Month 10

For the record, I am REALLY behind in keeping this updated. Lily is now 20 months and I am going to go back and look at pictures and try to remember!!!

So about half way through this month I had to go back to work. It was really hard leaving Lily after getting to spend so much time with her over the summer. We spent the rest of our summer hanging out and visiting people. Lily did help me set up my classroom. She had a lot of fun looking at all the stuff that I was bringing in to use with my kids. This year I have 30 4th graders, so it should be a little bit of a challenge.

One exciting adventure we went on this month was to the zoo. We thought Lily would get a kick out of seeing all the different animals! She was very interested in the animals, and was most excited when seeing the bears and the monkeys. She also thought it was pretty fun to ride on Daddy’s shoulders to see the animals better. The other kids at the zoo also held a lot of appeal to Lily!

Rob and I have enjoyed making Lily a part of everything we do. She likes to experiment with food. She had spaghetti this month! She also is really enjoying playing with her baby food, it’s just as much fun to finger paint with than it is to eat!

New Developments:
Lily is getting really good at keeping her balance standing up and is showing off by doing many tricks. She also really enjoys getting into the cabinets and pulling things out. In the kitchen she loves to pull out all of the Tupperware. In the bathroom she loves to pull out Mommy’s pads and tampons. She has been known to make quite a mess in a very short amount of time!

At the Zoo!

 Talking back to Mommy.

 



Participating in a Fantasy Football Draft       

                                  

Working out!

 Off to a party!

 

Brushing her teeth with Daddy.

 She is confortable in her own skin. Birthday suit!

Month 9

       It’s July and it is hot!  I can’t believe that I have already been on summer break for a month.  It is going too fast, I am already starting to miss Lily!  Lily and I have gone to several barbecues and parties.  She of course has been the hit of them all. 

 

       The big excitement of this month is Lily’s first camping trip outside of the womb.  She is so tough and loved it so much!  Unfortunately, fire danger was “Extreme” for most of the summer and the fire ban didn’t lift until midnight on the last night we were there.

       We spent a lot of time hiking while we were there.  Lily did phenomenal on the hikes and couldn’t quite understand why everyone was so tired.  She even napped on the way when she was bored of seeing us struggle.  On the hike to Nolan Lake we were all worried because we lost Fiji.  As we were slowly making our way up, we heard from other hikers (on their way down) that Fiji had “guided” them part of the way and then disappeared.  We eventually caught up with her.  When we got to the top, a little Spanish girl yells out “Fiji.”  We look at each other and ask, “Did she just say Fiji?”  Apparently she had been the Sherpa for that family before meeting back up with us.  Lily was not surprised, she knew the whole time that Fiji was safe.

       Grammie and Papa had invited us to stay in the cabins, but Lily insisted that she wanted to stay in the tent.  Lily, the dogs, and I were so brave we even stayed 2 nights in the tent without Rob. He had to go to work in the middle of the week and we were without him for about 2 days.  While camping we also celebrated Rob’s birthday.  Lily loved celebrating with him and helping him open presents.

       We also celebrated Kyle’s first birthday.  Lily made her debut as a beach babe.  Kyle’s birthday was a pool party.  Lily enjoyed showing off her new bikini.

       Lily and I spent a lot of time in Denver while Rob was working and working over time.  We enjoyed getting to see our family and friends so much.  We also got to take Auntie Jenna out to lunch on her birthday.   Lily had a blast showing off to anyone who would pay attention.

 

New Developments for Lily:

       She is definitely crawling now!  She is not super fast but she can get around much better than when she was just rolling.  She likes to hang out with older babies because it inspires her to try new things.

       She has also started to pull herself up on things.  She started by pulling herself up on the high chair.  She like that it had two bars to shimmy up.  She is getting quite confident in holding herself up on various things around the house.  Rob and I are getting much more confident in our baby proofing however, each new milestone Lily reaches we realize we have more work to do.

       Still no teeth.

Month 8

       I am officially out of school and loving spending my time with Lily.  We start out the month with a trip to Chicago to show Lily off to Rob’s family.  As I said in my last post, Lily only got a little sick and only threw up a few times.  The last time she threw up was on the way to the airport.  This made Rob and I very nervous for her first plane ride.  Luckily, Lily is the perfect baby and was just fine on the ride.  We actually got compliments from other passengers, who I am sure were not excited to be seated next to a baby!

