mommy's lil' pin cushion

today was the day of hana's first round of vaccinations. i really wasn't looking forward to it. i mean, i have heard her scream over the car seat in a way that breaks my heart. one of those screams that sounds deep and gutteral... like she might throw up something big... like another small child (jon thinks it's funny when she makes those sounds - me, not so much). and in the car seat, nothing is actually poking her or causing her pain. but with the immunizations, she could have aches and pains from the injections. she could spike a fever. she could just be generally fussy... all of which would probably make me go into "ugly cry".

but actually, it wasn't that bad. although she clearly doesn't like being immunized, she apparently hates it less than her car seat because i have definatley heard her scream and carry on WAY worse over being strapped in then being given 3 shots. i'm not sure how i feel about that (the pediatrician said that a lot of parents complain that their newborns hate the car seat. apparantly, her feelings about the car seat may improve when we can turn the car seat around (when she 1 year old and 20 pounds) but that is a looong time to wait). sigh.

by the way, she now weighs 12lbs 5 ozs. (75-95th percentile). she is 24.25 inches long (95th percentile!) and her head circumference is 15.75 inches (75th percentile). she's healthy and doing very well. we are finding that she's even growing out of some of her 3-6 month clothes now even though she hasn't yet reached 3 months of age! yes, we have calls into the wnba and the avp (association of volleyball professionals? - jon loves the beach volleyball...).

anyway, the only real side effects from the shots that i have noticed thus far was some fussiness after we left the dr.'s office. it was hard to latch her on while i was trying to nurse her. we were in a restaurant and she was screaming bloody murder!!!! but i think it had to do with her laying on her side irritating the fresh injection sites. she settled down once i found a comfortable position for her. but mostly, she slept a lot this afternoon. we ran a bunch of errands in stimulating places and she slept right through it while being carried in the baby bjorn. however, the last time we loaded into the car seat to come home, she screamed her head off, spit up all OVER her clothes and created a fairly diabolical diaper. so i decided to break with tradition and give her an evening bath.

usually, we bathe her in the middle of the day because we don't want her bath to be a nighttime/bedtime ritual at this point. it's hard to find the time for that right now if she gets used to it and starts requiring it to fall asleep... but tonight, in order to wind her down from her protestations, we had a little bath. afterward, i wrapped in her lion towel. this is the first we've used this one and it's REALLY cute. (naturally, i had to take, like, 100 pictures). usually after a bath i give her a massage which she has really come to enjoy. so that really put her in a good mood. it's funny how her hair fluffs up and gets curly right after her bath. as the oils build up, it straightens out and lays flat...

our bedtime routine typically does involve us "singing" to her with the lights dim, wrapping her in a swaddle and then putting her in crib with some white noise going. and then she drifts off to sleep. so we did all of that but she was smiling so big by the time i put her down, i didn't want to leave. but i resisted because i knew she was tired. my instincts were right. she was off to sleep within 5 minutes and she didn't even cry!!!! (of course, now i'm probably going to jinx myself. )

9 weeks - visit from grandma kay

hana turned 9 weeks on saturday, just in time for grandma kay's first visit. kay is jon's mom and she brought along anna. anna (age 10) loves kids and babies and she gives hana kisses every chance she gets. although this has been a short visit, it has been nice. we went to to the park today and have enjoyed a generally relaxing visit. hana had her first ride in the jogging stroller which se seem to throughly enjoy.

other highlights include my triumphant return to the trails. well, actually i returned to the trails 5 weeks ago. but yesterday, i participated in the Pacific Coast Trail Runs Sequoia Trail Run - my first postpardum event. i ran the 10k distance. the course was beautiful and it was really fun but really, REALLY hard. i must say that i am really proud of myself for doing it because it was not an easy course. there was about 1,000 feet of climbing in the course! i finished in 1 hour and 49 minutes and the time did NOT fly. my quads and glutes were screaming by mile 4. however, i felt this type of agony was neccessary to remind my legs (and the rest of my body for that matter) of what they used to do before they were growing and birthing a 9.5 lb baby! although i felt a little nauseus afterwards, they have fantastic aid stations, including hot food (!), so i ate a bowl of chili and a few payday candy bar pieces (the perfect post race candy bar because there's protein from the peanuts and sugar for inner peace, uh, i mean energy... not just for binging any more). that hit the spot and i started feeling just fine. although i was sore immediately following (pretty scary considering you usually don't feel anything for a day or two) i feel fine today. i was concerned i'd be crawling around the house today eating advil like candy. but, i'm ok. in fact, i even have a little swagger in my step today but because i'm feelin' pretty bad ass (as opposed to limping like i thought i would be from being sore). i feel pretty darn proud of myself thank you very much.

