On Tuesday, Lily played outside after dinner until bedtime. Running around the yard is her favorite activity plus it tires her out quite nicely. She wanted to go for a stroller ride so I took her for a short walk in our neighborhood but then she got fussy and wanted to get out of the stroller and walk back. The walk home took forever because she had to stop constantly to point at all of the geese flying over and collect rocks by the side of the road. Apparently she is a little rock hound just like her daddy. I gave her a bath because she was cold then nursed her on the bed where she instantly fell asleep. I thought about just leaving her there but decided to continue with my quest to get her to sleep in her crib. Unfortunately, she woke up when I moved her into her room. She cried and tried to get up every time I attempted to leave the room so I sat in the rocking chair and pretended to ignore her until she finally settled down to sleep. This worked really well. When she woke up at 1am, I sent Paul in to try to settle her down as I have read that having mom come in makes the baby want to nurse and if they have dad, they will get bored and go back to sleep and will be more likely to start sleeping through the night. This did not work at all. Paul could not settle her down and she quickly became frantic for me. He brought her in to me and I nursed her back to sleep. I was going to move her back to her crib but fell asleep myself before she was done nursing. With her sleeping next to me, she nursed a lot more during the night than she did the previous night. Perhaps sensing me next to her triggers her to want to nurse or stirs her awake more.
On Wednesday night, I brought the Boppy upstairs with the hope that I could nurse Lily in the rocking chair in her room during the night then put her back in her crib instead of bringing her into the bed. Before starting our bedtime routine, I gave Lily a big snack of an entire large banana and a glass of milk in the hopes that it would keep her full so that she wouldn’t wake up hungry in the night. Unfortunately, that backfired on me as the snack apparently made her very gassy. She initially fell asleep very quickly. As soon as I set her in her crib, she rolled right over and was out but starting shortly thereafter, she woke up crying multiple times. I tried nursing her in the chair but that didn’t calm her down. I then brought her into bed with me but she kept rolling all over the place. Finally, Paul bounced her on his arm like he did when she was a colicky newborn and she eventually passed some gas then was able to settle back down in her crib. Unfortunately, the whole ordeal kept us up between 1-3am so we were all exhausted when the alarm went off.
On a side note, I worked at the Brighton Health Center on Monday through Wednesday of this week which meant that I got to sleep in an extra 30 minutes on each of those days. Love it! After work, I decided to exercise in the MedSport physical therapy gym in the building. Staff is allowed to use the facility for free but I used to always have to rush out the door after work to run errands or pick up Lily. Since Paul now picks up Lily on the days that I work in Brighton, I finally have the time to use the gym. I exercised after work on all three days, doing 45 minutes of cardio and 15 minutes of weights each day. I am one week into watching what I eat and have already lost 7 lbs. This exercise should help speed up the weight loss even more.
Lily woke up on Thursday morning with a runny nose and runny eyes. The poor thing just got over her stomach bug less than a week ago and now she has a cold! She was fussy all evening and nothing made her happy. She wanted to go for a wagon ride but then cried about 5 minutes into the ride. I carried her back to the house while pulling the wagon which was not easy. As I put the wagon away, she spotted her stroller and decided that she wanted to go for a stroller ride. As you can guess, about 5 minutes into the stroller ride, she started crying and wanted me to carry her back. When I put the stroller away, she spotted her car but I was done with that game and insisted that we go back inside to get ready for bed. Lily initially protested but then couldn’t resist climbing the front steps by herself and trying to open the front door as she loves to do big girl things like that. She ate a huge bedtime snack of nearly a pint of frozen blueberries and three big handfuls of cheerios as she watched her favorite episode of Jack’s Big Music Show. She absolutely loved the frozen blueberries but they were horribly messy. Her face and hands were bright blue by the time she was done. I rushed her straight up to the bath and scrubbed her up the best I could but her fingers remained blue. She fell asleep quickly while nursing and I kept her on the bed for a few minutes so that I could cut her nails. She stirred awake a bit when I moved her to her crib but then fell right back to sleep. She didn’t seem to even care if I was in the room with her or not which was good because on previous nights she watched me like a hawk and freaked out if I even shifted in the rocking chair. She woke up around 12:30 as usual. I nursed her in the rocking chair then put her right back in the crib. I stayed in the room until she had fallen completely back to sleep. She woke up at 4am as usual but was crying a lot harder than before. When I went into her room, I found out that she was crying because she was trying to get a drink from her sippy cup but the handle was caught on the crib rail. I freed it for her but the incident caused her to become wide awake. She wouldn’t settle down in the crib so I finally took her into bed with me as I was desperate for sleep. She and I were almost asleep when the alarm went off, causing her to wake back up crying. Heartbreaking! Paul took her downstairs so that I could catch 15 minutes of sleep then brought her back upstairs where she finally slept until we had to leave for work.
