I'm finally getting around to starting a Weblog, following the excellent advice of my friend Leslie Turek. I wish I'd done this three weeks ago when we brought Samantha home from the hospital, but life has been a little hectic since then. It's a shame, because I think I've missed capturing a lot of the little details about her first three weeks of life. I'll try to remember what I can of the time we've spent together, and to keep up a more regular stream of postings from now on.

It's true that having a baby changes everything. Someone told me once that as soon as you hold your child your life undergoes a tectonic shift. I never understood that until Sam was born. She was about four hours old and I was sitting in the rocking chair in Amy's hospital room rocking her, and even though she'd only been in the world for four hours it felt like she had always been a part of our family. It was hard to remember what life was like without her, even though "without her" was only one day earlier, and I finally understood what that person meant. Everything changes in an instant, and there's no way to describe it in words.

Looking back at those first day pictures, it's amazing how different Sam looks today compared to just three weeks ago when she was born. Being three weeks premature, she was not only very small (5 lbs 12 oz at birth, 5 lbs 9 ozs when discharged from the hospital 4 days later), but she was *skinny* too. You can see it in her early baby pictures; she has very little of the baby fat you find on most newborns.

Boy has that changed! She eats like a horse and has been putting on weight quickly. She went from 5 lbs 9 oz on 2/4/2002 to 6 pounds just two days later, then quickly to 6.5 pounds by the time of her one week checkup. At two weeks she was 6 pounds 14 ounces, and I expect that by the time she has her one month checkup later this week she'll be around 8 pounds -- typical weight for a newborn. I guess she's done her catching up. Just in time for her due date, too!