Here We Grow!

Olivia loving on Daddy

Olivia and her Tweety Bird Band-Aid after her first shots

Olivia has come a long way, Baby, since her Earthly debut March 5. She is growing by leaps and bounds. When she was born, as some of you might recall, she weighed in at 7 pounds, 1 ounce and was 21 1/4 inches long. Thankfully, she was smack dab in the middle of her parents' birth weight. Daddy was over 10 pounds (his poor Mom) and Mommy chimed in at just over 5 pounds at full term. On Olivia's five-week visit to the pediatrician she was the same length but had actually grown. Her birth length included her GINORMOUS cone head.I'm not kidding even the doctors and nurses were startled by its size. Her length at that one-month appointment put her in the 71st percentile which wasn't so impressive. But at her two-month appointment (actually at 10 weeks) on Friday she had stretched out two more inches, landing her in the 90th percentile. Clearly, Olivia doesn't get THAT gene from her mother's side of the family. We're all a bunch of shorties at 5-foot-8 and under, mostly way under. Baby O had also packed on two more pounds since her last visit, tipping the scales at 11 pounds, 14 ounces and moving her into the 77th percentile for weight, a bump of eight precentage points. (Hmmmm, I'm starting to sound like I'm a reporter or something.) Anyway, all this is to say is she's growing and growing before our very eyes.

At this two-month appointment she also had her first round of vaccines: two shots and one oral dose. She was a trooper. Though she let our a shriek, followed by healthy cries, she was completely calm in less than two minutes and forgave all those around her. She did great. So did her folks, especially Mommy who feared tears worse than her daughter's dry, noisy cry.

Other developments include Olivia's new love of self soothing. She has discovered that sucking on her hand can be of great comfort when upset, even calm or - shudder at the thought - boring moments. Of course, this mean there's a whole lotta drooling going on. Olivia is also really grabbing at things even more. She tugs at her own shirt, her parents' clothes, her blankies, bibs and small toys. She's also working on her language skills with much more baby babble consisting of longer and louder noises after lots of crinkles of concentration , followed by big smiles of accomplishment from baby and Mommy and Daddy.