By Friday, our bedtime routine was well established. At 8:15pm, I gave her a snack in front of her favorite episode of Jack’s Big Music Show followed by a bath. Then I nursed her on our bed and moved her to her crib when she was done whether she was awake or asleep. I then sat in her room with her, reading a book and ignoring her until she fell asleep. Sometimes she fell right to sleep while other times she thrashed around for quite a bit before settling down. I never understand how she can be almost asleep then find the will to sit up or stand up and play with a stuffed animal or point to things on her mural before collapsing back down again. A few times, she stood up and pointed at me while babbling through her binkie. I tried not to smile or acknowledge her but thought it was cute. She still woke up twice each night. I tried to nurse her in the chair the first time then waited for her to fall back to sleep in the crib but was so exhausted the second time that I ended up taking her back to bed with me. I am getting a lot less sleep now that she is in her crib as before she would wake up only slightly to nurse in the night then we would both fall back to sleep as she nursed. Now I have to get up and stay awake while she nurses and settles back down which means even less sleep for an already sleep-deprived Kelly! The good news is that I have finally found time to read.
Overall, I am very pleased that Lily is finally sleeping in her crib. She has perfected falling asleep in it. Now we just need to work on keeping her in it all night and, of course, getting her to sleep through the night which has been a constant battle. I know that eventually I need to get her to where she is able to fall asleep without me in the room but for now, we are doing well with me sitting in the chair and ignoring her. If I leave the room, she cries and if I pay attention to her, she cries but she is able to soothe herself to sleep if I am just a presence in the room with her. She looks so adorable sleeping in her crib with her little head on her bee pillow. She falls asleep in the funniest positions now. Paul is happy that we are finally using the crib as we paid a lot of money for it. Our bed seems so much bigger now without her in it. Paul is enjoying the extra room but I miss my cuddle bug. I am enjoying having time at night to get things done, though. Before, one of us would have to sit upstairs with her as she slept or hold her on the couch. Sometimes I would lay her on the couch and pin her in by the ottoman but I had to keep watch and constantly worry that one of the cats would accidentally jump on her, especially blind Nolan. Now I know that she is safe in her crib which is a big relief. She was getting too old to simply fall asleep in our arms anymore and I am glad to now have a consistent bedtime routine established. I am also glad that she was the one to initiate this transition to her crib, just like she initiated weaning from the bottle and weaning from breastfeeding during the day as I didn’t have the heart to do those things to her. What can I say? I am weak when it comes to wanting to keep my baby happy.
Paul worked on painting the downstairs bathroom this week. Back in November, I had my dad patch some dings in the drywall throughout the house then repaint over them only to discover that the leftover paint for that room had dried up. Olympic no longer made the paint color I needed (which is too bad because I really loved it) so I had to pick out something close to it which meant that the entire room needed to be repainted. The new paint can sat in our basement gathering dust for 6 months until I could no longer stand looking at the spackle marks on the wall in that room and insisted that Paul finally paint the room as promised.
