose and still go to the championship if the Wildcats win.)

Here in Sooner land, most of the OU fans have been rooting for Georgia as well. They think that Georgia has a better chance of beating LSU than Tennessee, thus helping OU edge its way into the national title game.

Of course, looking at the score of the OU-Texas Tech game right now … that may not be an issue anymore!

More shameless self-promotion

(By Erik)

If you've got a minute, please click on over to christianchronicle.org.

Tamie just posted the story I wrote about Ghana. We've included additional photos that didn't appear in print and haven't appeared on this blog. (Plus, I think it's a good story, too — but I'm biased.)

Please take a look if you haven't read it yet. Or, if you have read it, go directily to the online gallery.

I'd like to know where you got the Knowshon ...

(By Erik)

It's another busy press weekend, but I'd like to take just a second to say GO DAWGS!

The Bulldogs gave a pounding to Auburn today — a 45-20 victory. A big part of that was redshirt freshman Knowshon Moreno, who had another 100-yard game.

The Bulldogs also donned black jerseys for the first time in the modern era. Luckily, I had a black Georgia ball cap for the occasion.

Here's a photo of us taken Sunday afternoon (by pointing a camera at a mirror and flipping the image in PhotoShop). Yes, this also is the long-awaited, real-live pregnant picture.