Journey to and Through Motherhood: Lily: 1 Year and 16 Weeks (6/14/10

This is going to be a pretty disjointed post as parts of this week are in the previous three posts and the end of the week will be in the following two. I worked at the Brighton Health Center on Monday through Wednesday of this week which meant that Paul was in charge of taking Lily to and from daycare. I took advantage of being baby-free after work and ran a few errands on my way home each day in preparation for our upcoming vacation. On Monday, we took Lily for her first haircut as I’ve already posted. On Tuesday, I got home fairly late. Paul took some videos of Lily playing on the patio after work which I’ve already posted as well. On Wednesday, Lily fell down at daycare and received her first Band-Aid-worthy boo-boo. She scraped her knee pretty hard. She was very proud of the SpongeBob Squarepants Band-Aid Tammy gave her and kept showing it off to us. For the rest of the week, whenever we asked Lily about her owie, she pointed to her knee. We went to the Hamburg Family Fun Fest after work on Thursday which is featured in the previous post. We were going to return to the Fun Fest on Friday night for the first of two nights of fireworks but a huge storm kept us home and closed the Fun Fest. The storm carried with it a tornado warning and was scheduled to hit us right at Lily’s bedtime so we had to keep her up late and rode out the storm in the basement. Fortunately, there was no tornado. There was a lot of thunder and lightning but Lily didn’t seem to notice or mind. Our power flickered a few times but, thankfully, never went out. Corralling an over-tired and therefore hyper and fussy Lily in our non-babyproof basement was exhausting so I was very happy when the storm was over. I went right to sleep after putting Lily to bed more than two hours past her normal bedtime.

Saturday was a really busy day for us. We got up early and headed up to Davison to finally order a topper for Paul’s truck from Auto Ad Onz. My hope was that Lily would take her morning nap on the car ride there but she did not. The topper apparently has to be custom made and painted so, unfortunately, it won’t be ready until after our vacation. We will have to devise a system of tarps and totes to keep everything safe in the back of the truck on our way up to the cabin. After ordering the topper, we stopped at my parents’ house for a short visit. This time only my mom was there as my dad was at an American Legion convention. After our visit, we headed to Fenton for Hayden’s open house. He is the son of our co-worker, Mary. Lily (and Paul) slept for a whopping 10 minutes on our short drive there. Despite her much abbreviated nap, Lily was quite well-behaved during the open house. We visited with Mary, Julie, and Wade (who seems very relaxed now after his recent retirement) and played some ladder ball and Wiffle ball. I have always sucked at softball and baseball but apparently I am a great batter at Wiffle ball. It seems that I just need a giant bat to be able to hit well. We stayed for a few hours then Lily started getting fussy so we headed out. Amazingly, she didn’t sleep at all on the drive home. We only stayed home for a short while before heading back out again to see the Hamburg Family Fun Fest fireworks. This adventure is also on the previous post. It was nice because they did twice as many fireworks on Saturday night since the Friday night fireworks were cancelled due to the storm. Lily finally fell asleep on the short drive to see the fireworks. It figures! Sunday was Father’s Day and will be featured in the next two posts.

I spent a lot of time this week working in small doses on putting Lily’s 18 months clothes into circulation. Between the large amount of hand-me-downs from Roni and Debbie (which I am hugely grateful for) and the stuff my mom and I bought, Lily has a lot of clothes in her next size. She is kind of between sizes right now so I kept the 12 month clothes in her closet as well and just got rid of the few things that are too small. It always takes forever to do the changeover as I rewash and sort everything before arranging it all in her closet and drawers by size and type.

Lily is still in love with clocks. She doesn’t recognize the digital type but loves all analog clocks, especially those that chime. Last weekend ,she started making the “k” sound and by mid-week this week, was saying “clock” at every opportunity. However, it sounds more like “cock” as she has yet to learn the “el” sound.

Lily has gotten in a routine now where she squats behind one of the dining room chairs to ‘do her business’ then immediately comes out to get me then walks over to the gate at the bottom of the stairs to indicate that she is ready to head upstairs for a diaper change. I think this is just marvelous and hope that it means she will be easy to potty-train. She also likes to come into the bathroom with me and is very interested in what I am doing so I explain everything to her each time. I also see this as a good sign.

According to my weekly email update from Our365.com, “Some researchers say that narcissism (another word for self-involvement) peaks between now and 18 months- something you’re probably well aware of. Your little one has an incredible drive for autonomy and insists on holding the spoon, turning the pages, choosing the clothes (and taking them off), and pushing the stroller herself. Pushing the stroller also makes it easier for your baby to walk with you- beginner walkers are all about moving away and toward you, not alongside you; if she’s pushing, she’s likely to be moving in the same direction as you.” I think that the drive for autonomy (a nice way of saying complete and utter stubbornness) is definitely going on with Lily. She totally has to do everything for herself which can drive me crazy at times. She wants to use real silverware, not the cute, safe toddler silverware that I got her. She insists on using silverware instead of her fingers for everything, even foods like blueberries that are really hard to scoop or stab. This makes her eat a lot slower and usually leads to a huge mess. Plus, I think that she eats less this way as she tends to get frustrated with herself and stop eating. If I try to help her when I see her struggling, she gets angry and jerks the silverware away, causing food to fly across the room. When she is done eating, she lets us know by throwing the remainder of her food on the floor and doesn’t seem to know the meaning of the words “no” or “stop”. She will rarely sit for long in her stroller or in a shopping cart and, instead, wants to get out and help push. It is very cute but slows us down quite a bit. Plus it is difficult at the grocery store as she usually ends up ramming the cart into something or someone when I look away for a mere moment to grab something off the shelves. She is so strong that she can move the cart with quite a bit of speed even when it is loaded down with two bags of cat litter and a ton of groceries. I hadn’t thought of what the article said about beginner walkers not usually moving in the same direction as you. It is true that she is usually running toward me or I am chasing her as she runs away from me. The running away thing scares me as she has done it a few times when we are out shopping. It is difficult for me to get her to walk beside me and she will hardly ever comply with holding my hand when we are walking. However, she does now grab my finger to pull me where she wants to go or show me something she wants me to get for her. I find it very cute and think that it is a smart technique to get what she wants when she doesn’t yet have the words to tell me.

Here are some pictures from this week.

Lily loves watermelon:

Getting out some birdseed to feed to the chipmunks:

I love the bee on the butt of this outfit:

Silly girl sitting on a Costco-size Cheerios box and playing with her pretend food:

Lily's first Band-Aid-worthy owie:

Her sandbox is huge but she prefers to sit right at the edge so that when she throws sand, it lands outside of the sandbox:

Playing with her boat:

My happy girl loves to play in her sandbox:

Lily was very proud of her Band-Aid and kept showing it to me:

Happy girl lying down on her swingset platform. I love her gap-toothed smile:

My cutie:

Lily kept playing around banging her two swings into each other. She found it hysterically funny, even though one did come back and knock her down once:

My little Lily with our daylilies:

Eating a stem, of course:

Okay, I am done with picture time now:

Tired girl fell back to sleep before leaving for daycare on Thursday morning:

Lily's owie- 1 day old:

While we were riding out Friday night's storm in the basement, Lily found her old Exersaucer and wanted to play in it. Look at how much bigger she is in it now versus a year ago: