Happy baby

Who says money can't buy happiness? Those people have obviously never bought a 4-month old a new toy (in this case, a new Exersaucer). Voila! Instant happy baby! She's not too coordinated, but apparently flopping around is lots of fun.

What Britney Spears and I may soon have in common...

...and, no, it is not an abbreviated stint in rehab. Or even, sadly, a surprisingly svelte post-baby body. Alas, it seems that what Britney and I are doomed to have in common is that she decided to go bald and it seems I may soon join her. Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating slightly, but at the rate I am losing hair it sometimes feels like a Britney-esque chrome dome is in my future.

Chalk this up to the yet-another-thing-no-one-tells-you-about-having-a-baby category. All of the books talk about how your hair will likely get thicker when you are pregnant, apparently due to changes in hormone levels. What the books fail to mention is that apparently for some women post-baby when hormone levels drop you actually lose hair more rapidly and thus end up with net less hair than you started with. There are, it turns out, lots of articles (click here for an example) about this on the web if you Google "postpartum hair loss," which I recently had reason to do.

Let me provide some context. For the last few weeks, I had noticed that I was losing hair at amazing rate. It is everywhere -- all over my clothes, all over our house, and of course all over the baby (who does not help matters by pulling at my hair constantly). I had even joked that it was like we had got a long-haired dog who was shedding everywhere. Ha ha. Nothing to worry about, I figured, since I had lots of hair to begin with (admittedly very fine hairs, but lots of them). Then yesterday I went to put my hair in a ponytail and noticed for the first time that there were areas near my temple that were decidedly thinner than I remember. I showed it to Sameer, who helpfully confirmed, "Yep, that's your scalp showing." Thanks, honey. He of course eventually amended his response to include repeated reassurances that, "No, there is nothing funny about this."

Anyway, apparently there is nothing that can be done, and the hair will eventually return to normal within 6 to 12 months of giving birth (hello! a year!). The articles helpfully suggest cutting your hair short (apparently it is more noticeable if you have long hair, although clearly the people who write these articles have never spent months / years growing their hair out to just chop it off) or wearing scarves. Not sure the do-rag look is going to fly at McKinsey.

Thankfully, as of now it is not noticeable if I wear my hair down, and really only noticeable to me when I wear my hair up.

Between Sonia's bald spot on the back of her head (from lying on her back too much) and Sameer's, uh, familiarity with this topic, I'm beginning to wonder if we will qualify for a family discount on Rogaine. :-)

4-month checkup

Today Sonia had her 4-month checkup with the pediatrician (or, technically, 4 months and 1 week since we were a bit tardy in making the appointment). The doctor said everything seemed great and that she is getting bigger right on schedule. She weighed in at 14 lbs 1.25 oz (55th percentile), which is in line with her height (44%) and her head circumference (64%). Apparently her body is finally catching up with her head (which has been 60-something percent all along, while her weight started out at 15%). All good news. One oddity is that she has "asymmetrical folds" on her legs (read: right leg has slightly bigger fat rolls than the left leg), which apparently can be a sign of hip dysplasia, so Sonia got her first x-ray to check for that. Everything looked normal on the x-ray, so I guess the right leg must just get kicked less than the left leg or something.

The bad news was that the pediatrician said that she will likely continue to spit-up for the foreseeable future. I believe her exact quote was, "There's nothing you can do, she just has to grow out of it." Apparently it will somewhat improve by 6 months (as her esophagus matures), but her increased mobility at that age is likely to make it worse, so net no change. Since she is putting on weight well it's not an issue of her health, more just a major annoyance for us and a big win for the manufacturers of laundry detergent. Sonia did helpfully demonstrate what we meant by spitting up all over Sameer's shirt (in her defense, she did receive 4 vaccinations), so at least they knew we weren't just imagining things.

Last piece of bad news is that apparently sunscreen is not recommended for children less than 6 months of age, so the doctor advised that we just "keep her out of the sun" when we go to Hawaii. Has this woman ever been to Hawaii?? Clearly I should just never have asked about it. I think we will go with the theory that 5.5 months is close enough to 6 months, or more accurately, I would rather risk the ill effects of using sunscreen 2 weeks too early than deal with Miss Sonia and a sunburn. :-)

No house for you

Well, we finally did it. We made an offer on a house. This post will be a bit anti-climatic, though, since we already found out that our offer was declined. Apparently it was a multiple offer situation, and we were not the highest. The house was adorable and in the perfect location, but it was also tiny (smaller than our current condo) and still wildly expensive. We bid under asking, which in this market pretty much means you won't get the house, so we weren't too surprised to hear that was the case. Since getting the house would have meant taking on a big expansion project (we had already had architects visit the house and estimate how much to add -- no joke -- a second story), I think we were secretly relieved to lose the bid. Still, it was right near two playgrounds, the children's library, Palo Alto's "zoo" (a petting zoo for kids), a pool, tennis courts, the elementary school, and still walking distance to downtown. Sigh. Oh well, on to more open houses this weekend.

In other news, a few nights ago Sonia slept through the night for the first time (full disclosure: there was some waking around 11pm where we had to go in and settle her back down, but that was it and she did not eat anything all night, so still counts in our book). I would love to tell you this signaled a big change for her, but the next night she woke up again at 2-something and could not be settled back down without eating. Last night she managed to go the whole night without eating, but woke up at midnight, 12:45, 2:00, 3:00, 4:00, and 4:30 before finally waking up at 6am at which point I fed her. The fact that she didn't eat all night is a hollow victory given that if I had just fed her when she first woke up she probably would not have woken up again. One step forward, two steps back. :-)

Is it naptime yet?

Ah goo you too

Sonia's "talking" lately has gotten a bit more distinct, with her favorite thing to say being "ah goo." We've been trying to encourage her by repeating this back to her, so it's literally been like an episode of the Smurfs around here with "ah goo" standing in for everything. Given the right intonation, it can mean everything from "I'm sorry" to "Good morning" to "Yes, I know you're hungry, but you will just have to wait a few minutes, okay?"

We've been thinking this was particularly clever and unique of her until last night when I happened to look up something in the What to Expect: The First Year book. On the page about 4-month milestones (Sonia will be 4 months old in 2 days), its direct quote:

"By four months, your baby may possibly be able to say 'ah goo' or similar vowel-consonant combinations."

Okay, so maybe she's not quite as unique as we thought. But how many other babies can say "ah goo" and spit up at the same time? :-)

Sameer's latest ab workout

As Sameer aptly put it the other day, "She's finally big enough to play with!" Her latest favorite pastime is playing "airplane" with Daddy. You can tell she likes it both by the squealing and, of course, the dripping drool toward the end (as if spitting up weren't enough, she now has become quite the drooler).