Journey to and Through Motherhood: Lily: 1 Year and 6 Weeks (4/5/10

Unfortunately, the bug that Lily came down with on Easter hit her hard for the next few days. She woke up crying at about 3am on Monday morning with a fever of 101F. I gave her some Tylenol and she eventually settled back into a fitful sleep. Lily was too sick to go to daycare so she spent the day at home with Paul and Rachel. Since she didn’t feel well, Lily was very fussy and clingy all day. She also had a super snotty nose and bad sneezes all day long. Every time you try to use a Kleenex on her, she freaks out and cries so it is never fun when Lily’s nose runs! Monday had the best weather all week which was unfortunate for Paul as he had the week off to hang out with Rachel and do outdoor projects but couldn’t get anything done with Lily home. However, the nice weather allowed Lily to play outside which is always guaranteed to make her happy. She spent a lot of time on her new swing and Rachel taught her the joys of going down the slide. Lily is a total speed demon. She loves it when I take her down our sloped driveway in her wagon or stroller, quickly gaining speed until we hit the bottom. Now she is completely addicted to the slide! Paul had given Lily Tylenol every 6 hours throughout the day but we missed her evening dose since we were all playing outside. I thought that perhaps since she was acting so happy that her fever was gone but, unfortunately, it hit 100F right at bedtime.

Lily stayed home from daycare again on Tuesday morning. However, she didn’t need any additional Tylenol all morning and seemed to be feeling well despite her continued runny nose so Paul ended up dropping her off at daycare around noon. I picked her up after work and she immediately started fussing at me like she was mad that we left her there. She grabbed her blanket, tried to pick up her diaper bag, and then headed to the door like, “Come on, let’s go!” Tammy told me that poor Lily was pretty fussy all afternoon which was probably a combination of still not feeling well and being at an unfamiliar place. When Lily and I got home, we saw the progress that Paul had made on his vegetable garden makeover project. To control our weed problem, Paul wanted to empty and lift all nine of the raised beds to put a super heavy duty commercial grade landscape fabric underneath. However, he decided that was too hard to do and that it would be easier just to relocate the entire vegetable garden- raised beds, fence, and all- so he was placing the fabric in the new garden location. Lily had fun playing outside and loved running atop the landscape fabric. She is really into comparing what it feels like to step on different surfaces. She likes to test out walking on the driveway versus the lawn, the flagstones versus the lawn, standing in the dirt pile, etc. She loves walking on a flagstone path that we have through one of our garden beds but for some reason, she can’t stand stepping on the Irish moss between the stones. When she does accidentally touch it, she gets very mad and starts stomping. It’s so funny. She is getting better and better at walking on uneven surfaces, even with her shoes on. Her balance is quite good.

Lily’s daycare transition on Wednesday morning was tear-free because she was asleep when I dropped her off. When I picked her up, she was really happy and finally didn’t fuss at me or bolt for the door. Instead, she smiled at me, showed me what she was playing with, and continued playing. Finally, a sign that she is adjusting to her new daycare! I am so relieved. Rachel had her friend Heather over all day. They had so much fun that we agreed to let the play date turn into a sleepover. My parents came over shortly after I arrived home and brought a dinner of bean soup with ham and scalloped potatoes with ham. (Leftover Easter ham, anyone?) They also brought the set of keys that we accidentally left at their house on Easter and our completed income taxes to sign. I was dismayed that we aren’t getting nearly as much back this year as last but apparently it is a combination of Obama changing how much money we get in each paycheck versus how much we get back at the end of the year to stimulate the movement of money (funny, I thought that I was in charge of how many exemptions I wanted and how I wanted my money to flow) and claiming less donations this year (last year’s giant basement cleanout led to us donating over a thousand dollars worth of items to the Salvation Army). It was chilly outside but Paul took my dad out to show him the garden progress as he had moved some of the beds over onto the landscape fabric and had filled them with fresh topsoil and compost. He will use the soil that used to fill the raised beds in the ever-expanding flower garden on the north side of our house. Rachel and Heather quietly hung out in Rachel’s room and we didn’t hear a peep from them all night. This was great because Lily’s illness had been keeping us from sleeping well all week but her improved health allowed us to finally get a decent night’s rest.

