Our Little Cucumber Part 8

What is yellow, green, can stick you, and loves hummingbirds? If you guessed the fruit/plant that Baby Miller is this week you would be right. Our little Cucumber now weighs a little over 4 pounds and has the heft of a PINEAPPLE (our fruit/plant for Week 33). In addition, SHIM has passed the 17-inch mark and is rapidly losing that wrinkled, alien look (I knew we were having an Alien, I just didn’t know that Alien Baby Miller would grow out of it) and the baby’s skeleton is hardening (still sounds like an Alien to me…Hardening Skeleton…weird/crazy). The bones in SHIMs skull aren't fused together, which allows them to move and slightly overlap, thus making it easier for Baby Miller to fit through the birth canal (THE WHAT???!!! I guess that was covered in the Birthing Class I failed out of). Apparently, the pressure on the head during birth is so intense that many babies are born with a conehead-like appearance (Well I thought I was passed the whole Baby is an Alien thing but hardening skeleton, conehead, and moving skull bones…That all sounds like Aliens GOD at work to me). These bones don't entirely fuse until early adulthood, so they can grow as his brain and other tissue expands during infancy and childhood (Can you just add Miracle Grow and Water and get a really smart kid or would that result in a really large Cranium?).

On a Side Note: (As you know, I love side notes) Did anyone know that people claim that pineapples help to induce childbirth when a baby is overdue (Good to Know) and that it helps with some intestinal disorders (Also, Good to Know). In case you did not know the natural/most common pollinator of the pineapple is the hummingbird (so that is the story of the birds and the bees…kiss a plant and you make a pineapple). Pineapple is also a good source of manganese (91 % of your Daily Vitamins in a 1 cup serving), as well as containing significant amounts of Vitamin C (94 % Daily Vitamins in a 1 cup serving) and Vitamin B1 (8 % Daily Vitamins in a 1 cup serving).

On a Cranium Note: The Intraweb says that Cranial capacity is a measure of the volume of the interior of the cranium (also called the braincase or brainpan) of those vertebrates who have both a cranium and a brain. The most commonly used unit of measure is the cubic centimetre or cc. The volume of the cranium is used as a rough indicator of the size of the brain, and this in turn is used as a rough indicator of the potential intelligence of the organism. However, larger cranial capacity is not always indicative of a more intelligent organism, since larger capacities are required for controlling a larger body, or in some cases are an adaptive feature for life in a colder environment.
Examples of cranial capacity:
• Orangutans: 275–500 cc
• Chimpanzees: 275–500 cc
• Gorillas: 340–752 cc
• Humans: 1100–1700 cc
• Neanderthals: 1200–1700 cc
So above states that Neanderthals start with a larger Cranium Capacity or possibly more intelligence than Humans…guess I can’t call my friends Tom or Brad Neanderthals anymore.

Go fourth and eat Pineapple and think of Baby Miller. See Write you all next week for the next exciting chapter of…Just What in the Heck is our Baby?!?!