5 months old!

Harper is 5 months old today. We took some photos this morning since Tom's morning class was canceled. Isn't she cute?

Harper's bumbo escape attempt

Harper gets bored very easily. Regardless of where we put her, she will be entertained for 5-10 minutes and then want to be picked up. Recently, she has expressed her boredom by trying to escape from her bumbo seat. Here is a sequence of photos that demonstrate what happened when I put her in her bumbo today.
1. This is fun, I love the bumbo seat
2. Ok, maybe "love" wasn't the best word
3. I'm getting a little agitated, please come get me
4. Get me now!
5. Where are you?
6. I guess I'm going to have to do this myself
I was pretty impressed (and scared) by how close she came to popping right out.

We've had a rough week. We found out last night that Harper has her third urinary tract infection (poor baby) and she has not been very happy about it. We started antibiotics last night and she seems to be feeling a little better. Poor girl, hopefully this will be her last one. We did find out that she now weighs 15.5 pounds and is otherwise doing great. She has even started to grow some of her hair back. Woohoo!

comparison

My wonderful mother-in-law was kind enough to send me a baby photo of Tom, so here's the comparison. I definitely think that Harper has Tom's eyes and I'm pretty sure she will also have his eye color. Her eyes are still blue right now, but are starting to get a little brown around the center and look similar to Tom's eyes in this photo. My mom thinks that I was about 3 months old in this photo, Harper is about 4 and a half months in hers, and I'm guessing that Tom is about 6 months old in his (I'm really not sure).

I can't think of anything to title this post . . .

Life has been pretty great lately. Having Tom home more hours during the week has been SO nice. We spent some time at Venice Beach recently, but forgot to take the camera. We also had dinner at Apple Pan with our fellow BYU-alum and current Irell employee Jamie. But the highlight of the week was the BYU/UCLA game yesterday. All four years that I was at BYU, the football team was terrible so it is nice to see a resounding victory. I have also started working a few hours a week at my old job. They are short staffed, so I am working a few flexible hours while Tom stays home with Harper.

Harper seems to have gone through a growth spurt recently and now fits into some of her 6 month clothes. She is really into squealing when she gets excited and is still hating tummy time. She has gotten good enough at flipping over that within about two seconds of being on her tummy she rolls over onto her back. Harper is also getting better at sitting with minimal assistance (see photos below).

Here she is hanging out in her jumperoo. This is pretty typical of what she does (although she is getting better at playing with the toys). She usually has one hand in her mouth and the other one trying to get that blue toy into her mouth.
And finally, here is a baby picture of me with a picture of Harper (I still need to get a baby picture of Tom so we can compare them). I'm not sure how old I am in this photo, but I think we're around the same age. I am seeing more and more similarities with Tom as she gets older, but I still think she looks a lot like me.

our little balding baby

Poor Harper. She has been dealing with serious cradle cap over the last few months, and although it is finally going away, it is taking her hair with it. You may have noticed a couple of bald spots on the last post, but things have gotten a lot worse. The good thing is that her cradle cap is finally going away and Harper is spending a lot less time scratching her head. Tom decided to give her a little trim on the top of her head because 1) this makes it easier to treat the cradle cap, 2) she's eventually going to lose all the hair on top of her head anyway, 3) she now looks a lot less like a bald man with a comb over.
Here we are prior to the haircut.Here is one of the bald spots. There is a matching one on the opposite side.Here she is getting a little trim.
Here she is post-trim. She actually has a lot less hair on top now. I will admit, I have shed tears over this. I loved Harper's beautiful hair. But it will grow back. In the mean time, I think Harper will be wearing lots of hats.

deciphering harper

Tom's sister Denise called me earlier this week (she has an adorable 9 month son, AJ) and we discussed whether or not our babies are cuddly. This made me start to think about whether Harper's behaviors are normal baby behaviors or they are part of her personality. Harper does not like to cuddle. She will not lay her head on my shoulder, she won't let me rock her, and she does not like to be in one place for too long.

Here are some other things that I have noticed that I think are part of Harper's personality.
1. She loves it when we make kissy noises at her. Pretty much any noise that you can make with your mouth will catch her attention, but nothing does it like a kissy noise.
2. She loves this song. I really enjoyed this song right after she was born and played it regularly when I was feeding her, and although I have since gotten sick of the song, Harper loves it. As soon as we start playing it she stops crying. It's amazing.
3. She prefers to be standing up all the time. She particularly loves to stand up in the bathtub. It's really funny because she will get agitated when I lay her down to wash her hair, but when I stand her up she gets really excited for a few seconds until she gets cold because she's all wet and out of the water.
4. She enjoys getting her diaper changed. Harper is never in a better mood than when she's on her changing table getting her diaper changed.
5. Sometimes Harper will not look at Tom. He will try to put his face wherever her eyes are pointed, but she will instantly avert her eyes and go to great lengths to look at something else. But recently she has also started grinning every time she looks at him.

Very interesting. Well, it is to us at least. She's such a funny girl. Here is Harper in her new jumperoo that we got her recently in an effort to continue filling our apartment with large, plastic baby items. She really likes it because she gets to stand up on her own.

the job announcement

After some deliberation, Tom is going to be working at Irell and Manella after graduation. I am so proud of him because he actually got offers at both of the firms that worked at (Irell and Hogan) so we were left with a difficult decision. The firms are literally across the street from each other, so either way we were going to be staying in LA.

Tom spent this summer working at Hogan. He enjoyed his time there, but when he returned to Irell (where he worked last summer) for a couple of weeks, he felt more comfortable and thought that it would be a better fit. I am really excited about his decision because I got to know quite a few people at Irell last summer and really liked all of them. It's exciting to know what we're going to be doing after graduation, but we are looking forward to enjoying his last year of law school!

Happy Birthday Kara!

Today is my sister Kara's 22nd birthday. We have always had little bit of an adversarial relationship, but she is my sister and I love her and I'm proud of all the things that she has accomplished. Plus, now that we live a thousand miles apart (and she can no longer borrow my clothes without asking or use my makeup), we get along much better. Here are a few interesting things about Kara:
1. She lives in Denver where she is does hair. Last time I saw her she cut my hair and did a really great job.
2. When she was in 1st grade Kara's teacher told my mom that if she had to leave the room, she could leave Kara in charge of the class because she could boss everyone around.
3. When Kara was little her best friend, Morgan, was really shy and didn't like to talk in front of people so Morgan would whisper what she wanted to say into Kara's ear and Kara (who is definitely NOT shy) would relay the message.