       Chicago was fantastic, but very short.  We were only able to go during Rob’s 4 days off.  Unfortunately, we did not get very many pictures, I should just bring Jenna along on my trips to document what we did.  We arrived Wednesday June 13^th in the evening and then left around noon on Saturday the 16th.  We spent a lot of time eating all the wonderful Chicago food while we were there.  It was even more wonderful to see family and be able to show off Lily.

When we arrived we had Chicago Beef sandwiches, they were good but a little rough on my barely healed stomach.  (Still not feeling 100% after being sick.)  Lily, of course, was wonderful and entertained her Dzia Dzia and Busia (Rob’s parents) right off the bat!  Busia had an entire wardrobe for Lily for her visit out to Chicago, I shouldn’t have packed a thing for Lily, Busia had us covered.  Thursday was a pretty relaxed day.  We went out to a nice Italian restaurant for lunch.  Lily wore an adorable dress and sat in the high chair like a big girl!  We tried to mash some peas to feed her, but they were too thick and she hated it!!!

That evening a couple of Rob’s cousins and aunt came over and it was nice to visit with them.  Friday we spent the morning shopping around, which Lily loved!  We went to Cabela’s and Lily got to see the large aquarium in the store!  When we got back it was bath time for Lily (see funny story below).  Busia thoroughly enjoyed bathing Lily in the sink!  That evening Dzia Dzia and Busia threw a big party where family and friends stopped by to meet Lily and see us!  It was fun to see all of the little kids running around.  Lily is very excited to have so many friends when she goes to Chicago.  Saturday morning we were off to the airport.  Lily was wonderful again on the plane ride.

       Funny Story:  While we were on our way home from shopping (while in Chicago) Lily started to freak out in the carseat.  She has been doing this lately, not really enjoying being in the carseat for extended periods of time.  We tried to ignore it, but it was hard, because she cries so hard she chokes herself.  Dzia Dzia stepped on the gas in an attempt to get us home faster.  Rob decided it was just time for us to pull over.  I pulled her out of the carseat in an attempt to calm her down.  That’s when I noticed there was poop all over my arm and shirt because Lily had exploded out of her diaper.  Rob came back to help me change her and wipe her up the best we could until we got home.  While Rob and I were frantically cleaning Dzia Dzia and Busia… were laughing in the front.  I guess that’s one of the perks of being a grandparent, you get payback for all of the drama your kids put you through!

       Lily and I spent a lot of time at Grammie’s house while Rob was working.  It was fun to see her play with Grammie and Papa.  It was also nice to have some help with Lily.

       Lily’s new friend Trevor was born at the end of June, so we went and visited them in the hospital.  Lily got a big kick out of seeing another little baby.

       We finished off this month with the 4^th of July celebration.  Lily has so many cute clothes that we had a costume change half way through, to make sure we got all of her Holiday clothes on her!  Unfortunately because of all the fire bans we were unable to do fireworks, so we will have to see what Lily thinks of them next year!  Lily’s betrothed, Kyle was at the party as well.  We had a blast getting pictures of them and watching them “play” together.

New Developments in Lily:

Lily will get up on all fours now, but will not crawl yet.  She still drops her legs when she is ready to go somewhere, but let me tell you she can really cover some ground when she wants to!  Rob and I have been reevaluating how baby proof our house is.  I assume we will have to reevaluate every time she learns a new skill.

Lily is still trucking along with trying new foods, pureed of course!  She is also still waiting for her teeth to come in.  I keep thinking any day it will happen.

Month 7

        It is May now and we are nearing the end of school.  I can’t wait to be home full-time with Lily.  Lily and I are getting through the week spending a little bit of time together in the evenings and loving the weekends when we are inseparable.  Lily does love hanging out with her Daddy during the day, but is usually excited to see her Mama when she gets home.

We are still waiting for that tooth to come in.  I can’t feel the little tooth poking through anymore.  Many people have told me that it is normal to have baby teeth do that.  We keep hoping for her teeth to come in.

May brought us our first Mother’s Day.  What a special day to appreciate the beauty of being a mom.  Lily and Daddy spoiled me rotten with many different gifts.  They got me a mani-pedi, 2 massages, and some new shoes!  It was wonderful being able to spend Mother’s Day with the family!  Lily enjoyed celebrating her Mom, Grammie, and Great Grandma.  We also had fun making Grammies present.  Lily, her aunties, and I decorated some pots so that Grammie could grow her own herbs.  Lily helped decorate from inside Mommy’s jacket.  She loves to be part of a surprise.

