A couple of days ago, I took a long look in the mirror as I was brushing my teeth. 23 weeks into this journey of body-stretching, my belly’s little turkey timer looks just about ready to pop. It’s one of those things they don’t tell you, that your belly button will pop out, will look as if it’s frantically seeking to escape your body like the buttons that strain your stomach after a way-too-large Thanksgiving dinner. And the rest of the belly is starting to look like a balloon nearing its boundary. But 23 weeks still leaves quite a ways to go, and I know from our first go-around at this (the balloon prize named Cora) that the belly balloon will somehow find a way to grow even larger. So far it’s just a balloon… 12 or 15 weeks from now I’ll be longing for that light balloon as I lug around a summer watermelon.