Easter Portraits and More (3/21/10)

Here are Lily's Easter portraits:

As I said before, they only had milliseconds to take her picture because she kept running off. Here she is laughing then running away. The second picture looks like most that I try to take of her at home. I always have to use the 'sports' mode on my camera or she is a blur:

Lily brought Chuck to her photo shoot. (These are the raw pictures, the print version of this was cropped better):

Happily running away again:

I love this photo:

I got this gorgeous dress for $3 at a Mom 2 Mom sale:

I love her toothy grin:

So cute:

I wanted a few more 1st birthday pictures so I put her in her birthday party dress. She kept pushing this block all over the place:

Our obligatory chair pictures. I will do a separate post of comparison pictures of her in the chair:

I really like these flower pictures:

Hands down, my favorite:

The flower headband she is wearing was wrapped around one of her birthday presents:

Cat Fight (3/19/10)

Normally I encourage Lily to be nice to the cats and vice versa but I just couldn’t stop this scene because it was so hilarious. Nolan got very bent out of shape that Lily kept trying to touch his face and she thought that his defenses were the funniest thing she had ever seen. Thank goodness he is declawed!

Lily: 1 Year and 3 Weeks (3/15/10 – 3/21/10)

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:

Lily playing with her new toy and watching Blue's Clues after we got home from the Mom 2 Mom sales on Saturday:

Playing with her jewelry box toy from my aunt Gloria:

Playing with her new penguin weeble wobble inflatable. It makes the most hilarious noises when you hit it which Lily loves to do:

My strong girl pushing her big toy across the room:

Much to Lily's delight, Amber was playing in the bag:

Tune In and Rock Out (3/13/10)

Lily loves to turn on the radio on my alarm clock. It is usually the first thing she does when she wakes up. She crawls up to it, smiling the entire time and turns to me delightedly when the music starts. Then she begins bopping to the beat. For this video, we had to prompt her to turn on the radio. She danced more when we asked her to turn it on than she did when the music was actually playing but it is cute, nonetheless. And it’s very impressive that among the many buttons on the radio, she always pushes the correct one.

You've Got Mail! (3/10/10)

Here is a video of Lily playing with the mailbox we bought her for her birthday. It is so cute watching her play with the various parts of it to hear all of its different sounds. I love how she bops to the beat of the songs. She struggles a bit trying to get the bird to make noise but finally succeeds.

Lily: 1 Year and 2 Weeks (3/8/10 – 3/14/10)

I thought that perhaps Lily was transitioning into taking only one nap per day as that was what she did both Saturday and Sunday while waking up and going to bed at her normal times. But perhaps she was just off schedule due to the excitement of her birthday party because she was one sleepy little girl on Monday. She took two big naps- the first was four hours long! Kirsten actually had to wake her up because she was worried about her or Lily might have slept even longer. Unfortunately, all of that sleeping during the day threw her off that night. She got up at 3am on Tuesday morning wide awake and ready to play. She only cried because we kept laying her back down, trying to get her to go back to sleep. We were exhausted! Luckily, she napped normally at Kirsten’s that day and was back on her normal sleep/wake/nap cycle for the rest of the week. She’s back to taking two naps each day, although her morning nap does seem to be getting shorter and shorter.

Lily loves going shopping, although her tolerance for sitting in the cart is low so we end up having to carry her around. That’s fine except for when I am shopping alone with her. It is very hard to push a cart and carry a baby at the same time. Lily is captivated by all there is to see and especially loves grocery stores. On Monday we went to Kroger where she, of course, went nuts over the claw machine. On Wednesday, we went to Costco after picking Lily up. Pat was watching her because Kirsten had to leave shortly before we arrived to go to a physical therapy appointment for her shoulder. Hopefully her injury wasn’t caused by carrying my heavy baby around! While we were checking out at Costco, we ran into the Fredrick family. Lily loves them all so much. We will really miss not having Kirsten as her sitter when the month is over. She is so wonderful and her family is such a perfect fit for Lily.

I had Friday morning off of work to take Lily to her one year doctor visit. She measured 30.4 inches in length which is in the 84th percentile and was 21.3 pounds which is in the 51st percentile. She was in the 81st percentile for weight at her 6 month check-up but dropped to the 55th at her 9 month visit. Now she is even lower (although she did gain weight). Her pediatrician assured me again that this is completely normal for breastfed babies as they transition to solids and end up taking in less fat and calories while being more active. But I miss my little butterball! Her Michelin Man legs are almost completely gone and her arms are skinny now. She is ahead of the curve as far as her fine motor skills, gross motor skills, speech development, etc. and can do such things as pick up small items, place objects where they belong, push levers and buttons to get a toy to work, understand consequences and sequences, walk, talk (she says more than a dozen words now), and help when I dress her. I decided to put off the controversial MMR vaccine until she is a little older so they instead gave her the final round of Hib, Prevnar, and DTAP. We had the great medical assistant administer her shots again. Lily cried this time but it didn’t last long and she was happy immediately afterward. I gave her a preventive dose of Tylenol but Kirsten never gave her any more for the rest of the day because she never developed a fever or seemed ill. That was good. I also discussed with the pediatrician how to wean Lily from breastfeeding and transition her into her crib. Lily has pretty much weaned herself into mainly only breastfeeding at night but I know that the transition to her crib is one that I need to do soon as it is getting crowded in our bed.

Per Dr. Sachdev’s advice, I decided to try transitioning Lily to her crib during naptime first. She already sleeps in a pack-and-play at Kirsten’s during her weekday naps so this is not a new concept for her. Unfortunately, she is not used to it at our house so it was very difficult. For her morning nap on Saturday, it took her 45 minutes to fall asleep and she only slept for 20 minutes versus falling asleep immediately in my arms then sleeping her normal hour and a half. But hey, she did sleep in her crib for the first time ever so that part was a success! I started in the room with her, rubbing her back as she lay in the crib. Then I slowly moved back from the crib to her rocking chair then out of the room while she was still awake. She fussed every time I moved, especially when I left the room for good but never went into an all-out wail. Even though it took her forever to fall asleep, she continued to lie still the entire time. Her afternoon nap in her crib was entirely different. She refused to lay down and kept standing up and pacing the crib. I was exhausted and wanted to take a nap too so I ended up laying down on the floor next to her crib and fell asleep before she did. Later, I woke up and moved to the bed where Paul was napping. It felt so weird having the bed all to ourselves for the first time in over a year. Lily woke up crying really hard after about 30 minutes and couldn’t calm herself down so Paul brought her to bed with us where we all fell back to sleep for about an hour more. That nap in her crib was less successful than her morning nap but at least we tried. Once Lily is used to taking naps in her crib, we will start attempting nights in her crib. I don’t know how successful that will be since she still wakes up and nurses multiple times each night. Plus, I don’t know if I am ready for it as I still love that snuggle time with her, especially after a long workday apart. However, I am totally ready for her to learn to sleep through the night as I am chronically exhausted!

Between Lily’s naps in her crib on Saturday, we went to the Livingston Area Parents of Multiples Mom to Mom sale. My friend, Christina, is a member of the organization so we visited with her briefly while we were there. I wanted to get Lily some outdoor stuff like a pushable ride-on toy and a bucket swing but they didn’t have either item. It didn’t help that we got there pretty late due to Lily’s morning nap taking forever. However, I did get her two adorable dresses and a few toys that she wanted including a stuffed piglet and a poppy bee toy (she loves bees). After the sale, we had lunch at a new Mexican restaurant in Howell. Lily loved her cheese quesadilla.

Our house was still trashed from the birthday party and desperately needed to be cleaned and organized but I could never find the time. I wanted to clean the house on Sunday but I had a bad headache which hurt worse when I bent over so cleaning was out of the picture. Better luck next week!

Now that Lily is over a year old, we can introduce whole cow’s milk to her diet. I tried to do this back when she was 10 months old when my milk supply dropped but was told to hold off until she was 12 months old per her pediatrician. Back then, she loved it but now she is refusing it. Kirsten tried giving it to her all week with little success. She won’t take it alone, mixed with breastmilk, or even just straight breastmilk- she is basically refusing the bottle in general. It’s so weird. I am worried because she needs the extra fat and calories from milk. As previously mentioned, I don’t want her getting any thinner! I asked Dr. Sachdev about it on Friday. She said that it’s fine that Lily is transitioning off the bottle and suggested giving the milk to her in a sippy cup instead. The problem is that Lily only accepts water in her sippy cup. She won’t even take juice in it. Apparently in her mind bottle=milk and sippy cup=water. If she drinks anything else from it, she immediately spits it out, even if it is something that she likes. However, she does drink a variety of things through a cup with a straw as she always wants to sample what I am drinking. She knows to expect the unexpected when drinking through a straw so perhaps we will introduce milk to her that way. The only problem with that is the inconvenience factor of having to carefully hold everything for her so that she doesn’t spill it. She always tries to grab the cup from you or pull the straw out and she is so dang strong that it is hard to fight her!

Here are some pictures from this week.

Lily watching TV in her diaper and a big baggy sweatshirt that belongs to Kirsten’s 5 year old neighbor, Abby. Lily is finally an expert at getting in and out of her chair:

Scooting out of the chair:

And she’s out:

Lily playing with the mailbox toy that she got from us for her birthday. I love her “Too Cool 04 You” shirt and her crazy post-nap hair. We claim that the hair in the back of her head clearly came from Paul as it loves to stick straight up:

These are Paul’s favorite pajamas. We bought them years ago before I was pregnant so these Halloween themed “Monster in Training” pjs didn’t fit Lily in October. It's a little off-season now but we don't care:

I don’t believe that this is the correct way to sit in the chair to watch TV but Lily doesn’t seem to mind:

My happy little girl playing with stuffed animals on the bed on Saturday morning: