the four month report

four months. four months! hard to believe, yet here we are. until very recently, despite all evidence to the contrary, i liked to claim that she looked "the same" as when she was born. time was standing still. she's a newborn.

well guess what?

it's not and she's not. and i guess that's okay, too. she's so big for her age that she looks like a 6 month old, and is wearing some 9 month clothing. so, all that makes it pretty difficult to pretend she's a newborn.

size: she had her well check on tuesday, and she's doing fine. she's 16 lbs 3 oz (95th %ile), 24 3/4 inches (75th %ile) and -- can you believe i remembered all these numbers? -- has a 16" head circumference (50th %ile). she's a grower. i think they say a baby should ideally double their birth weight by four months, but she did it by 2 1/2 months. she's so chunky that she has rolls and creases everywhere -- ankles, backs of knees, dents at her shoulder blades. she has pudgy tops-of-feet, fingers, back-of-head, even her pinky toe has padding. wow!

and she's proving to be physically adept, too. i didn't really get it when a friend used to talk about her daughter having stood on her legs at birth -- how is that possible? what does that mean? well, hazel has always supported her weight on her legs, and was lifting her head off my shoulder in the first week. a few weeks ago, she started rolling from her back onto her stomach, and after holding her head up and looking around for a good while, would get tired and find herself unable to roll back over. within a week, she learned to get from her stomach to her back, but in that intervening time, eva was more than willing to assist her by "rolling"/shoving her over onto her back, much to hazel's perpetual astonishment. (this was no easy task... eva only has 10 pounds on hazel, you know.) for the past two weeks, she's been rolling and rolling, inadvertently using it as a form of locomotion. i'll set her down, go spend a few minutes making breakfast and coffee, and come back to find she's well off the edge of the quilt five feet away looking a bit bewildered. better yet is when she gets herself wedged against the couch leg or something -- and even though she can't crawl or really pick up toys, i've had to start watching what stuff eva leaves on the floor near her. pipe cleaners, not so safe, i'd say. oh, and she's working pretty hard on sitting up -- with the boppy around her, she sat the other day for a good 5 minutes. since then, it's been a bit more floppy, which is fine by me. i'm not used to all this! being even a little on the early side with all this physical stuff is especially confusing to me, given that eva was on the later side of such things. for all i know, hazel will decide to start crawling before christmas.

the love list:
i love her expressive eyebrows. everyone comments on this, so it must be really noticeable. the eyes may be the windows to the soul, but watch her eyebrows and you can see what she's thinking, how she's feeling...
i love that her mouth is the exact shape of the yellow hat worn by curious george's friend. it's true.
i love how she can be so agitated one second, then as though a snap of hypnotist's fingers, eyes close, arms go limp, head droops to the side, toes uncurl, and she's in utter peace.
i love that low grunty sound in her throat, the one she uses when she wants to remind you "i'm still here".
i love how for months now, she'll start cooing, louder if i look away: ohhh, youuu, ahh (a few months back, eva said sleepily in the middle of the night: "i think hazel's trying to spell something.") with all those letter sounds, perhaps she is.
i love how she often wakes with a look of searching confusion, then sees me and breaks out a giant gummy grin, laughing "heh heh heh!"
i love how she delights in having an older sister (despite the occasional pinches to the arm this week) -- she'll stop crying or start laughing when eva entertains her.
i love the two random exra-long hairs on the top of her head (one wavy and one straight) that have been there since birth. i check for them almost daily an will be sad one day when they are no longer there.
i love how she flaps her right arm when she's happy, and that now that she has discovered use of her legs, how she can entertain herself by kicking, kicking, kicking.
i love it when she sighs with contentedness upon latching on.
i love hearing her chuckling in her sleep or while nursing, because i know she's happy.
i love rubbing her furry hair.
and most of all, i love that she's mine, that we're the ones who get to have her in our family because she's perfect for us.

and i love that she knows to wake up right when i'm done typing. :)
the end.