The Proud Father of a Vegetable

By Kelsey | October 22nd, 2008 | 16 Comments »

Lately, Annie is asleep when I go to bed. This gives me the opportunity to be alone with our daughter growing in her belly.

I put my arm around Annie’s belly and quickly receive a short, yet forceful, uppercut or roundhouse (who can tell?) from within.

Each night my daughter kicks me goodnight. I hope that this changes over the years. According to the email updates we receive, she’s only the size of head of cabbage, so it doesn’t hurt much…now. But as she develops into larger produce – a pumpkin and eventually walking talking, soccer-playing stalk of corn – I hope this tradition comes to an end.

But for now it’s my favorite part of the day.

–————————————————————————————

How about a little pea-sized contest in honor of our baby? The first person who guesses the next vegetable or fruit that our daughter will be compared to, I’ll send an advanced copy of WAIW? And if you’ve won one of these already, I’ll send you a first edition hardcover (I should get my copies in the next few weeks).

Here’s the produce she has been compared to in the last few weeks:

31 weeks – ??????
30 weeks – head of cabbage
29 weeks – butternut squash
28 weeks – Chinese cabbage
27 weeks – head of cauliflower
26 weeks – an English hothouse cucumber
25 weeks – an “average” rutabaga

I’m not sure these comparisons are very helpful. I couldn’t identify any of these items in the grocery store.

If you found "The Proud Father of a Vegetable" useful or interesting, please share it with others by bookmarking it at any of the following sites:
      

16 Responses to “The Proud Father of a Vegetable”

1. Heather Clawson Says:
   October 22nd, 2008 at 6:47 am

   I’m guessing a pineapple!!!

2. Rebecca Says:
   October 22nd, 2008 at 7:27 am

   A cantaloupe

3. Janelle Davis Says:
   October 22nd, 2008 at 7:59 am

   Four naval oranges!!!!!!!!!!!!!

4. Kyle Timmerman Says:
   October 22nd, 2008 at 11:31 am

   One bushel of Jaboticaba?

5. Emily Says:
   October 23rd, 2008 at 2:57 am

   Butternut squash

6. Kelsey Says:
   October 23rd, 2008 at 4:13 am

   Heather, I just pictured someone giving birth to a pineapple. Ouch!

   Emily, Butternut Squash was week 29. Trust me, Annie’s belly has gotten bigger since then.

   Rebecca, that seems like a reasonable guess. We’ll know if it’s right or not in the next few days.

   Kyle, Jaboticaba? A bushel? That’s like 49 lbs. Yikes!

   Janelle, Wow! That’s pretty specific. Maybe a little too specific…

7. Jenn Says:
   October 23rd, 2008 at 7:48 pm

   I was going to say cantaloupe, too. Guess I can go with honey dew melon?

8. Kent Says:
   October 25th, 2008 at 11:00 am

   I say an eggplant, aka obergene. They’re the perfect shape. Who remembers Jim Henson’s Fraggle Rock??

9. Kyle and Cassie Says:
   October 26th, 2008 at 8:45 am

   We say palta, or peruvian avocado. Just as delicious as our avocado but about 5 times the size.

10. Gina Says:
    October 26th, 2008 at 5:50 pm

    pumpkin! since it is halloween period..

11. Kelsey Says:
    October 27th, 2008 at 4:42 am

    Kent, I remember Fraggle Rock,but just barely. I had to wikipedia the show and was surprised at what I found. Apparently the depth of the show was lost on me. Wiki on Fraggle Rock:

    Also a world with a relatively complex system of symbiotic relationships between different “races” of creatures, an allegory to the human world, where each group was somewhat unaware of how interconnected and important they were to one another. Creating this allegorical world allowed the program to entertain and amuse while seriously exploring complex issues of prejudice, spirituality, personal identity, environment, and social conflict.[1] Fraggle Rock generally refused to over-simplify any individual issue, instead simply illustrating the consequences and inherent difficulties of different actions and relationships.

12. Kelsey Says:
    October 27th, 2008 at 4:47 am

    Kyle and Cassie, That seems like a good guess. Just about the right size and a bit of produce I’m not familiar with. Who knew having a kid would teach me so much about produce?

    Gina, Festive sure, but a Pumpkin!? I’m pretty sure I can hear Annie cursing your name.

    All, I should be getting our official baby-size update soon and I’ll report the winner then. I think I we might continue this contest for a few more weeks. If any of your produce guesses above at some point in time equal the size of our fetus I’ll send you a book. Wow, I’m pretty sure that last sentence has never been strung together in the history of written language.

13. Elyse Castillo Says:
    October 29th, 2008 at 8:54 am

    hmmm, at 31 weeks… a seedless watermelon!!!! (smaller than a regular one!)

14. Kelsey Says:
    October 29th, 2008 at 11:07 am

    Elyse,

    Are you saying that our offspring will be seedless/infertile, as if Annie and I are a horse and a donkey and our child a mule?

15. Elyse Castillo Says:
    October 30th, 2008 at 8:12 am

    NO! That’s not what I was saying… I said seedless, because they are smaller, and sweeter than a regular watermelon… and at 31 weeks.. you get it! (besides, seedless watermelons do have seeds… they’re just smaller) Although, I did like the visual of the horse and donkey… is THAT where mules come from? ha ha! I’ve learned alot from you!!!

16. Kelsey Says:
    October 30th, 2008 at 8:54 am

    Elyse, it appears you know as much about fruit as I know about beasts of burden. We both learned something.

    To help you with your horse and donkey mating visualization - a mule is the result of a male donkey mating with a female horse.

    Enjoy the knowledge.

Leave a Reply

If you have not commented here before, please take a moment to peruse our
Commenting Guidelines.

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website

To prevent automated spam appearing on this blog, we ask you to demonstrate your human-ness by entering the 5 character code in the space provided. If you cannot decipher the characters, click "Generate a new image" for a new set.