On Saturday, I held a Premier Designs jewelry party at my house. My mom and Aunt Gloria made almost all of the food and came over about an hour before the 2pm party to help me set up. I was so grateful for their help! My dad came with them and he and Paul went to see Robin Hood while the party was going on. Lily did pretty well during the party. She and Laura’s kids didn’t disrupt Courtney too much. Lily was upset, though, because she really wanted to go outside like the older kids and kept bringing me shoes which is her way of telling me, ‘come on, let’s go outside’. She does this frequently as I always tell her that I can’t go outside with her until I get my shoes on. After the party, we took her outside to play which made her incredibly happy. My parents, Gloria, and Carol stayed for a while to visit which was nice. Lily had her morning nap in the crib but the party overlapped her usual afternoon nap time so she took a small snooze on my mom’s lap outside. I wanted to take her up to the crib but no one wanted to see her go. I was exhausted from all of my disrupted sleep during the week due to Lily’s crib transitioning so I turned her over to Paul after everyone left and went upstairs to take a nice long nap. I woke up right before it was time to put her to bed then went right back to sleep after she went down.
Sunday was a super hot day but we spent most of it outdoors. I was still tired so I slept during Lily’s morning nap. After we got up, we went to Powers Flowers and Alexander’s Nursery to get vegetables to plant in the veggie garden and annuals to add to our perennial beds. It was too hot to plant anything when we got home so we lazed around indoors for a while. Paul took a nap on the couch and I got to finish reading my “putting Lily to bed” book during Lily’s afternoon nap. She was really good about napping in her crib all weekend and seems to go down easier for her naps than at night. I find that odd because I would think that it would be harder for her to fall asleep when it’s light out and without having gone through a bedtime routine, but apparently not. After her afternoon nap, we all headed back outside to play and plant flowers. I tried to keep Lily in the shade as she tends to overheat fairly easily and can become drenched with sweat in mere minutes. She loves to bounce her ball on the patio but it continually bounces off onto the grass. She no longer wants to scoot down the steps on her butt like my mom showed her last week (perhaps because she is now wearing shorts and doesn’t like the stone steps scraping her legs) and instead, thinks that she is coordinated enough to step down them like we do so I had to constantly run over and grab her arm to help her before she fell. After dinner, we started to plant our seeds and potted vegetables in the veggie garden. Lily wanted to help, of course. Her help consisted of stealing my clipboard and pen and throwing clumps of dirt onto the plastic weed barrier between the beds. She was very dirty and sweaty so she got her second bath of the day before bedtime (she had a morning bath due to a messy breakfast). As I was bathing her, I noticed that she got a little red on the tops of her arms, forehead, and neck even though I lathered her up with SPF 70. She probably sweated off most of her sunscreen which I didn’t even think about. She already has quite an impressive farmer’s tan and it’s not even June yet. Her hands are the tannest part of her and are even darker than mine now. She is finally showing some of her Mexican heritage. The contrast between her darkening skin and her bright blue eyes and light hair is very beautiful. Although, I admit I am very biased!
Here are some pictures from this week.
Lily getting very messy eating frozen blueberries on Thursday evening. She had to go straight to the bath and even with tons of scrubbing, still had blue fingers for a few days. Thankfully, the blue mustache and beard washed right off:
Playing with her ball on Saturday evening:
She loves to bounce the ball in the street:
Lily looking at me very skeptically during a wagon ride:
Playing in the shade on the patio on a very warm Sunday afternoon:
Running around the yard:
Lily loves to play with her ball on the patio:
Exploring the yard:
Lily walking along her favorite garden path. She is no longer afraid of the Irish moss:
My hot little girl decided to take a break in her chair in the shade:
Such a cutie:
Every day, Paul lets Lily put sunflower seeds on the patio to feed the chipmunks and birds. She loves to throw handfuls of seeds around then invariably dumps the container out then collects the seeds back in it to do it all over again:
Shaking the container and watching seeds hit the ground:
It is fun to throw it by the handful:
That's taking too long. I think I'll dump the whole thing out now:
Bottom's up:
Lily found this turtle by the pond and was quite delighted by it. Don't worry, it's metal:
What do you mean it's not real:
Helping daddy plant flowers:
Lily wanted to carry the plant tags around the yard with her:
We planted seeds in the vegetable garden on Sunday evening and, of course, Lily wanted to help. Here she is consulting my planting guide and using my pen:
I'll mark that down for you, mommy:
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