Growing up before my eyes

Candace, thanks for the comment about Meadow's fingers. Her fingers have healed fine. As a matter of fact, the little monkey keeps going back to the source of her pain. Chris think she is trying to seek revenge.

When I was initially trying to clean her up, I told her that she had to hold her hand up (above her shoulder). I explained that it would help it stop bleeding and heal. The next morning it started bleeding again, so we went through the same process. I held her hand above her shoulder, and explained again why I was having her hold her hand up. Then, I noticed whenever it was bothering her she would hold her hand up.

Lily is eating solids now. You probably figured that out from the slideshow I posted the other day. She is such a little piggy. Last week at daycare she ate a whole jar of baby food on Monday, 1/2 a jar on Tuesday, 1 1/2 jars on Wednesday, 1 jar on Thursday, and 1 jar on Friday.

I am definately going to have problems keeping up with this girl. She is getting more mobile everyday. She is so determined to get to wherever she wants to go by wriggling, rolling, or inchworming around. She has managed to crawl across the living room towards the kitchen to get to me.

She has been sleeping in her own room for a week. Her bed must be real cozy, because I am having problems waking her up in the morning. If she wakes up in the middle of the night we get to cuddle on the couch. I won't give that up for anything. I love my cuddle bug. She loves to cuddle, and I love every minute of it.

Meadow's vocabulary has really exploded lately. Last night she said two new words in 5 minutes. First, we were watching Eight Below. One of the dogs on the movie looks just like Miischka. I said to her, "Meadow doesn't that puppy look just like Miischka?"

She looked at the TV, and said, "Meese-ka" I am sure the sch sound is difficult for her to say.

Then, she eyed up the Goldfish crackers we keep readily available for a snack. She pointed to them and says, "Gofish".

Slideshow of the girls

I need to update more

I keep meaning...like for the past week or so that Lily is CRAWLING. It is army style, but she is still mobile. She will get up on her elbows and knees and lurch forward. I can't believe she is mobile at 5 1/2 months. Mainly she will just crawl to me...she knows her food source. Otherwise she is a normal roly poly.

Cute Pic of Meadow and Sad Story

See my cute little girl? Don't you love the outfit she is in? Check out Puppy and her two fingers in her mouth. That is her natural pose.

Now for the sad story. Wednesday night she crawled under the computer desk (she knows it is off limits). I told her to get out, and I was nursing Lily. I heard her scream. I looked down and she had her fingers stuck in the CPU. There is a door that opens and somehow you can another drive or something. Anyway, I told her to stay still. I put Lily down on the floor, and in that time she yanked her hand out. her index and ring finger are bruised and she took a big chunk out of her middle finger. It bled a lot. I think it still hurts her a bit. She has gotten over it. I haven't. I feel so bad. I wish the computer wasn't in the living room, so she wouldn't be tempted to play with it.

Lil' Lil's First Meal

HMMM Mom what is this stuff?
You say it is Rice Cereal with formula? I will enthusiastically give it a try!
Let me see how this eating thing works...
What?! I am not supposed to get the food all over my face?
I tried to give Lily cereal on Sunday. She did really well with the eating. She took the spoon really well and enthusiastically. She ate most of what was in the bowl. Afterwards she spit up small amounts through out the evening. I haven't tried it since, but will again this week end.

4 month well baby

Took her in for her four month check up today. The dr didn't beleive that she is four months old already. I was even late in taking her...its almost 5. Today she weighed 12 pounds and measured 22 1/4" long. I don't think she was measured right though. She was 22" in October. I think she has grown more than that. I will have to try to measure her tomorrow. Her head is 40cm. She is in the 25th percentile for all three categories. The doctor think she is doing fine. I learned today that your body decides what type of belly button you have. Lily's belly button looked funny to me, so I asked the dr to take a look at it. He said her body is just figuring out if it is going to be an inny or an outie. It looks irritated though...but he said it is fine. Leave it alone and it will work itself out.

B 4 I 4Get

In the month of December Lily started rolling over. She is such a Roly Poly now. She can go both ways with out a lot of effort. She is also "talking" a lot. Especially if you are looking at her. She will smile at you if you smile at her. It is true that smiling is contagious with her.

Last week the girls where at the back up center. There was a back-to-work baby there who is very spoiled. She would scream if no one is paying attention to her. Needless to say Lily has started screaming just like the other baby.

I thought it would be bad if Meadow learned the word, "mine." But she only uses it when she wants something she doesn't know the word for. It isn't like she is constantly saying, "mine, mine, mine." Actually it sounds more like "my". I can handle the "my"s much better than Lily's screaming.

