Here is the meat from this week's email from BabyCenter.com:

Your baby weighs about 5 ounces now, and he's around 5 inches long — about the size of a large onion. The umbilical cord, his lifeline to the placenta, is growing stronger and thicker. Your baby can move his joints, and his skeleton — until now, rubbery cartilage — is starting to harden into bone. Some of it will remain cartilage for years after he's born. A newborn's skeleton has 300 parts (a combination of bone and cartilage). As your child grows, some of these parts harden and fuse together. By the time your baby reaches adulthood, he'll have just 206 bones.

This weekend Dan and I drove to New Jersey to visit my sister and her family - husband Drew, son Ben (5 1/2) and daughter Lolly (2 1/2). The drive took a bit longer than usual, what with the extra pit stops and all... Plus, we had to try out Dan's new Garmin Streetpilot 330, which will establish the best route for your trip, and recalculate a new route if you miss a turn. We discovered how handy it is, but the one thing it's missing is the reassurance of a familiar route! The unit needs to say, "Don't worry! Even if you have no idea where we are, I DO."

We crammed in as much play-time with the munchkins as possible...bowling, Twister, Crazy Eights, and Ice Age: The Meltdown. We had dinner Saturday night at a Hibachi grill Japanese steakhouse; Ben's eyes just got bigger and bigger as the chef tossed around pieces of chicken and build onion volcanoes. (Dan had to close his eyes and go to his happy place, as he realized the chef was re-sheathing his raw-chicken tainted knife over and over again...)

Sunday evening Dan ad I watched the kids so Noelle and Drew could have a date. Throughout the evening we experienced moments of pure fun, sweetness, and exhaustion. Bribery with ice cream was used. Tag-team diaper duty was a true contact sport. The most fun was when Uncle Dan and the kids had an improvised game of Twister involving hiding under a blanket, running around, shrieking, yelling, laughing and a variation of bear wrestling. Even Riley got in on the action!

Monday Drew and Noelle pulled out all of the potential hand-me-down baby gear. (Score!) We loaded up the car with as much as we could take without completely blocking the rear window view. Looking at the baby clothes was the best, though...I know it will be nothing like playing dress-up, but, man! are those little outfits sweet.

The weekend was really good and fun and restful overall. For me, I had a lot of "Am I ready for this?" anxiety. I realize baby-sitting and being the visiting Aunt is different than the 24-7 job of being a mom. On the one hand, you get to hand them back at the end of the day. But on the other, there hasn't been the day-to-day strength training to build up stamina! I just know that as much as I love, love, love being an aunt (it takes compulsive shopping to a new level), being a mom is going to be one of the most challenging and rewarding and tender blessings in my life.

Thanks, Noelle, for always giving me a taste of the sweetness to come. (And all the baby booty!)