Journey to and Through Motherhood: Lily: 1 Year and 3 Weeks (3/15/10

Daylight Savings Time was really hard on Lily! She usually gets up at 6:30 or 6:45 in the morning and was, therefore, still asleep at 7:30 when we had to leave for Kirsten’s on Monday morning. We ended up just putting our sleeping beauty in the carseat still in her pajamas, hauling her to Kirsten’s, and leaving for work at 7:45, all while she was still snoozing. Apparently she woke up right after we left. Her normal bedtime is between 8:30 and 9:00pm but DST threw that off as well. She stayed up Monday night until about 10pm. Kirsten had Tuesday off so my dad brought my mom down on Monday evening to stay the night and watch Lily the following day. We all stayed up late visiting until about 11:30pm.

It was okay that Lily slept in on Tuesday morning since she didn’t have to leave the house. She got up around 7:30am just as we were heading off to work. She had a good day with my mom and took two long naps. My mom finally got her to drink cow’s milk from a cup with a straw. Apparently she has abruptly weaned herself off of bottles which her pediatrician says is just fine because drinking from a cup is better for her teeth anyway. The only time Lily got fussy is when she was looking at her photo album and turned to the page with a picture of her and me. She would whimper every time she looked at that page so my mom would have to quickly turn it. My poor little sweetie missed her mommy! My dad came over at about 5:30pm right before we arrived home and we all had dinner together. My mom made Turketti which I absolutely love. Lily enjoyed it too.

I had insomnia for some reason on Tuesday night and was up until about 2:30am. I was completely dragging on Wednesday morning which was St. Patrick’s Day. Lily got up at 7:20am so we could at least hurry and get her dressed in green before taking her to Kirsten’s. She had to go on an empty stomach which is fine because she always has breakfast with Kirsten’s kids. The only difference is that she usually has breakfast at home then has her second breakfast when she gets to Kirsten’s house so she only got one morning meal that day. (My little girl eats like a Hobbit.) Unfortunately, Lily didn’t have a very good day. She was clingy and lethargic so Kirsten gave her some Tylenol. She didn’t appear to be teething and didn’t have a fever even though she felt warm so I don’t know what was going on with her. She acted fine for us that evening but still felt warm despite not having a fever. It was a beautiful day so she spent a lot of time outdoors. She was playing in the yard at Kirsten’s house when we got there. Before we left, Lily had her first tiny taste of beer from Kirsten’s obligatory St. Patty’s Day ale. Hey, she was the one begging for it! When we got home, we took Lily for a walk in her Jeep stroller. When she rode in it in the fall, she was too small to reach the steering wheel and all of the buttons but now she can reach them and took great delight in honking the horn and pushing the buttons to hear music and car noises. Lily went to bed at 9:30 that night which was still an hour past her bedtime but the earliest she’d gone to sleep all week. I was grateful because I was exhausted from getting such little sleep the night before.

Lily got up around 7:15am on Thursday so at least she has adjusted to the time change a little more every day. That afternoon, I read an article online about introducing Daylight Savings Time to your children slowly over a week period by adjusting bedtime and wake-time by 10 minutes each day. That is a really good idea and one that I hadn’t even thought of. We didn’t seem to have a problem when we “fell behind” in the fall but our “leap ahead” this spring has been problematic for her. Last spring she was just a newborn and I was on maternity leave so the time adjustment didn’t mean anything to either of us but next spring, we definitely need to try what the article recommended. Paul had a dentist appointment at 5pm so he left work early but got home at about the same time as Lily and I. It was another beautiful day so we took Lily for another neighborhood walk in her Jeep stroller. Kirsten was picking up Keegan from a play-date at our neighbor’s house so Lily was delighted to see Kirsten, Keegan, and Nate on her home turf. It seems like this warm weather has brought the neighborhood back to life. Everyone was outside walking, riding bikes, and such. It was nice to see everyone after a long hibernation.

Lily woke up at 6:30am on Friday morning! She is finally back on schedule after taking about a week to adjust to DST but, unfortunately, the weekend will probably throw her right back off. Usually she sleeps in on the weekend until 7:15 or 7:30am. Oh well. Kirsten called right when we were getting ready to walk out the door to drop Lily off at her house to tell us that Keegan was vomiting and she couldn’t possibly watch Lily and take care of a puking kid at the same time. Totally understandable! It was too late for any back-up care so I called in to work and stayed home with Lily. I was excited to be home because it was forecasted to be the last warm, sunny day for a while. Unfortunately, I didn’t really get to enjoy the day. Lily was horribly fussy. She cried a ton and had to be held constantly. She didn’t have a fever but had a runny nose so she probably had a cold and just didn’t feel well. She barely wanted to eat and refused to nurse due to her stuffy nose. I took her out on the porch a few times as being outside always calms her down but I didn’t try to take her for a stroller ride because I didn’t think that she would tolerate not being held and she is too heavy for me to carry around the neighborhood. Finally, I decided to try it anyway since the day was almost over and, to my surprise, being in the stroller was just the ticket to making her happy. Paul came home and saw us out walking so he joined us.

