Journey to and Through Motherhood: Lily's 22nd Week (7/27/09

This was a hard work week for all of us. Lily got used to having mommy all day every day on vacation and so it was hard for her to transition back to Kirsten while I went back to work. Perhaps, too, this is the start of separation anxiety although I think she is a bit young for that. She is definitely a mommy’s girl, though. On Monday, Lily cried for the first time when I handed her off to Kirsten. She was happy when I took her back and gave her a big hug and kiss but unfortunately, I had to leave so I gave her back only to have her fuss again. It was so hard walking out the door and leaving her when she was crying. It’s hard enough to leave anyway but it is immensely harder to leave her when she doesn’t want me to go! This continued pretty much all week but Kirsten said that once we left, she diverted Lily’s attention into looking at the goldfish then she was just fine all day. However, as soon as I walked in the door after work, she fussed until I picked her up.

Lily had to drink defrosted frozen breastmilk all day Monday since I didn’t pump on vacation. Thankfully she did well with it. I heard that some babies don’t like frozen milk so I was concerned. I was back to my normal pumping routine at work on Monday so she got fresh milk for the rest of the week with a little bit of frozen supplementation due to a low supply.

It was a horribly busy day at work on Monday and we were completely exhausted when we got home so no more unpacking or laundry was done. Lily didn’t get to practice her sitting up on vacation because we couldn’t really put her down on the floor much but Monday night she proved what an expert she was at it. She can look over her shoulder or behind her or reach for toys on all sides now without falling over.

Lily and I happy to be reunited on Tuesday evening:

On Wednesday, I had the morning off to take Lily to physical therapy. We are still doing our monthly checks to make sure that her torticollis does not affect her development and that she does everything evenly bilaterally. The therapist was very surprised that Lily was sitting so early. Usually it happens around 7-9 months and Lily is almost 5 months old. She showed me how to check for evenness in her sitting and some exercises to do to ensure that she does not lean to one side. Lily is usually so well behaved for Sherry but this time she was a bit fussy. She got very mad when she was forced to lay down and would not roll over for Sherry to show her progress in rolling both ways. Sherry still claimed that Lily is one of her best behaved babies and said that it is quite common for babies to hate to do anything but sit up after they have mastered the skill.

On Wednesday night, I finally tried to get to all the vacation laundry only to find that our washer again had a rusty film on the inside and ruined more clothes. I was horribly frustrated and mad. My mom came to clean the house on Thursday and gave the washer a good scrubbing with Whink. It looked like it removed all of the film but we had so much laundry to do that my mom and I ended up going to the laundromat when I got home from work. Plus she found a leak behind the washer when she was cleaning so Paul stayed home to fix it while we took a carload of clothes to the laundromat. It was an expensive and long trip so I was glad to have my mom along for help with all the clothes and Lily. We didn’t get to our house until around 10pm and by the time we got the clothes put away and my mom drove through all the night construction on US-23, she didn’t get home until after midnight. It was a long rough day for her and she had a card party at her house the next day so I felt bad for enlisting her help for as long as I did but I certainly appreciated it!

Paul and Lily exhausted on the couch on Thursday night:

Rachel was at a day camp at Fuller Pool which is right by the hospital all week which was very convenient for us. She wore layers and layers of sunscreen but spending all day in the sun and water actually gave the girl a pretty good tan for the first time in her life. She attended the camp with her best friend, Katelyn who we took on vacation last week. They had a sleepover at Katelyn’s on Thursday night so Rachel missed all of the laundry fun.

We wanted to leave right after work on Friday to go up to Paul’s parents’ house for the weekend. His sister, Eileen, was in town from Seattle for the first time in two years and so his parents were going to have a houseful for the weekend. We got a late start because we first had someone come over to check out our rusty water situation. We had the same guy come who fixed our water tank years ago. He told us about the iron remover treatment system back then but we put it on hold due to financial restrictions. We are no better off money-wise now but we can’t afford to be ruining any more clothes so it looks like we will make an appointment with him next week to get the system installed. It is $1500. We also may need a new hot water heater. It has never been cleaned so he thinks that the iron sediment in it is getting loose into the hot water and then building up in the washer. Hopefully once the system is in place and the washer lines and washer are cleaned, the problem will go away. He warned that we may need a new hot water heater, though, as ours is 14 years old and they usually last only about 10 years. He will try to clean and salvage it if possible as that will be another $900 to replace. I just hate spending boatloads of money! After he left, we packed up and left around 9:30pm which got us to Lovells at 12:30am. Lily and Rachel slept in the car and once we got there, we went straight to bed.

Saturday was noteworthy as Lily turned 5 months old! The time keeps flying by. It was also her first time meeting her Aunt Eileen. We had a lovely weekend with Paul's parents, his sister Eileen, his sister Kathy, his sister Debbie, and her two kids, Jack and Sophia. It was a full house with 11 of us! Hectic, but fun. This was the first time that Paul's parents got to see cousins Sophia and Lily together. Hopefully they will grow up to be really good friends since they are only 3.5 months apart in age. This weekend was also noteworthy in that we discovered Lily's love for food. We were getting discouraged because she seemed to hate rice cereal. We didn't know if she wasn't ready for solids or just didn't like what she was being offered. We gave her mashed bananas on Saturday and it was a huge hit. There is a picture of this event further down. On Sunday, Paul had her sitting on the kitchen table while everyone was eating lunch and before he could stop her, Lily leaned over, grabbed a handful of Kathy's mashed sweet potatoes, and stuffed it in her mouth! She apparently discovered two foods she liked this weekend. We took tons of pictures that best tell the story of our weekend.

Lily meeting her cousin Jack (2 years old) for the first time and reuniting with her cousin Sophia (8.5 months old) on Saturday morning:

Sophia couldn’t keep her hands off of Lily, especially her face:

Lily and Sophia playing together:

I love this pizza teether with the happy pepperonis. So does Lily:

Although the picture is out of focus, it is a noteworthy event as Lily is eating mashed bananas for the first time and loving it. We almost gave up on solids because Lily has been hating her rice cereal and has cried every time we tried to feed it to her for the past week. But she expresses such an interest in food and we had heard from a lot of people that their kids hated rice cereal but loved oatmeal or fruit so we didn’t want to give up yet. The bananas were a great success:

I am glad to know that these Fisher Price toys still hold appeal for 11 year old Rachel:

Rachel playing with the exact same toy at Grandma's at about age 2. So cute:

Maureen’s friend, Lois, stopped over on Saturday afternoon to meet the littlest grandkids:

Lily crashed after all the playing:

Jack spotted a deer outside:

After her nap, Lily was back to playing. Look at all the toys Ron and Maureen have! I’ve visited daycares with fewer toys. Lily was especially fascinated with this toy with the spinning cogs:

Lily and Sophia playing together again:

The girls are joined by Grandpa Ron:

Lily got tired again and found this old cow of Jack’s to cuddle with. She and Mr. Moo soon became inseparable at naptime and it ended up coming home with us:

I passed my beautiful sleeping baby over to Paul so that I could finally go get a shower:

Sophia got tired as well and cuddled with then fell asleep on Grandma Maureen:

Sophia woke up from her nap crying. Lily was already awake and happy but as soon as Sophia cried, Lily looked all concerned then started crying too. Apparently she figured that if Sophia was crying, there must be something to cry about! After they calmed down, the girls were back in action:

Jack played outside for a while with Paul and Grandpa Ron. They found a frog:

Eileen and Debbie took Sophia and Lily for a walk. Here is Eileen with Lily:

Lily taking her evening nap with me and Mr. Moo:

Lily playing again on Sunday morning. She really discovered how much she likes toys this weekend:

She found Big Bird hysterically funny:

Lily with Big Bird:

The next two pictures need a brief explanation. Sophia not only found Lily fascinating but also had to have whatever Lily was playing with. Frequently, she would steal toys away from Lily. Since Sophia can crawl and Lily cannot, Lily was pretty powerless to stop her. Generally, Lily didn’t seem to mind. She was unhappy, though, when Sophia crawled over, took Lily’s pacifier out of her mouth, put it in her own, and crawled away. Unfortunately, I didn’t capture that on film as I was busy recovering the pacifier. Anyway, since Lily was having fun with Big Bird, Sophia decided it was a must-have toy. In the first picture Lily is happily leaning on Big Bird. In the second picture, taken a few seconds afterward, Sophia grabbed Big Bird away which caused a confused Lily to topple over backwards:

Ron and Maureen’s good friend Sonja visited us for the afternoon. Here she is with a sleepy Lily:

Eileen and Lily on the deck:

We had a lovely visit and lunch with Sonja. Before she left we took her picture with Ron and Maureen:

Lily took a bath in the inflatable ducky:

Lily got really tired and fussy so I took her outside away from all the excitement so that she could fall asleep. She had to have Mr. Moo to hug, of course: