Being a Big Baby

Sometimes I feel cheated out of the experience

of having a tiny tiny baby.

Granted, there are a lot of downsides to having a smaller newborn - sleeping, feeding, soothing-wise - but cuteness wise,

tiny babies are hard to beat.

Hannah was tiny once. 

In utero.

She was 9 pounds, 6 ounces and 22 inches long

when she was born. 

Huge.

Don't get me wrong - she's tall like her momma, with a cute button nose like her daddy and the prettiest blue eyes I've ever seen. 

I couldn't have baked a cuter baby.  But she is not tiny.

Ever since then she's been growing and maturing at a lightening fast pace.  She's only (almost) 4 months old, and already she is rolling and trying to crawl (more of a tummy crawl), she talks non stop, she's trying to master the fine art of jumping in her jenny jump up and laughs hysterically at the puppies playing.  She prefers Jack Johnson over John Mayer and is already proving to have a pretty good sense of humor. 

And now she can hold her bottle.

As a breastfeeding mother, it strikes fear into my soul when I see her holding her bottle as fabulously as she was.  Why? 

Go with me here:  It's like I've been replaced! 

She LOVES her bottle.  She gets excited when she sees it and if it is left in her eye line she just stares at it. 

Granted, she does the same with my boobs, but stop trying to distract me from my mommy meltdown. 

I joined Hannah for some quality tummy time on Sunday while enjoying a nice bowl of soup. 

Hannah rolled and twisted and turned herself (!!!) so that she was facing me and then watched - mesmerized - as I ate my soup.  She followed the spoon from the bowl to my mouth again and again.  She wasn't distracted by conversation, she was far too focused to discuss the beauty of her stuffed elephant.  And then, on the tenth or so spoonful, she did it: 

As the spoon reached my mouth she stretched her neck as to get closer to the spoon and licked her lips.

*bam* Cutest moment of the day.

Also equally scary.  She's showing such an interest in solid food! 

It makes me realize that although we had prepared for moments like these by freezing pureed veggies grown last fall in our garden, I wasn't ready to feed them to her yet!  She's a baby! 

She's 4 months old.

Going on 2 years old.

I'm so proud of my mature little girl, but am sad that her bump-on-a-log baby phase passed so quickly.  While it's amazing to interact with her, it makes it all too real that when people say "They grow up too fast..." in a wistful tone, they mean it.