one month. Thirty-one days. A lifetime.

My baby girl is a month old today, and we can't remember life without her in it. She truly is the center of our universe and we couldn't be happier. Here are some of the ways Ishka has changed since we met her-

At birth, she weighed 7 pounds 5 ounces and was 19 inches tall. She was down to 6lbs 9oz when we left the hospital, but as of yesterday's appointment, she's up to 8lbs 12.5oz and 21.5 inches tall (40th & 70th percentile respectively). We seem to have a tall, lean child.

As of Monday, at the ripe old age of 4 weeks, she officially outgrew her newborn sleep-n-play outfits. Her feet had been too big for a week or so, but on Monday she was no longer able to stretch out to her full length while stuffed into newborn clothing. Alas, she still swims a bit in the 0-3 month sized apparel. (I overestimated her size and didn't buy any newborn clothes, thinking that "0-3 months" would cover a non-preemie newborn. I was wrong.)

We're out of "newborn" sized diapers and will not be buying any more. Our baby is officially in size 1 now.

Ishka has a lot more control over her head and has been able to control where it goes when she's lying on her back since about day-6. Her first week, she slept in whatever position she was placed in- head flopped completely to one side or the other. Now, even in her sleep, she can face straight up if she wants to.

Breastfeeding is still a work in progress, but has improved immensely. For the first 3 weeks, we tried the boob occasionally with a nipple shield but rarely met with anything but frustration (both of us) and pain (me). I pumped and Ishka took her feedings by bottle. Then, on 4/13, it was if a switch had been flipped and she suddenly latched onto the nipple shield and took her meals directly from the source. We have moments now when my nipples don't cooperate or when she doesn't seem to actually get anything from suckling (for up to an hour) and we revert to a bottle of brest milk and a pumping session now and then, but 85% of her meals are bottle-free now. Unfortunately, the excrutiating pain is often still there so the decision to take a feeding by bottle is sometimes for the sake of comfort. The encouragement we found in our one visit so far to the local support group was fabulous, so we'll be attending weekly with the intention of sticking with breastfeeding for at least 6 months.

Our little girl knows the difference between night and day, and prefers not to miss anything that happens during daylight hours. She simply will not sleep anywhere but in my arms during the day, but she's happy as a clam in her bassinette at night. We have a Moby and a Bjorn. She sometimes tolerates the Moby, but I haven't assembled the Bjorn yet. Once we work out how to free up my hands during the day, we'll both be happier and I'll start working from home a bit to stretch out the length of my maternity leave.

She has the cutest smiles as she drifts off to sleep. We know they're not "real," but those little grins are no less beautiful. We're looking forward to genuine grins and giggles yet to come.

There's more to say, but I need to get dressed and eat something before she wakes up and realizes that it's day time again.