where has the time gone?!

now that i am less than two weeks away from returning to work, i have been feeling a little nostalgic for the "olden days" when hana was first born. she's changed sooooo much. her birth seems like so long ago in some ways but then again, the time has also just flown by (i know it's crazy, but i actually kinda miss being pregnant - although the not drinking part kinda sucked. oh and the queasy days of the first trimester was no picnic either... i don't care if i never throw up in a target parking lot again.). i marvel at how much she's changed. people have joked that hana is the most photographed baby on the planet. maybe... but look at what the photos capture. it's like an awakening... how appropriate that this has happened as winter transitions into spring. i'm sooo glad we got to experience this time with her and document it so well. it's just so hard to describe, words simply don't do it justice.

about an hour old.

about 5 days old.

8 days old on christmas eve.

first (home) bath on christmas day. hard to believe she was that small and fit into that tiny little wash tub!

at 2 months old - lush hairline still in tact.

at 4.5 months old - filling out in a lot of aways, except now there's less hair.

looking at these pictures and having days like we had today (where we went shopping with her in the sling, and she napped with her head poking out and 2 fingers in her mouth), make my impending return to work so hard. there's so much i will miss about spending every day with her. when i think of what i'll miss most, it's the time at every nursing when she takes a break to check in with me because shes' curious about the sound of a crunchy food i'm eating, or some other equally compelling thing to a baby, or for no reason at all, and then she just smiles, and goes back to eating. it's funny: the other day she was nursing while i was eating a really yummy left over pork chop. she notced this when she took her usual break to smile at me. but her gaze was soon broken as she turned her attention to my pork chop. as it turned out i had one with my breakfast and one with my lunch and i think it was that day that she really got her hand eye coordination together in effort to grab at and learn more about this pork chopt that mommy seemed to enjoy so much. frankly, i think i would stop what i was doing to check out a good pork chop too... like mother, like daughter. when was the last time you just stopped what you were doing to just smile at someone (or eat a pork chop)? i'm gonna do it more often because my daughter has reminded me of how much fun it is (well, maybe not so much on the pork chops... i'll continue to save that for the occasional special treat). nevertheless, i expect my first week back to work will be peppered with several instances of "ugly cry". sigh...

but in other news... our pediatrician appointment went very well. i got a long list of questions i'd been saving answered. one of the burning topics was when to start solid food. as you know, we've been in a dilemma about when to start rice cereal because of all of the lay-person concern about how much milk she consumes (about 48 oz a day). well, the pediatrician officially advised that we should wait until she is 6 months old (mid june) to start any solid food. her advice went along with my thinking and many things that i'd read which was that the longer you can hold off on solid food, the better resistance she'll have to food allergies. this is particularly important when there is a family history (and especially a parent) with food allergies. since jon is allergic to some nuts, shellfish and chocolate, and we both don't drink regular milk, she said that her best chance of not having a bunch of allergies is to wait. so we will wait. doctor's orders.

in general our little champ is growing and developing very well and the doc noted how very alert she was. she weighed in at 14 lbs 14 oz (75 %tile). she was 26.5 inches long (above the 97%tile!!!) and head circumference was 16+ inches (42 cm i think... about the 97%tile!) . this just confirms what we see every day: so she's doing great! jon says that despite the fact that he has fallen prey to this tall-person stereotype, he is considering installing a basketball hoop on the premises.

being silly with daddy - mmblmbmbmlmlbmbmlmmblmbmlblmlbmlllmlblmlb!

week 18 - bad blogger! bad, bad blogger!!!

i know, i know... it's been too long. well, we have been busy running around, doin' stuff. even though it has been 2 weeks since easter, i just got the "easter bonnett..." song out of my head... i so enjoy her easter pictures that frankly it's been hard to top the display of cuteness hana presented in her lil' easter fineries. i mean, the bonnett was just so fabulous and she even wore it the whole day (see easter posting...) "in her easter boneeetttt, with all the frills upon iittttt, she'll be the grandest lady at the easter paraaaaade".

darn. it's stuck in my head again.

well, in the last couple of weeks she has been doing more rolling. rolling from back to front more frequently than rolling from tummy to back. i think she likes being on her tummy so she's not that inclined to roll to her back. she is also getting closer to sitting up on her own. she can sit up for a few seconds without any support. and when she's laying flat, she prefers to be sitting up and appears to be doing crunches in order to sit up. she also likes standing now too. when i put my hands out to help her sit up, she will put all the way up to standing and be quite proud of herself once she gets there. she is grabbing and playing with things a lot more as well, expressing preference by grabbing at things she likes (such as favorite toys and other babies' bottles) and not grabbing for things she doesn't care about. it's interesting to see her personality emerge that way.

