Reading and snuggle time

Zoë has been increasingly interactive with her environment with each passing week. Keeping her well stimulated is a constant challenging but fun activity we have with our peanut. It is especially hard after a long day at our respective hospitals and especially difficult if we had to work on a weekend (which is quite common in our household). Nonetheless, the joys of returning from work is always rewarded with Zoë having a fully vested interest in the many books, toys and funny faces mom and dad make with her.

President's Day with Uncle Bryan and Aunt Lindsey

The daycare was closed on President's Day, so we had Bryan and Lindsey watch Zoë while we were at work. Lindsey and Bryan had fun playing music while Zoë enjoyed being entertained. We all think it went great!

Lazy weekend

This was the first weekend the family was able to sleep in together. It was rest that was definitely needed by everyone.

Pediatrics residency retreat at the Magnificent Mile

My pediatrics intern class had our residency retreat this past week. The program gave us three days off and put us up in a 5-star hotel, the Sofitel Hotel , near Chicago's famous Watertower. The place was amazing, and we had tons of fun eating at Chicago's restaurants, going out in the evenings and getting a lot of pent up intern issues off our chests. Furthermore, we were near Zoë's daycare so I got to pick her up during our last night at the hotel. My intern friends love her and certainly gave her plenty of attention at the retreat.

Go Cubs Go!

Zoë loves the Cubs!!!

Induction as a Jenny

Lisa's group of college friends from Knox College called themselves "Jennies" (Jenny singular) and still refer themselves as the Jennies. The five of them all have kids of their own now (the latest count was 7 total) but only two of the children are girls, Zoë being one of them. Zoë was therefore the latest inductee as a Jenny, and Lisa spared no time in doing so.

OohRah!

It's official. One of my friends, Joel Graves, a full time officer in the Marine Corps, desribed Zoë after meeting her as "cute". I was later told that that word does not exist in the Marine Corps vernacular, and it apparently took a lot of muscular effort in his tongue to say the C-word since it has been ages that he's actually expressed that word out of his mouth. He felt he needed to say it to fully and accurately describe our kid (shortly afterwards, his tongue cramped). Wow! Federal confirmation of her cuteness!

Tummy Time

So Zoë has been in daycare for 3 days now and the parents have felt that she's been there for a month. She's doing great! I think that the parents have been having a harder time with her going to daycare than she has. It has been good for her to interact with other babies and other people. This month has been managable for both of us for taking her to daycare but we are bracing ourselves for the busy months. In the meantime, Zoë has been getting a lot of tummy time and has been doing a great job with her head/neck control.

We also enjoyed watching the first three quarters of the Super Bowl this year (we missed the last and most exciting quarter because she was getting really tired). As you can tell, Zoë loves to watch football.

Goodbye grandparents

Grandpa Hsu arrived this weekend. As always with the grandparents Zoë got a lot of attention. The grandparents left this weekend and this is the first weekend that the family has been alone in almost a month. In fact, all the grandparents are or will be overseas - the Preston grandparents are currently in French Polynesia en route to Australia and the Hsu grandparents will be in Taiwan next month. Next time they see Zoë she will probably be taking her first steps.

Also, I wanted to point out some unique features of our peanut. As mentioned before she is losing a lot of her baby hair. This is most noticable in the region of her occiput where her head rubs when she's supine.

And check out her sweet cankles!
Tomorrow is Zoë's first day of daycare. More on this in a future post...