We be Parents

Four months have flown by quickly and the last month has given us a huge number of changes.  Hazel has changed a lot and is becoming more and more dynamic and interactive by the day.  While she laughed and smiled before, now she seems to be genuinely engaged by toys, songs, and staring at herself in the mirror.  Her occasional laughs and smiles have turned into excitement, infectious smiles, and cracking up.  She’s making a lot more noise, babbling to herself, squealing with excitement, and showing a wider range of emotions through her voice.  She’s getting a lot more control over her hands – grabbing toys, holding onto them, and studying them closely.  She’s almost like a real person!

Here she is holding one of her favorite toys:

She’s still giving us (at least me and the nanny) trouble in the bottle feeding department, but she does cave in and eat from the bottle when she’s really hungry, but still not nearly as much as she should be eating.  We’ve also caved in a few times by bringing Hazel to the hospital to meet Yenari on her dinner break for a quick feed, though we’re trying not to make these emergency feeding sessions a regular affair.

Today Hazel had her 4 month checkup.  We were especially eager to see how she was doing on the growth front since she obviously hasn’t been eating as well this past months due to her battle with the bottle.  The growth charts and the doctor’s comments comforted us – she’s growing just fine: she’s still at the 75th percentile for weight (14 lbs, 14 ounces), around the 97th percentile for height (26 inches), and the 50th percentile for head circumference.  On this visit to the doctor Hazel wasn’t the only one facing down the needle – the whole family got shots…Hazel got her next round of vaccinations and Yenari and I got flu shots…so while we don’t have matching clothes we were wearing matching band-aids today.

Here’s another shot of her from almost 2 weeks ago:

Lastly, congratulations to new parents Joe and Sophia, who welcomed their beautiful baby girl Vera Elizabeth Lampe about a week ago – welcome to the club!