the biggest change however, was hana's graduation from the infant car seat - affectionately known as "the bucket" - to the "conversion car seat", so named because it can convert from the rear-facing infant kind to the forward-facing toddler kind. this has been a BIG adjustment for me, in particular. technically, she'd outgrown the car seat just after her 4 month birthday. but i pushed it for another couple of weeks. why, praytell, have i changed the car seat so soon? well, the manufacturers say that babies can stay in the bucket until they are 25 lbs and less than 29" long. now, hana is only about 14.5 lbs (albeit, she's no spring chicken) and about 27" long so no, she is not the largest 4 month old baby on record (although the smart money is on her in the baby wrestling matches). but car seat experts (i.e. police and pediatricians) say that regardless of length if the babies feet are touching the back seat of the car, it's time to upgrade. now i'd known that babies tend to grow out of their car seats in length long before they grow out of it in weight. and i knew that hana was a long and lean baby. but this was sad news for me. not only did i think that i was going to get to use the bucket for closer to a year (if i was a bettin' woman, i'd wager that she'll be 20 lbs before her first birthday and definately longer than 29") but now, when ever i want to go somewhere with her, you have to take her in and out of the car seat at every stop. which means if she's sleeping (which is almost every car trip), you have to wake her up. because, unlike her mama, hana is not that deep of a sleeper. it sort of makes the whole notion of a travel system (an infant car seat and stroller sold together - you can click the car seat on to the stroller) seem like yet another racket on a LONG list of baby rackets. i mean you spend a couple hundred dollars to get this combination that's is really convenient in some ways (save for the wrist and back pain caused by lugging those things around awkwardly with the baby in it), but they only use it for a couple of months if you do it right. i think most people don't think about the size of their child, in relation to the bucket. they just think they'll use it for a year, and then when it's time to turn the kid around, they'll switch out the car seat. fortunatley, i actually got out of the house and around town very early on, so i think i got the most use i could out of it. there were several moms i've met who didn't leave the house for 2 months!

on the bright side, she actually seems to like this car seat a lot better. there's been a little less screaming when being "locked and loaded". she sits higher up so she can see out of the window better which she seems to really enjoy. and, we can get a really good view of her in the little mirror we have mounted about the car seat (which, of course, is another adjustment since i am often distracted by her cuteness when i'm trying to check the mirrors for a lane change). also, now that we don't just click the bucket into the stroller, we put her directly in the stroller, which reclines almost flat. i think she finds that a lot more comfortable for napping on the go.

tomorrow we go to the pediatrician for her 4 month check up. i must say i'm a little nervous because she'll be getting shots and there are a lot of mom's i know who's babies did not have a reaction to the 2 month shots but a strong reaction to the 4 month shots. we'll see how it goes.

Crunch Time

Here's video from last week of Hana helping her mommy exercise.
Hana and Mommy Doing Crunches

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Raspberries

Here's Hana on Easter blowing raspberries.
Raspberries

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Happy Easter!

we had a fantastic day today. we started out going to church which was good, especially once i found the family room... well, it's not exactly a family room, it's called the "sacristy" or something like that. apparently it's some official part of the church but what i saw was a bunch of babies and toddlers crawling around having a good ol' time. and you can still hear what's going on in the service. i'm told that one adopts an attitude of prayer in the sacristy but i'm not sure those kids got the memo. they were swinging from the kneeling benches, throwing balls around, eating snacks, failing to share with one another... it's clearly where the party's at. you seriously, could have bowled me over with a feather when i learned that this was supposed to be some quiet, prayerful spot because to the 10 kids playing there, it was more like the church of cars and cherrios. jon was mortified to learn of the scene i described there. he stayed at our seats while i walked around; hana prefered to be on the move. but we both agree, blasphemy or no, we'll sit there next time.

after church, we went for a light breakfast and coffee. since we had a little time before we had to be to glenda and dan's house for further easter festivities, we decided to take a walk to the park for a glimpse into our future. however, minutes after arriving at the park, hana peed on jon (ha!) and her pretty blue church dress. apparently she feels that since he's returned to work, he has not been exposed to nearly enough bodily fluids. she rectified the situation in her own special way. so we went home briefly and had a wardrobe change. frankly, that was alright by me because i had 3 outfits for today: two dresses were size 3-6 months so it's now or never for them. one was 6-9 months, which will work for mother's day as well. fortunately, i never needed the third dress. note that she is really more interested in eating the blue dress than wearing it. and the 2nd yellow outfit not only involved a bonnet, but it actually coordinated with our outfits... i know, i know. it's all very stepford. don't judge me, it was a coincidence.

glenda and dan's easter thing was a big family celebration and easter egg hunt with all the kids (about 6 altogether, excluding babies). the weather was beautiful and it was really fun and relaxing. the food was great too. we also got the opportunity to take a bunch of great family shots in their fabulous backyard... i think i might live in their backyard this summer since mine is kind of a mess... anyway, happy easter everyone!!!!