Yesterday Chris was sleeping on the couch. Meadow kept trying to stick a pacifier in his mouth. It was so funny. Chris didn't even react.

Is this a milestone?

So, Meadow has learned how to keep her room clean. It has looked great for days! Would you like to know how a 17 month old keeps her room clean? You must think this is a real good secret...well, it is not...she just moved the mess to the living room!

Chris cleaned her room and put all her stuffed animals on her shelf. All the toys from Christmas are in the living room. We really need to come up with a better storage solution!

Slideshow

Snuggly Poohs

Last night Lily would fall asleep when I nursed her. As soon as I put her down she woke up again. IT was going on midnight. I desperately wanted sleep. I brought her in bed next with me. I snuggled her close. I kept a breast easily accessable for her to nurse when she needed too. Everytime Chris moved I woke to make sure he didn't roll onto Lily.

Sometime between 5 and 6 he got up. I was able to get a couple hours of good sleep then. When I finally felt like I had enough rest I noticed Lily was cuddled real close to me. I felt really at peace with that. It was nice to know that she just really wanted to be by momma after she had a bad day of getting shots.

Through out today I cuddled with her. She still wasn't feeling well. This morning she vommitted. Actually this afternoon too. I took her temp, and it was slightly elevated. I was told that her temp would be higher than normal due to the shots she had. I wasn't concerned. I just kept cuddling with her until I put her down for the night.

Meadow was in a cuddley mood too. After the first time Lily puked on me, I had an opportunity to shower. While I was in the shower I stopped hearing Meadow playing around. I got dressed, and came into the living room to check things out. To my amazement, Meadow had fallen asleep in Chris's arms. She looked so peaceful and cute. I would have taken a picture, but my camera wasn't immediately available. For the remainder of the day Meadow took every opportunity she could to cuddle with Chris or me. It was such a nice day, and before I knew it--it was 6 PM.

Doctor Appointments a Lesson Learned

So, I made tandem Doctor appointments fir Lily and I. Even better I thought it was great that I could get in at 4 on a Friday.

Lily's check up went well. She has a boogery eye. The doctor just said to massae it with a warm clothe. She is 10 pounds and 22" long. She is growing really well. A couple of weeks ago Chris though she would surpass Meadow in height. In comparing stats I think he is right.

Then I had my post pardom check up. The doctor found a lump on my thyroid. I was so distracted with that--that I forgot to bring up other concerns I wanted to discuss with him. Since I was the last appointment of the day there was no one available to evaluate my blood work up or schedule the appointment for the ultrasound to check my thyroid.

I forgot to ask when he needs to see Lily again. And, the nurse didn't fill out Lily's immunization chart out for daycare. I even gave it to her. Ugh. So, now I am going to have to wait until he calls with my results on Monday. I am sure I will have to see him again in the near future to talk about my thyroid results.

Much needed updates

Last Wednesday I went back to work. The transistion has been tough--very emotional. It was worse the second time around, and I had a short week. There are a lot of new faces and changes that occurred while I was gone. It is VERY hard getting back into the swing of things.

I took Meadow in for a check up (she needed a shot). She is up to 23 pounds. They said she was 31", but she was standing funny (I think she may be closer to 32). And the doctor did not force the chicken pox vaccine on her. He actually doesn't push it. She has been really crabby lately and we found the reason why at the appt. She is cutting molars. I got her a real tooth brush. She doesn't seem to mind me brushing her teeth. I tried to give her the brush, but she didn't want it. I think it is odd, because she likes to brush her hair and everyone else's (lily included). Tonight I did get her to "brush" her teeth after I did them. She really liked it, and I had to take the tooth brush away from her.

Lily is doing well in childcare. Friday we go in for a well baby check up. I will try to update after that. She has started "talking". It is so cure. She likes to hold conversations with the mobile when she wakes up. It is so cute. She isn't as smiley as Meadow was.

We are having issues with Lily bonding with Chris. She will only tolerate him for so long and then will break out in a cry. I had to work a little late tonight, so Chris picked up the kids. The whole time he had Lily she cried. She didn't even stop crying to drink her 2 ounces of EBM. Any suggestions would be great. We are all frustrated.

It Was a Good Week End

Since her birth Lily has perferred my exclusive company. DH tried last week to have alone time with Lily, and she cried the whole time. This week end we went to my in laws. DH and I were able to have a date night as my in laws offered to babysit.

Lily cried most of the time we were gone--until she fell asleep. In research I have done I found out crying peaks around 6 weeks. Tomorrow she turns 7 weeks. Today, there were several occasions where I could put her in her swing and she was content. She even hung out with DH for about 30 minutes (until she filled her pants and realized she was hungry). DH thinks it is a HUGE milestone. Especially since DH says all Lil does is cry. Really the only times she cried today was when she was hungry or had full pants.