Paul continued to make progress in the garden on Thursday and Friday while Lily continued to do better at her daycare drop-offs and pick-ups. It was cold and windy which made working unpleasant for Paul and bummed out Lily because she couldn’t play outside. By Friday, Paul had all of the beds moved except one which needed to be repaired. Most of the beds were filled but he needed to get another load of topsoil and compost to complete the task. He had hoped to get the fence installed as well but everything always takes way longer than we plan. Plus Paul lost a day and a half of work taking care of Lily when she was sick. Rachel was at a sleepover at her friend Sarah’s house so Paul, Lily, and I went grocery shopping at Wal-Mart on Friday evening. Before we left, Lily took the tortilla chips out of the pantry all by herself while saying, “Mmmm,” and then walked around the kitchen eating out of the bag. It was really cute. She just recently started reaching into boxes and bags to get food out by herself. I suppose that it takes more tactile coordination to do a blind grasp where she can’t use her eyes to assist her. At Wal-Mart, I needed to return some pictures that I had ordered and paid for online because the color quality was bad on them. Big mistake! It took over 30 minutes for me to get my money back. First I went to the photo desk which is always unattended so it took 10 minutes before I could get someone from Electronics (the next department over) to come help me. That guy sent me to Customer Service at the front of the store where I waited in line for 5 minutes. Then the person at Customer Service tried to send me back to the photo desk! It was very frustrating and took multiple calls around the store and consultations with multiple managers. Finally, 15 minutes later, they gave me back my $20. By then, Lily was tired and had lost her tolerance for grocery shopping but we hadn’t yet started. AAH! I think I will stick with Costco for all of my photo needs from now on.

Paul let me sleep in a bit on Saturday morning. It was still cold out but Lily desperately wanted to play outside. The neighbor boys, Max and Luke, were playing in their sandbox and let her join them. She had so much fun! She kept getting in trouble when she tried to play in the dirt in the vegetable garden beds so she was delighted to be able to play in the sand without recourse. Plus the boys have a lot of trucks in their sandbox. Lily loves trucks. I got up and showered while Lily was taking her morning nap then I took over watching her while Paul resumed working in the yard. Thankfully, it turned into a beautiful and warm day. Paul fixed the last garden bed and had a load of topsoil delivered. Lily thought it was great fun to watch the big truck dump out the soil. While we were all outside, our new next-door neighbors were moving in. Unfortunately, they have what seems to be an unruly Rottweiler. We are not happy. The dog is out of control and barks constantly. They kept it on a tie-out in the back yard all day where it drove us crazy. Now we have to be worried about Lily’s safety when she is outside which totally sucks. Paul tried to introduce himself to the woman but she didn’t seem friendly. We are bummed as we were optimistic about potentially having cool new neighbors. Paul talked to a lot of the people that came to see the house and all of them were really friendly. Disappointingly, none of those people bought it. Now we have to contend with aloof neighbors and a worrisome dog. Ugh!

Later Saturday afternoon, Paul got himself cleaned up, we gave a very dirty Lily a bath, and then we headed off to Costco. I ended up shopping alone because Lily fell asleep in the car on the way there so Paul stayed with her in the car so as not to interrupt her nap. After unloading our groceries, we picked Rachel up from her sleepover at Sarah’s and headed to the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor to take some pictures of Lily in the daffodils. Those pictures will be in the next blog post. We left the gardens fairly late so we stopped at the nearby McDonald’s for dinner then headed home to watch ‘The Princess and the Frog’ as a last family activity before Rachel left. Rachel got the DVD as an Easter present from my parents.