4 months old - phhhhhhrrrrttttttttttttttttthhh!

lest anyone question who this child really looks like, behold:

glenda and dan shall be named the patron saints of babysitting. this distinguished honor is bestowed upon them for babysitting hana, jack riley, charlotte (party of 5!) AND cole, enabling their respective parents to go to the movies and see "blades of glory" . this momentous occaision not only marks glenda and dan's cannonization, but it also marks our first baby-free movie in a theater since hana was born. (as you recall, we took her to see three movies when she was a more sleepy baby, during the oscar season.) it was a nice break. btw, blades of glory was FREAKIN" AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! so so good.

anywho, our little one seems to have grown quite a bit in the last week. she wore 6-12 month pants today which fit her just fine, even though last week when she wore them, they needed to be rolled up at the hem about an inch or so. we've been doing some bottle feedings at bedtime lately and she has been sucking down 12 ounces of breastmilk like it was nothin'!!! everyone says she's ready for cereal but i'm conflicted about it. "they" (meaning several different books i've consulted on the subject) say that babies don't need anything but breastmilk or formula until they're 6 months old. "they" also say that you shouldn't start them on solids until they are at least 4 months old. "they" go on to say that any solid food given at this point is really only ceremonial, since it's supposed to supplement breastmilk or formula, not the other way around. so basically i'm supposed to nurse her first and then give the rice cereal. "they" also mention that the longer you wait to introduce solids the better off they are with food allergies, particularly if one parent has some food allergies. given that jon is allergic to some tree nuts, shellfish and chocolate, we both feel like the longer we can hold out, the better we will be protecting her. one of the "they"s even go so far as to say not to introduce any of these things until after baby's 3rd birthday. that seems like it will be awfully hard to do... our next pediatrician appointment is not for a couple of weeks and i definately plan to talk about it with him (especially since the at the last appointment, they also said we feed exclusively breast milk for six months).

but she is eating A LOT. we started giving her bottles at bedtime because she was taking like 2 hours(!) to go down at night, mostly because everytime we'd think she was done nursing, she's let us know within a couple of minutes, she most certainly was not! once we realized that she could easily put away a pint faster than a frat boy on saint patrick's day, it became clear that she it was simply taking her 2 hours to get ALL the milk she needed to sleep through the night.

the bottles seem to help, but frankly, she's very good at getting what she needs through direct nursing and pumping is WAY less efficient. if i pump once a day, it takes me 2 days to get an 8 ounce feeding so it's tricky (actually, nearly impossible) to keep up with the nightly demand that way. if i hazard a guess, i estimate that she eats anywhere from 8-10 oz per feeding, with her big whopper 12 oz feeding at bed time. she does about 6 feedings a day. we could probably do a combination of boob and bottle, but we have also supplemented with formula too which allows jon to take over the whole bedtime ritual using the bottle with breastmilk and formula to get through the whole feeding.

i pressume a meal involving cereal will leave her feeling more satisfied, but at what price? if i can remember at a decent time of day, i will consult with the pediatrician by phone, before the appointment. i won't change anything before i consult though...

in other news, our little proud mary continues her rollin'... on thursday, i put her down on her back to play while i went into the kitchen and when i came back a few minutes later, she was on her belly, laughing and talking to herself. so she rolled from back to stomach although i have not actually witnessed it. she also doesn't roll from tummy to back as often as i thought she would. she apparantly decided that she is nobody's circus pony and she'll roll only when there's a need to and for no other reason thank you very much.

on tuesday of this week, she also started "blowing raspberries" - pppphhhrttth! - and she seems to really enjoy that. she does it most of her waking moments and sometimes even when she's fussy... as if to say "phooey!". i can usually get her to turn a sour mood around by blowing raspberries at her and she will answer back in-kind. i personally think it's pretty darn cute - probably because at this point there's no food involved. i imagine i will find it less endearing when she's "blowing squash".