We got up early on Saturday for a Mom 2 Mom Sale shopping spree. Paul was less than thrilled as he would rather have a root canal than go shopping but too bad because I needed his help with Lily. I wanted to buy her some shoes so I needed her fat feet to come with me to check for fit. My goal was to hit 6 sales spread across Ann Arbor, Brighton, and Howell but we only got to 3 of them. One was nowhere to be found (even with the GPS), the second closed an hour earlier than advertised, and we ran out of time to hit the third before it closed. I still didn’t find an outdoor ride-on toy with a push handle or a bucket swing for our swing set like I was looking for but I did find some cute clothes, a pair of shoes, and a few fun toys for Lily. One of the toys was this Leapfrog Learn-Around Playground which she loved playing with at Christina’s house but is currently out of production. I am so glad to have found one! We ended near the outlet mall so we stopped in there for lunch then hit a few stores. I wanted to get Lily some high-quality shoes from Stride Rite and had heard good things about their new SRTs. She is horrible at walking in shoes and usually pulls her socks and shoes off and goes barefoot. However, she needs shoes for walking outside now that the weather is warmer. I heard that the SRTs are good because they flex with movement yet help stabilize new walkers. Lily has such fat feet that I can’t ever find anything that will fit her without being way too long so I also wanted to get her foot professionally sized. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any SRTs at the outlet nor could I find anyone that would help me so I left the store very frustrated. Luckily the outlet visit wasn’t a total bust as I got Lily some socks from Gap Kids and a cute shirt and sunhat from Children’s Place. When we got home, we all took a well-deserved nap and chilled out for the rest of the day.

Lily woke us up quite early on Sunday then fought her morning nap so Paul took her for a car ride to get her to sleep as she was being quite fussy and was clearly exhausted. She fought like a champ but a bumpy dirt road finally knocked her out. Meanwhile, Paul let me stay home and sleep in which was wonderful. After Lily’s nap and a bath, I called Portrait Innovations to see if they had any openings that day. Lily’s runny nose had subsided and I decided that I wanted to get some Easter pictures and to try for a few more 1 year pictures in her birthday dress (and hopefully finally get a few with her smiling). Luckily, they had an opening for us that afternoon. Lily did very well and gave them a ton of smiles, although they had to snap the pictures quickly because she would only hold a pose for about a millisecond then would run off to play with the kids in the lobby. Luckily, she didn’t get upset when we repeatedly dragged her back into the studio for more pictures. She thought it was a fun game. Unfortunately, it took forever for us to be able to view and choose our pictures because one of their viewing stations was down. We bided our time chatting with some really nice people, though. Once we finally chose our pictures, we didn’t have time to wait around for them to be printed because we were late for our planned visit with Chris and Laura. We were supposed to be at their house at 4pm but didn’t end up getting there until 5pm. Thankfully, they completely understood as they are such nice people. I will have to pick the portraits up after work on Tuesday since the studio is closed on Monday. We had a nice visit with Chris and Laura and ordered pizza for dinner which Lily enjoyed. She was good while we were at their house but then had a rough night. She kept waking up crying really hard. It is odd because she had a rough morning then was awesome all day, only to then have a rough night. I can’t decide if she is sick or not because she seems to only feel bad every other day. She wasn’t herself on Wednesday, was fine on Thursday, was horribly fussy on Friday, was fine again on Saturday, and then fluctuated throughout the day on Sunday. It’s a mystery!

Unfortunately, Lily didn’t get to practice napping in her crib at all this weekend because we were either on the road or she was too fussy. Better luck next weekend! At least she is taking cow’s milk better now that she is drinking it through a cup with a straw. To get Lily to drink more milk, Kirsten introduced her to chocolate milk this week. She loves it!

Here are some pictures from this week.

Silly Lily playing in her chair with her cute little butt up in the air (seriously, the rhyming was unintentional):

Lily loves her Dora chair:

Lily opening her Easter/birthday present from her aunt Eileen. She loved this little bunny:

Paul pushing Lily around on her car. She can now help a little bit with her feet:

Wheeeeeee:

Lily likes to put her favorite toys in her stroller and take them for a walk. Here we have her stuffed kitty and her new bunny. I was impressed that she got the kitty's legs threaded through the leg-holes so well:

Lily loves to play with her birthday balloons, even in her highchair:

Lily going for a walk in her Jeep stroller on Thursday. She loves to push the buttons on the steering wheel. They play music and make fun noises. Notice how her and I are both wearing jean jackets. We are so coordinated: