Oh bloody hell, I almost forgot to mention the new measurements:

She's 11 lbs. 4 oz. and 23 inches long. Her growth is slowing down, thus putting her in the average measurements for her age rather than larger than average. But hey, neither Jason nor I are big (he's 5' 8.5", I'm 5' 3.75") so that's to be expected. She's healthy, she's normal, all is well. :-)

Today I took Veronica in for her vaccinations.

*sigh*

Let's never, ever do that again, shall we? Poor little thing. She was OK at the doctor's office, but ended up crying unconsolably at home for over an hour and a half this afternoon, prompting another visit to the doctor's office to make sure she was all right and not having some sort of reaction.

I have to say, I hate the pediatricians' office. Everytime you go in, it sounds like a medieval torture chamber for the pre-school set; there's always at least one child in an examining room, screaming nonstop for several minutes and loud enough to hear in the waiting room. And even worse is the fear that, in mere minutes, that could be YOUR child.

The good news is that Ro-Ro is fine, just a little fussy tonight. Which means I shall be going to relieve Jason of "baby duty" and try to calm her down. :-)

Veronica slept for over 10 hours the night before last, from 11:30 p.m. to around 9:45 a.m. Should that qualify for the baby book's "First Time She Slept Through the Night" category?

In the meantime, she continues to amaze us. She is now smiling a lot, but the things that make her smile are not only us, but also corners. Yup, you read that right. Corners. She has been known to look over your shoulder at a ceiling corner, where the walls meet the ceiling. The explanations for this range from the fanciful ("Are there angels there that we can't see?" my mom would coo) to the logical ("The intersection of three planes is probably fascinating if you're noticing it for the first time," Jason said) but we still can't really figure it out, only to hope she'll be a math genius or an architect someday.

When we take her for walks, she loves trees. She'll sit there in her stroller, open-eyed but pretty emotionless, until we walk under or beside a tree. Then her eyes lock onto it. Her eyes then widen, and her little mouth drops open into an "O". She'll follow the sight of the tree until we're past it, then go back to normal until we're passing another one. This never ceases to amuse us, and we're thankful our neighborhood has lots of sidewalks and trees.

Her coos are more frequent, and they now have more than one syllable. No real constanant sounds yet, unless she's crying or whining (in which case she goes "Muh. Muh. Muuuuuuhhhh....") but that's to be expected. I just love hearing her coo, though. It's the prettiest sounds I've ever heard.

She loves the feeling of hair, too. I know that sounds silly, but she loves stroking her own hair, or the hair on Jason's arms when he's holding her. It's strange; we know she's still just a baby, it's too early to tell anything, and we don't want to pressure her into anything. But with these few little things, we're convinces she's going to be a math whiz. A botanist. A hairstylist. A scientist who studies hair loss and lives in a forest. You get the idea. So, so silly, and yet we find ourselves doing it all the time.

I need to get going; we're going to run some errands, and walk over to an open house a few blocks away, hopefully passing several fascinating trees along the way. :-)

Veronica slept over eight hours last night, so I'm feeling pretty good. So good, in fact, that she's asleep again right now but I have no desire to conk out myself.

Since our last posting, we've attended our Lamaze class reunion and Jason's family reunion. This has resulted in the comparison of Veronica against seven other babies around her age - her cousin Zane, plus six of the Lamaze class babies. And frankly, I was very worried. Veronica still cannot really lift up her head, although all the Lamaze moms said their kids were capable of doing so. And when Jason talked to his mom and grandmother about Veronica's first smile, their attitude was "oh that's nice, Zane did that last week and he's laughing all the time now."

I stopped worrying, however, when we posed all the Lamaze babies together on a sofa, sticking Veronica in the corner because she can't lift her head yet - and almost all the other babies toppled over, unable to hold up their own heads. Only two of the other kids were actually capable of doing so. And the only behavioral advantage I saw that Zane might have over Veronica is his rigidity - he can hold up his own head, and his body is stiff enough so that he doesn't flop around in your arms. Past that, they were about the same - no laughing, no smiles, nothing.

