Reflexes

This is day number 84 and I am 12 weeks! The most dramatic development this week: reflexes.

My daddy says that reflexes make half of the man. He has provided me with numerous examples, among which: John Wayne and the ugly mother of the saloon, Bruce in the Dragon’s nest, Rene Iguita or even better Rinat Dasaev, just to name a few.

But I believe that my father is a most plastic example of it. He instantaneously jumps out of bed, more often than not injuring someone (himself at least) just upon a single, silky touch on his knee while sleeping. Then it takes him some hours, for certain things months to form a reaction, although mental. So far he has been a real tutor of how not to, and of love is free, he kisses me every morning and greets.

However, my reflexes are functioning, and the digestive tract is active and secreting bile - all to prepare me for life outside. In the parlance of my father, a world full of challenging choices, a world full of kebabs, veshalicas, sharskas, shopskas and alike, although I have no idea what they are.

Then, stem cells, the "mother cells" that will become heart, brain, liver, bone, blood, nerve, and immune cells, continue to differentiate to form my major organs. Although my brain continues to grow, the components now have the same structure they will have at birth. I guess that’s why my father stopped giving me algebraic equations every evening.

My fingers will soon begin to open and close, my toes will curl, my eye muscles will clench, and my mouth will make sucking movements, which for my dad can be of greatest social importance. Although I have no idea why, he continuously mentions something like complete metal jacket, or so?! As a proof of my reflective mobility these days stand the fact, that if my mom prods her abdomen, I will squirm in response, although she won't be able to feel it.

My intestines, which have grown so fast that they protrude into the umbilical cord, will start to move into my abdominal cavity about now, and my kidneys will begin excreting urine into my bladder, again my out-of-the-ordinary father claims that pissing is both gendered and salient a practice in a even more important behavior – beer drinking. Isn’t he moving too far?

Meanwhile, nerve cells are multiplying rapidly, and in my brain, synapses are forming furiously. Fuck! (my daddy’s words), I feel like a bloody Windows 1993 in the process of “podiganje”. My face looks unquestionably human: my eyes have moved from the sides to the front of my head, and my ears are right where they should be.

From crown to rump, I am now just over 5 cm long (about the size of a lime – again my idiot of father tells me that the fruit used for comparison is of crucial importance to some people and their drinking habits, and that its best friends are rum, brown sugar and mint; as if I know what they are) and weigh about 14 grams.

I have 196 days or 28 weeks left, and are 30.0% of the way there!

P.S. I learnt that Duran Duran have such song and I am eager to listen to it. My old man promised me a singing wakening up throughout the week, with the song. I hope he is not the worst singer now that I have what to listen with.