Growing Pains and Personal Growth

I really have to write more often…

My daughter is now only 4 days away from being 4 months old.  It may be cliché to say that it feels like it was just yesterday when we brought her home from the hospital, but the time really has just flown by.  Every day, it seems like my little girl has hit a new milestone, and it’s exciting and scary all at the same time.  The latest forward step for her is she can now pick her head up pretty much fully when placed on her stomach.  It’s a big step, because that means soon, she’ll probably be able to sit up unassisted, and that means we can start bringing her places on the bike instead of being confined to only walking.

As anyone with children knows, whenever the child hits their growth spurts, they experience some aches and pains as their bones and muscles begin to stretch.  She has gone through her fair share, as there are several growth stages this early on.  What was unexpected for me has been the personal growth I’ve been experiencing.  Priorities have shifted quite a bit from before she was born.  I should have expected this, but I’ve always known myself to be painfully stubborn.

I look forward to my daily interactions with my daughter.  Sure, there are times she frustrates me, mainly due to a lack of communication, but as soon as I get her to giggle or even just smile for me (or at me if we’re really being honest) it kind of washes away all of the other annoyances that can crop up when dealing with a baby.  It feels easier lately to just spend time with her, and play with her, and all of the other things that come along with watching after her day to day. 

This isn’t the most in depth update, as I honestly haven’t had much in terms of brain power to process everything that has been going on.  We are preparing for a big trip soon to see my wife’s side of the family in Hungary.  That will be a test of my little girl’s patience, as that will be a LOT of hours spent on trains and planes.  The longest we have spent on any sort of transportation so far has been on a shinkansen to Osaka, which was only about 2 hours or so.  The flight to Hungary will take approximately 17 hours one way.  I’m not really looking forward to it, but only due to the flight part.  I hate long flights, and this is already the 6th such length trip in the last year and a half.  Prior to that, I had never been on a plane longer than 10 hours, and that was to Hawaii. Hopefully, my daughter has her mother’s tolerance of planes.  I hate them, but they’re a necessary evil until they somehow develop teleportation or portals.