Average is the new AWESOME.

Dearest Lilah -

Yesterday I took you to your 4-month-old well baby check. You had to get a shot :-( I hate it when you have to get a shot. Luckily you won't have to get another one until June! You have grown so much since your 2-month appointment! You weighed 12 pounds, 14 ounces and were 24.5 inches long! You also have a 40cm head circumference, whatever that means. On the chart it comes out to being in the exact 50th percentile on each, so you are my perfectly average baby! And baby, there is nothing I love more than being average! I had a perfectly average pregnancy with you, a perfectly average birth and now you are my perfectly average baby. You know what I like about average? It's good. It may not be spectacular, but who needs that drama? You keep on being average, love. It's a good road. Besides, I figure if you stay mostly average now, it leaves you open to having some above average tendencies elsewhere. :-)

One question I meant to ask the nurse practioner while we were there was when you can figure out whether a person will be right- or left-handed. You seem to be exhibiting some left-handed tendencies...you usually are grabbing things with your left hand, but you do use your right hand from time to time. And you always are petting yourself with your left hand. I'm fine, by the way, if you are left-handed. I have long suspected that your Uncle Patrick was supposed to be left-handed, because he writes with his hand turned so far in, he might as well be writing with his other hand. Watch him some time if you have the chance - it's interesting. Just don't expect to be able to read anything he writes. He has horrible handwriting.

After your shot, we went to Target and wandered around for a bit waiting for Roly Poly to open. In the meantime, the bottom fell out and we got stuck running to the car in the rain. Luckily for you, you were zipped up in my rain coat, sleeping away. Then we went and I ate some soup and a sandwich. After the rain let up, we went out to Artisphere so I could scope the scene for our trip there today. I saw a lot of things I liked. :-) The shot and the travels must have worn you out; you went to sleep at 7:30 and slept until 5:30am!!! God bless you, little baby, for sleeping ten hours and allowing Mommy six straight hours of sleep for the first time since PROBABLY November 2008. I hate that you had to be pumped full of nasty germs to get you to sleep, but I hope it was a nice, restorative sleep for you. You certainly seemed in a good mood when you finally got up for the day at 8:30am. You were smiling and talking to your fuzzies.

We got up and went out to the Saturday Market downtown and got a local steak for dinner plus some pretty, fresh, still on the root spinach and some fresh ravioli and gnocchi. We love going to the market. Mommy always gets Shrimp and Grits on Saturdays for breakfast with an iced coffee or latte from our local roaster, West End Coffee. Then we walked on down to Artisphere. We used some gift money that Gramma and Grandpa gave us for our anniversary to buy a beautiful mirror made of enamel fused to copper. Then you and Daddy let me pick out two pretty mother's day gifts (because daddy did not buy them already for me to get tomorrow, but that's ok. What I wanted him to buy me was featured on the "Ellen" show on Friday, so now everyone will have one and it wouldn't be special anymore): Two, beautiful necklaces! One is oxidized sterling silver and has a chocolate diamond in the center of the swirl. The other is a sterling silver piece with different colors oxidized onto it, then an open cutwork piece of 14k Gold, and then another open cutwork piece but in sterling silver. It is so very cool! I am so lucky to have a very interesting and special jewelry collection thanks to your daddy. You stand to inherit a pretty awesome stash of sterling jewelry! (Mommy's not into the expensive stuff. LOL) Of course, I bought myself a little mother's day gift...sort of. It's for me now, but I will give it to you when you're older, probably for your 16th birthday: It's a sterling silver pendant that is a zero with a nine inside, representing the year you were born! I just think it is neat; I wish there was a cool way to creat a "77" for me. Then again, that might just clue people in to how ancient I am. :-)

Anyway, I want to thank you again for being an awesome baby. Your Gramma is going to come see you tomorrow and share my first mother's day with me. I need to figure out how to make myself presentable since I'd like a "3 generations" picture on my first mother's day :-) But since all my hair is trying to fall out (thanks hormones!) it's hard to feel pretty these days. Oh yeah, and my stomach pooch...(thanks baby!)

Love,
Mommy