WOHOO SUCCESS!

Hopefully the childcare provider will have success with giving her a bottle. She is so used to me being her food source. I afraid she will just suck down the bottles. I hope she is content with 1 ounce an hour while I am at work.

Lily Milestone Captured 9/20

Lily is so alert when she is awake. She is really good at holding her head up and looking around. Here are some pictures I caught of her.

Smile

Today, I got to witness Lily purposefully smiling. After Meadow got to enjoy the indoor water park, I was holding Lily in my arms while we decided what to do next. I was staring down at her smiling, and she smiled back. I know it was not gas or an involuntery movement, because it lasted more than a few seconds.

When she smiled I saw that she has more features of DH than Meadow does. I wish I could have gotten a picture of that too.

Road Trip

This morning DH woke up and thought we should take a day trip. We went to the Dells, and let Meadow enjoy the afternoon at an indoor waterpark. She was having so much fun she kept giving DH hugs. I didn't get to participate in the fun, as my c-section wound isn't fully healed. He took her down the kiddie slides and under the sprinkler thingies. The pool was shallow enough for her to walk around on her own.

I don't have any pictures to share, because I forgot my camera at home and cell phone in the car. I actually enjoyed watching DH and Meadow enjoying themselves in the kiddie water park. The place we went had two kiddie water park areas. We went to both. I did wade around in the pools while holding Lily. Afterall, DH had to pay for me to enter too, even if I wasn't going to participate.

On the way to the Dells Meadow got sick twice. I was really tempted to say we should turn around, but I think Meadow was car sick. I asked her if her belly was feeling better, she pointed to her belly, and threw up. Of course this seems to happen when there isn't a good place to stop for miles. In both occurances DH managed to pull over to gas stations with no place to change Meadow. Which is why I still believe he should pull over right away and just let me deal with it. I think I am going to stick a roll of paper towel in each vehicle. The way home was without incident, except for the 5 cars pulled over between the city I work in and the city we live in. It is extremely rare to even see a squad car there. Meadow fell asleep a couple miles from our exit, and that is the only picture I managed to take.

Missing details

Last night I was holding Lily. I looked down at her saw her unvoluntary moments making her make all sorts of weird facial expressions. I realized how I missed documenting that with Meadow. With both girl it is so poetic to hold them in my arms and stare at them all night. I feel at peace with myself after nursing Lily in the middle of the night or right before bed, and look down at her as she dozes into a slumber. I remember the same feeling from doing the same with Meadow.

To Meadow

Dear Meadow,

Today you are 14 months old. Everyday you amaze me. I love watching you grow and learn. Exploring your surroundings and learning what you can do. You try to see exactly what you are capable of. It is so intriquing. I think it is funny that you practice your new skills in your crib before and after you sleep.

You have been so helpful lately and a good big sister. You help pick up everything but your toys. Even now you are trying to help me type this. I have to keep hitting delete to get hid of the random numbers, letters, and symbols you keep adding. When Lily cries you show concern. You want to touch her, and sometimes are rough. You don't realize how rough you are. That is OK, we will help you. One day you will learn.

I think I am very fortunate to have two beautiful daughters. You both fill my heart up with so much love. I know I will enjoy seeing you both grow up. I want to savor every moment of it. I hope that Meadow and you will be best friends. I know you two will have tough times together--that is part of having a sibling.

I love you. I will always love you.

Love,
Momma

To Lily

Dear Lily,

You have been in my life just over 3 weeks. You are so amazing to me. When we had you, you seemed so fragile to us. About a week ago, Daddy commented on how you didn't seem fragile anymore. A few days later you had a well baby check up and it confirmed that you grew and gained quite a bit of weight. Which confirmed that you lost some fragility.

Still to me you are precious and fragile. Very lovable and adorable. It amazes me how when we take you in public how people comment on how cute you are. I don't need the confirmation. I know you are cute. We have the same problem with your big sister, Meadow. I fear that I can't let Daddy out in public with you two.

I think I am very fortunate to have two beautiful daughters. You both fill my heart up with so much love. I know I will enjoy seeing you both grow up. I want to savor every moment of it. I hope that Meadow and you will be best friends. I know you two will have tough times together--that is part of having a sibling.

I love you. I will always love you.

Love,
Momma

Lily's First Well Baby Check Up

We had Lily's well baby check up yesterday. I can't believe how much she has grown in three weeks. It took Meadow a long time to gain weight. Already Lily has gained a pound and grown 2". She weighed in at 7# 12 ounces and 20 inches long. I am so proud to know this time breast feeding is going good.