The only difference I DID see was that Veronica is not putting on weight and size as fast as the other babies - Zane is only 4 days older, but he was only 8 lb. 4 oz. at birth and now surpasses her in length and weight. It was the same for the majority of the Lamaze babies, boys and girls, some of them even younger than her. She still looks and seems healthy, but I worry a lot so I'll still mention it to the pediatrician next week.

In the meantime, Veronica is smiling more - she smiled at Jason on Saturday morning, and gave him a little grin this morning before he went to work. Her neck muscles are getting stronger. And one thing everyone commented on was how alert she is. Unless she's very sleepy, her eyes are usually wide open and boring holes into whatever she's gazing at. She's constantly taking in her surroundings, usually looking either very confused or very concentrated, as if she's going to be quizzed on everything later. I kind of took this for granted until I could compare her to so many other babies and saw that, while they all did this to some extent, none of them did it as much as she did.

Right now I'm letting her sleep in her crib, hoping to get her used to it over the bassinet (which she is quickly outgrowing.) I have to leave the TV on fairly loudly here in the living room, as we've gotten her so used to sleeping through background noise that she won't doze off during the day without it. Hopefully she will continue to sleep as I get some things done, or at least until my mom arrives here in the next hour or so.

Whee...

Here's one for the baby book: Veronica's first smile, June 16, 2003, at 1:07 p.m. Not that she hasn't smiled before - she has in her sleep, or when she has gas. She's even grinned on her changing table while looking at the Winnie-the-Pooh decals on the walls of her nursery. But yesterday, she smiled at ME. Twice. It truly made my day.

And then last night she slept from 12:30 a.m. to 8 a.m. That's 7.5 hours - her new record! We're hoping it'll become a trend and not just an early fluke.

I had all these other things to day right now - more commentary on motherhood, perhaps. Or maybe a mention of what a wonderful dad Jason is turning out to be, and how I love him more than ever now. But I can't remember exactly what I wanted to say. It's a pity; wit or insight lost to the ages for the simple reason that I just don't have the time nor the chance to write it down when I think of it. Makes me wonder about what wonderful things have never made it onto a printed page throughout the ages for the very same reason.

Veronica's at her first day at the babysitter's right now, kind of a test run for when I go back to work on July 7. Whoo-hoo! Free time! But do you really think I'm gonna waste it on a computer? Bye bye, y'all, as I go rest after running errands all day that would've been impossible with Baby on Board. You'll hear more from me and the sleepless fun we're having some other time.

Just a quick note that we are still alive and relatively well.

I say "relatively" because Veronica has lost her schedule. See, for the past couple weeks, Jason and I could count on two things: Minimum two-hour naps, plus sleeping through the night from between 1-2 a.m. to 4:30-6 a.m. Veronica was even getting to a point where she was sleeping for 5.5-6 hours a stretch at night. It was glorious, especially in hindsight:

From Tuesday until today, Veronica has slept no more than 2 hours at any stretch, with most naps lasting a mere 15-30 minutes. In between these short sleeping sessions, she's been wide-awake, horribly gassy, spitting up, drooling, and just generally not feeling well. Last night she hit a 3.5 hour stretch, with another one today, which makes me hopeful she's getting her groove back. This will mean she's not so exhausted, but lord knows that Jason and I need it just as much as she does.

In the meantime, I am grateful to Jason for giving me a "night off" - two now, counting tonight, and most likely tomorrow night as well. This means that he's on baby duty and I am not to be awakened unless it's absolutely necessary (which is what I do for him on work nights). And we actually got to go out to dinner on Tuesday evening, courtesy of my friend Colleen and her boyfriend Sam - they babysat her for an entire evening. Carlos is coming down tomorrow night and might even watch her so that we may catch a movie; even if he doesn't, the company will do us some good (as have other visits from friends, both local ones and long-distance, as my friend Carrie was here a spell on Sunday.) Although Veronica is a very good baby, and we love her very much, I can't say I'm sorry to get away from the stress and fatigue for a while, hoping tonight to get enough sleep so that I can finish sentences and no longer trip over my own feet from utter exhaustion.