on a serious note, i am really grateful to sara and wendall from Pacific Coast Trail Runs. their slogan is "runs that aren't races in beautiful places". it takes the focus off the competetive nature of a race and more on the "serious fun" that can be had running and hiking trails. just before hana was born i decided to try and set a goal for myself to be able to do this course as my first post pardum event even if i had to walk the whole thing slowly (i did better than walk though, i ran quite a bit of it: all of the down hill and flatter parts and some of the climbs). but i never would have even thought to try and do something like this for myself if there weren't non-competetive, well-run events like this in beautiful places. it was a great, and effective motivator. so for anyone out there who is looking to explore some beautiful hiking trails (they say hikers are welcome which is great for walkers and those of us slow pokes who gradually plod along and call it "running"... all of whom i lovingly refer to as the "back- of-the-packers") in a fun and totally supportive atmosphere with ridiculously good aid stations, you should check it out and register. they usually have a shorter distance( 8 or 10k - around 5 or 6 miles), a medium distance (somewhere around 25k or about 15 miles) and an ultramarathon distance (anything over 26.2 miles but usually about 50K or about 31 miles). they do events all over california and in places that i've always wanted to explore and will hopefully get the chance to. this is also a good opportunity to explore trails if you don't have anyone to go hiking with, because when you're in these events, you're not alone. thanks sara and wendell, you ROCK!

a river runs through it

jon has a cold. and hana has a cold. and there is a river of snot between them. it's not pretty. at first hana showed an impressive amount of tenacity in her resistence to the bubble syringe (it's a snot sucker since babies don't really know how to blow their noses, for those not in the know). but i wore her down. i guess she realized that she felt better after it was over. by this evening, she was smiling in between suckings. i know. it's a little weird but i'll take it.

my friend's twins had the same runny nose type symptoms that went away after a day or so. i'm hoping the same will be true for our little one. in the meantime, hana will just have to convalesce on the couch with her dad. quite a scene the two of them...

but just yestarday, before she was overtaken by sniffles, hana was her usual cheery self. here's a picture from the crib just before a nap. she's been doing more and more of that lately. napping and sleeping in the crib. it's GREAT! we took hana on her first road trip to "the ranch" this weekend and she slept in her pack n' play. we have the limosene model. it has a changing table attachment with storage for diapers n' such, a sunshade, a white noise machine, a vibrating matress feature. it's pretty sweet and she did just fine in it. in fact when we got back home, we put her down in the crib and she was less the thrilled with it's simple matress/slats/wood design. but she thankfully got over her "princess and the pea" phase and has readjusted.

funny story:

so i have noticed for the last several weeks that when hana is lying in our bed, she sometimes stares at the ceiling and smiles. this isn't just a quick thing either. it seems she could entertain herself for several minutes cooing and smiling at the ceiling. it kinda freaked me out at first because there is that movie that's coming out about the little kid who can see the ghosts and stuff... and then there's that movie "heart and souls" (which I LOVE) where they were friendly nanny-like ghosts... but one morning, i decided to get into her head and really see what she saw. and by golly if it didn't all click... i mean take a look at the picture and see for yourself. i wonder if she thinks the special milk comes from that one. do you think she dreams about the day she's big enough to reach it?

Hana at 8 Weeks

Here is a video of Hana at 8 weeks, laughing at Daddy.

Hana at Eight Weeks

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7 - weeks - WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!

all i have to say is that it's REALLY a good thing that she's so darn cute. this week she did not do much in the way of sleeping for about 3 days. which means that every time she opened her mouth, fussing came out. or screaming. fussing or screaming. both jon and i had our breaking points this week and fortunately, the other was there for the hand off. on wednesday morning, after she wouldn't go down after her 5:00 a.m. feeding, it made me really ready to go back to work.

thankfully, on wednesday i also started a group for new moms. it really was not a moment too soon. we've only had the one session, but so far it seems pretty good. no one seems way off on any side of the parenting continuum. so we don't have any real earth mothers it seems who are judgemental if you don't use the finest all natural of everything. and we don't have any 2-nanny mom's who stopped by the group in between having their hair blown out and their pedicure (it's how i imagine a trump baby is parented, but perhaps that is unfair).

additionally, little miss muffet appears to be on yet another growth spurt because she was nursing constantly it seemed for those three days (monday -wednesday) and today, at seven weeks, her cloth diapers seem too small making for some rather diabolical diaper changes.

on thursday, it's like she realized that she shouldn't press on with her fussyness campaign without injecting a serious dose of cute into the household. i started to notice that she seemed to actually be smiling for the camera. so naturally, over the course of the next 24 hours, jon and i took about 150 pictures. "oh look, she turned her head... isn't that cute?! get the camera!!" we SO needed to see all that smiling. we also put her on the floor to play with her little baby gym thingie. that was really fun to watch too. she seems to really enjoy looking in the mirror (hopefully, not the begininng of vanity...). watching her play so much really gave us energy to carry on! that, and some 5 hour sleep stretches. thank GOD for small favors!

so one last note: we put hana in her pack 'n play (formerly known as the play pen for those of previous generations) for her nap (we're trying to get her used to that since we'll be taking a couple of trips soon where she'll need to sleep in it). one of our cats, bailey, has been curious about all of the baby's things (although, interestingly enough, not so much the baby herself... that's maceo who's into the baby). anyway, as soon as i stepped out of the room, bailey took his opportunity to try out this newest addition to the baby stuff taking over our house... it's was actually pretty cute to see him cuddling with the baby.