Speaking of surprise, Grammie turned 60 this year and we were all gearing up for a big surprise party!  Everything was set-up perfectly, Grammie was still in the dark about it all, and then all of a sudden everything went south.  I had one week left in school and couldn’t wait to be done.  Unfortunately, I started feeling sick.  I was worried that it was food poisoning from an indiscretion at Wendy’s.  I made it through the whole day of school and home to my Lily.  All I wanted to do was go to bed.  Rob was at work so I would not have his help for the next two nights.  I fed and bathed Lily and got her ready for bed.  By the time I was ready to crawl into bed my legs were shaking and I was barely able to keep myself upright.  Being a Mommy when you are sick is tough!  Luckily, my Mom took pity on me and decided to come up and help me out.  

I made it through the last day of school with my kids and came home to my mom.  It was so nice to have her help and she was also going to help me the next day cleaning up my classroom.  My mom started feeling a little sick, but she still helped me out the next day, and luckily Rob was home to help as well.  By the next day when we were going to leave to come down to Denver, my Mom was officially out of commission.  I had to drive us home while my mom sat in the back and kept Lily company.  Mom spent her surprise party in the ER getting fluids because she was so dehydrated.  I guess the surprise was on us.  Oh well, Happy Birthday Mom. 

Luckily, Lily was mostly unaffected by all of this.  She threw up a few times, and had a little diarrhea.  It frightened me very much when she was throwing up though, because she would choke on it as it came up.  I was completely paranoid and wouldn’t let her out of my sight for at least a week, even when she was napping.

New Developments in Lily:

        Lily has officially started on solids.  She is hilarious when trying new foods.  She always takes the first bite and then makes a face like she hates it.  So cute!!!  Then, after that she will continue eating the rest of the food.  Sometimes she makes a face through the whole thing, but she still opens her mouth every time we have a bite coming.  She is very picky about texture so her “solids” have to be pureed to a liquid for her to eat them without gagging.  We also tried feeding her baby puffs, but she does not like them so much because they are too thick.  She has not really figured out how to chew, so we may have to try those again when she is a little older.

        Lily has also started to start pulling herself around in a little army crawl.  Now we have to watch her even more!  With rolling and the army crawl she is getting really good at getting where she wants to go!  This of course means that Mommy and Daddy need to take a good look around our house and make sure we are baby proofed.  With her newfound strength she also enjoys climbing all over Mommy and Daddy.

Month 6

We started out this month with Lily’s first Easter!  She had a great time dressing up in an adorable dress her Grammie got her.  It is purple with a cute little sweater!  She got to join the Easter Egg Hunt with the older kids.  She even found 5 Easter Eggs, one of which she picked up on her own.  Daddy held her over it and she was able to pick it right up and put it in her basket.  She also enjoyed getting to see all of her family.

We are still waiting for that tooth to come in.  She continues to put anything in her mouth, luckily she mostly goes for things that are in your hands, so you have some control over what she gets.

  

Lily has a little fissure in her bum bum.  This caused her to have a few diapers with blood in them.  They caused great stress for her Mom, but didn’t seem to bother Lily.  Her doctor was also not concerned, but was not opposed to seeing Lily.  (Her doctor loves her, as do all of the nurses). 

        Mommy got her last break until school is out.  Lily and Mommy had a great time together.  Of course it was hard for Mommy to drop her back off to get babysat when she had to go back to work.

        During this break we went down to Colorado Springs and visited Amy and Kyle.  We had a great time visiting, and ended our visit with a trip to the Garden of the Gods.  We got some great pictures.

New Developments in Lily:

        She is mobile now! She uses rolling to get herself around to wherever she needs to go.  This means we can no longer just leave her lying in her jungle while we go get stuff done.  She needs constant supervision, and we thought we got nothing done before!

        Lily has also started hanging out in her bouncy chair.  It’s a wonderful invention, you hang it in the door, put some toys on it, plop her in and it is fun for hours… or at least 30 minutes!  She is not really bouncing yet, but she will hang out and spin herself around.

        We are getting to the end of the time where I can plop her on the couch next to me for a little naked time before her bath.  She used to just lay there so peaceful and coo up at me.  She has gotten much more rolly and spinny lately, so is happier on the ground where she has more room to spread out.  Sometimes I can still talk her into staying next to me if I let her sit during naked time.

         The most exciting thing this month is Lily is starting solids!!  They told us to wait until she was six months old, but we cheated by about a week.  We just couldn’t wait any longer, and neither could Lily.  We started her with a little rice cereal mixed with breast milk.  It is not really a new taste so it went over well!  She is so happy to be eating “big people” food with us.  She loves sitting in the high chair during dinner and eating with her brightly colored bowls and spoons.