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!