Lily fought sleep and ended up going to bed really late on Saturday night. She woke up countless times in the night crying and wanting to nurse. When I got up on Sunday morning, my back was killing me from lying at funny angles to nurse her all night long. We all had to get up early to take Rachel to the airport for her return flight to South Carolina. Lily was ravenously hungry and ate a huge breakfast so that was probably why she didn’t sleep well. She probably just couldn’t get enough breastmilk to satiate her. Perhaps she is growing. Our trip to the airport reconfirmed my hatred of Metro (see two posts ago). The lady at the desk was as dumb as a box of hair and was incredibly stressed out over the simple task of checking Rachel in. All of her information was already in the computer from her inbound flight but the lady still kept freaking out about every little detail. The entire check-in process took a grueling 20 minutes after which she only gave me a gate pass, not Paul. We have always both been allowed to accompany her to the gate but this lady stuck hard to the never before enforced rule that only one adult can take an unaccompanied minor to the gate. If we had known that she was going to insist on this, Paul would have been the one to obtain a gate pass, not me. After all, Rachel is his daughter and Lily was being very mommy-needy. However, we figured that we would make her head explode if we asked her to retract my gate pass and give Paul one instead so we just went with it. I took Rachel to the gate but we were two hours early so we had plenty of time to kill. I had wondered why Paul was pushing us to leave home so early but apparently when I told him that the flight was at 1:45, he only heard the 1. Proof that he only listens to half of what I say! So Rachel and I ate lunch at Wendy’s and got some candy and magazines to pass the time. Meanwhile, Paul drove Lily around so that she could nap in the car and then they went to Home Depot in Ann Arbor. I called Paul once Rachel boarded the plane and he drove back from Ann Arbor to pick me up outside of baggage claim. Despite all of the airport drama, we were sad to see Rachel leave. It was nice having her home for the week.

After we left the airport, we went over to Meghan’s house to help her and Ryan move a king size mattress from her parents’ house to their house. We didn’t stay long, though, since we hadn’t really been home all day. Lily was really cute while we were there and expressed interest in baby Abygail. She was less jealous this time and let me hold the baby without protesting. When we got home, Paul moved the new load of topsoil into the beds while Lily tried to take it out by the handfuls and throw it onto the landscape fabric. It was cute but very messy. She kept leaning into the beds so far that her feet would come off the ground. Paul was driving the loads to the back of the yard using the lawnmower and trailer. Lily wasn’t scared of the noise but kept getting sad when her daddy drove away so I put her in her wagon and we raced Paul back and forth between the garden and the dirt pile. She found this delightful. Afterward, I let her play in the neighbor’s sandbox again so that she would stop making a mess of our garden. She was so dirty that she ended up needing a bath immediately after we went inside.

I didn’t pump all week but kept my pumping breaks on the work schedule just in case I needed to do so. Lily still refused to take bottles at her new daycare and wouldn’t even take milk from a cup with a straw until I brought Tammy some chocolate milk. Now Lily is happily drinking the chocolate milk. She still isn’t eating great at daycare but is doing better than before. She did discover a love for mandarin oranges and green beans while at daycare this week and, of course, will always eat her Chicken in a Biskit crackers.

Lily discovered a love for birds this week. She loves to point at them in the sky and especially loves it when the noisy geese and ducks fly over. She also likes to chase them, even when they are flying above. Her latest thing is to run with her arms behind her. It is very cute. Lily also started a new game this week of tackling Amber then steam-rollering her. We don’t encourage it but Amber doesn’t really seem to mind. She squeaks a bit in protest but doesn’t bother to get out of the way so clearly she’s not that troubled by it.

Again, Lily didn’t get to practice napping in her crib this weekend. It is hard because we are always on the go during the weekend so most of her naps end up taking place in the car. She was home all day Monday but Paul didn’t put her in her crib to nap because she was sick and is always very needy and cuddly when she is ill. We may need to just start introducing sleeping at night in her crib because my overnight overtime shifts are coming up soon.

Here are some pictures from this week.

Lily and Rachel playing on the swingset on Monday evening:

Even though she was sick, Lily was very happy to be playing outside:

Maybe if I sit here long enough, someone will help me slide:

Running girl:

Lily attacking Rachel:

Lily posing with some daffodils around our maple tree on Tuesday. I would like it to be known that Paul dressed her that day:

So cute:

Playing with the daffodils:

Ooh, a leaf:

Lily running on the landscape fabric that Paul put down in the location of our new vegetable garden:

She enjoying running around then stopping, dropping, and rolling all over the fabric:

Lily discovered the neighbor's sandbox which she found to be great fun. She usually gets in trouble for playing in dirt so she was delighted to be allowed to play in the sand with no one stopping her:

Running around with a daffodil. Lily loves to pick flowers:

Lily always has to have something in each hand so in addition to her daffodil, she found a dead branch in our neighbor's yard to carry around with her:

Lily chewing on her daffodil in our gazebo:

Lily started playing a new game this weekend which involves pouncing on Amber then steam-rolling her. Amber doesn't seem to like the game as much as Lily does. I wonder why: