la la la

One of the things I love about a Mom is the opportunity for general silliness at any moment. We wer are trying to get Lily to nap and she was sticking her big toe in her mouth! First we said "No, no, don't eat that!" but then of course we wanted her to do it again for the camera.

I also love singing all the time. You can pretty much make up any song for any occasion. I love singing to her. I like singing anyway, but it's wonderful that she likes me to sing to her. And John sings to her all the time, too. He does different silly songs, like ending every nursery rhyme with "threw it out the window!" That one is pretty silly.

And how she smushes her face into mine when she sort of wakes up but just want more snuggle to get back to sleep. She doesn't just curl into a little space under your arm, she sort of plows over your face with hers and turns around until she likes her position. It's very funny.

Silly Rabbit

Lily was sticking her big toe in her mouth here but wouldn't do it for the camera so Daddy was teasing her. She's a giggle monster. This was part of attempted nap time.

No Nappy No Happy

No, it wasn't just that. But I do feel like crap in this picture. The orange thread is my earplugs, they're attached to each other like mittens. I think I got them at the State Fair. Today I finally bought some new ones at Walgreen's. And really, all that matters in this picture is that my hair looks good. I got a haircut last week and damn it looks good.

The Day Without a Nap

It was a very long day. Sunday. We spent probably a total of 4 hours at different times trying to get this little cute booger to nap and she just wouldn't do it. Part of the problem is that she does have another virus, dag nabbit! And she coughs when she lies down. Which makes it hard to sleep. Then you add stubbornness. I asked her who she got her stubbornness from and she very clearly said, "Daddy." He stubbornly denies this to be the case.

So today I have a headache for various reasons, one of which was that I went to see my headache doctor and had to sit 40 minutes in the waiting room. I forgot to bring my earplugs. I have been using them more lately as a coping mechanism and I could have really used them in that office. There was a small child there who didn't want to be there and he repeatedly yelled at his mother, "I wanna go home!" Turns out he was the patient being seen. The mother was a saint. She never rasied her voice to him, just gave him other options, and soon got him playing a game. She also had a small baby with her, so she really had a handful. I, on the other hand, had Nora at home taking care of Lily, while I sat waiting for my appt. I was trying to read a book but the book is boring and I don't know why I don't just stop reading it except I want to see the movie because Brendan Fraser is in it and so it must be good...but anyway it was too hard to read with a headache because it messes up my vision.

I'm a barrel of laughs, today, huh? I think I have peri-menopause. My GP doesn't think so yet but I think she'll change her mind soon. I am having wacked out periods and PMS, like RIGHT NOW for instance, I am so crabby and my head hurts really a very lot and I'm exhausted...

Lily said a new word this morning: Cheese. But she says it really fast: chees. No time for the silent e. She loves to eat shredded cheese.

So not only is her nose still running, but this afternoon she got diarrhea. AAaaaaaaah!! Kill me now! I'll never get out of the house before Spring! Have I mentioned yet how much I hate March? In Minnesota? It would be different if I were in Kauai, Hawaii, or San Diego, California, but here? It stinks. It's icy. I fell today. It hurt. Everything is brown. It's the second snowiest month which is a big waste because no one wants snow anymore by this time. It's lost its charm. Go away, March.

Done with Fevers

Oh, yeah, I forgot to say I think we're done with the fevers now. And viruses. She only has a little cough and a little bit-o-snot left. Hoorah! So we got to go to our last ECFE Toddlers class yesterday, which she was very happy about. I didn't take her when she was sick. Of course, some people did, I found out. One kid was puking with the flu last week and although he's stopped puking, he still has diarrhea. And Mom brought him to class anyway! I was told by the doctor at Children's Clinic that as long as they have diarrhea they are still highly contagious.

Grrrr. Then last night my throat started hurting again like I could barely swallow, and I couldn't talk without coughing. He probably cootied me, the brat. Actually he was a brat. He's going through the "mine" phase, or should I say "everything is mine"? Lily is very sharing, and she went to give him a toy and he looked at her all mad and swiped it out her hand. She ran back to me and I gave her a hug. Brute.

Snowsuit on the Swing

Today it got up to 42 degrees. So it was all melty outside. And while not exactly warm, for Minnesota in March, you can't pass that up, you have to go outside. So I took Lily in her stroller, suited up in her snowboots and suit, to play on the swings. Well, it wasn't pretty. She ended up having a good time, but what a struggle it was for me!

They haven't plowed the parking lot in the park yet, or the inner trail close to the playground. So I had to leave the stroller and pick her up and slog through some deep snow to get to those darn swings. I was not giving up. Of course, I didn't wear my snow boots. So my feet got cold and a bit wet.

And when I put her in the baby swing, it was hard to push her booted feet through the leg holes. Then when I went to take her out of the swing, it was like she was vacuum-packed into it in the puffy snowsuit. It was crazy!

So then we went to the slide, and although she wanted to climb the stairs, she couldn't lift her feet high enough, probably because of the Michelin tireman effect from the snowsuit. So I had to carry her up that, set her at the top, then I'd run around to the other end of the slide and say "Okay!" And she'd push off and come all the way down, slowly stopping at the bottom. Just the right speed. I think we did that about ten times. She liked it.

She has suddenly become aware of airplanes and was pointing in the sky a lot while we were at the park because she kept hearing them. But there was a cloud cover so she couldn't see them. Then she heard this construction vehicle making that beeping sound they make, and she became obsessed with it. She wanted to see what was making the noise and go follow it. We had heard another from inside the house that morning and it just wasn't satisfying for her when I said, "Yes, I hear the 'beep beep beep,' it's a truck outside." Lucky for us the truck came near the swings, so she did get to see it. It was a scoopy thing, I can't remember what those are called. And it looked like the guy was using the scoop to flatten the snow on the trail, as opposed to actually shoveling it or using a trail snowplow on it.

Owie

Poor little pookie. She's having high fevers and coughing a lot in the last several days. She had a rough day. Monday morning we called to get an appt at her clinic and the soonest they had was 2:15 today, Tuesday. Then her temp spiked at 104.4 yesterday afternoon and when I called the triage nurse, all she could tell me was to give her ibuprofen and dress her in cooler clothes and keep the appt. Here she is cooling off in a t-shirt and eating a popsicle in Dad's lap:

So we go in today and they had to do some very unpleasant things. 1. Catheter to collect urine. Owie! 2. Blood draw. Owie! And then we had stay another half hour to see some results, and Lily was ready to go home by then. She actually went to the exam room door and pulled on John's coat. I gave it to her, and she dragged it over to him, handed it to him, and then went back to the door and reached up and turned the handle. Let's go!

Well, turns out it's not an infection, her lungs are clear so it's not pneumonia, her urine is fine, her white cells are fine, so it's a virus. Which is good and bad. Means we can't do anything else than we've been doing, pushing fluids, giving her ibuprofin for the fevers, and keeping her comfortable. No quick fix. And they couldn't say how long this would last, since it's mystery virus. Agh!

Because of the timing of her appt. today, she missed her nap and so fell asleep in the car on the way home. We tag teamed with her during the nap at home, and she woke up after a couple hours with another high fever and kind of delerious, saying "Owie" and crying. Poor babe. So we did more ibuprofen and then sang to her for a while, and then tried some honey (this is the newest thing, the doc said: works better than cough syrup. 1 tsp of honey and it helps with the coughing at night). After a while she became more coherent and responded to Cocoa jumping upon the bed. She actually crawled over and put her head on Cocoa's belly at one point, and Cocoa didn't even flinch, so we are giving Cocoa lots of praise for helping. She's eating some applesauce now with Dad, and I'm about to go check on them. She'll be sleeping in our bed for probably the next few nights at least. I just don't want her out of my sight with the way her fever spikes. Think healing thoughts for us.

New Word

First of all, this picture actually precedes the one from yesterday's post. I just don't have any new pictures because everyone is sicker today and the last thing on my mind is taking pictures. So here you see Lily has taken over the sink and is communing with the baby in the mirror.

She has a new word: Owie. She's been saying it the last few days about a little scratch she has on one hand, and when we ask her where the owie is, she'll hold up her hand to show us, and we kiss the owie. Well, today was a four-poop diaper day, which kinda stressed out her little bottom, and on the fourth go round, she did not want me wiping it off. I thought she was just being stubborn, and I was getting frustrated. I said "Lily, stop it!" And then I felt horrible because she started to cry a little and said "Owie!" over and over. She didn't want me touching her butt because she's getting diaper rash and it hurt! Poor baby. We finally got the job done with help from Dad, but she was very clear in letting us know that it was an owie. Good communication skills. I just hope her butt is better tomorrow. Or someone is better. We were all worse today, hacking and wheezing.

Warning: Extremely Adorable Naked Baby Ahead!

She didn't exactly get a bath, but started playing in the sink and then her shirt got wet so we had to take that off, and then, you know, it just progressed from there until we just went ahead and took the diaper off and got the J&J baby soap out. Sort of a sponge bath in the sink.

More Peas, Please

So when you have a cold and your nose is all stuffed up, it's really hard to eat. Because you have to close your mouth and then you can't breathe. So it's been frustrating for Lily to eat. So we've tried some new foods just for fun, and we found that she absolutely loves frozen peas! Well, I mean, we don't leave them frozen, we cook them, but in contrast to the icky mush that comes in baby food jars, frozen peas rock! Here she is snarfing some down and having fun doing it.

The other pic is her in her pajamas wandering around in my craft room lookin' for trouble. We're just starting to get her back on schedule for bedtime at 8pm, but it's not going too well. She is very cranky and doesn't want to go to sleep and so will cry and fuss and fight to get down out of your lap--Yes, we still let her fall asleep on us before we put her in the crib. We've never tried just putting her in the crib awake and saying "okay, it's bedtime, go to sleep." Well, maybe we have a couple times, but it didn't work. And we like holding her, so we feed her a bottle last thing and then sing to her and she goes to sleep, then we take her up to the crib. But she's been super fussy about going to bed while she's sick. Last night it took 2 1/2 hours to get her down, and John and I took shifts. I usually sing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" to her as a nap song and as a bedtime song, and so last night I made up some new words to sing to the same melody. She seemed to like them, as she finally laid her head down on my chest and went to sleep. Here's my lyrics:

Rest your head, close your eyes

and you will find a big surprise

Dreams are waiting just for you,

dreams of love--adventure, too.

Let this day be done and keep,

Darling girl now go to sleep.

She seems to be doing pretty well today. She was coughing an awful lot yesterday but not so much this morning. John says he is doing better but he can hardly talk. And I have a REALLY sore throat and am getting a sinus infection. Oh joy. That means nasal wash. God I hate doing that. It's so...I don't know, brutal. But anything is better than antibiotics. I think I need to go lie down. It's going to be a tired day for me.

Sick, sick, sick

Boy, I'll be glad when winter is OVER this year. It snowed last night for the first time in weeks and I'm like "feh." Not fun anymore. Everyone is sick in our house. Lily has been sick the longest, poor babe, from one virus to a cold to an ear infection. She's a little trooper, but she gets worn out and cranky and then doesn't want to go to sleep. The top is just when she was starting to get sick, with croup at night. Then a few days later she had a high fever and was very droopy. She needed lots of her dolls around her.

I Did It Again: I Am The Village Your Child Lives In

First of all, cutie pie is wearing some new duds. The sweater is part of a pkg of clothes we received in thanks for some of Lily's newborn and 3 month clothing that she doesn't fit into anymore. This woman picked out such cute stuff! And most of it fits now or will soon.

Now, about that village thing. We went to a bookstore reading this morning at Wild Rumpus, and although the storytime was a wash because it was so packed full of people, Lily had a great time because this store is like a little zoo. They have a few cats, 2 chinchillas, 3 ferrets, some parroty-looking birds that were very chatty, a couple doves, a gecko, a tarantula, and a little chickeny thing. I think it's a guinea hen. I'm not sure. But I'll call him Chic. So Chic roams free in the bookstore, and when storytime was over, the kids started all leaving and/or roaming around, and this one little boy was running through the store, trying to catch Chic, and pushing people and smaller children out of his way. Well, I got sick of it. When he ran in front of Lily while she was trying to approach Chic, I grabbed him and said "Hey, don't run in here." Then his Dad sort of showed up. Actually he was already standing near him, but he wasn't controlling the kid at all, and when I tried to correct his child, he mumbled something about "Hey, let's not....get...excited," and made eye contact with me but quickly looked away. I couldn't tell for sure if he was talking to me, and then when he had walked away from me, I heard him mumble even quieter something about "touch my kid." Well, dumbass, if you're not going to control your child and keep him from knocking over smaller kids because he's running in a crowded store, the village will intervene. I am the village.

Unfortunately the little brat was there for a while longer and I could see even more of this lame dad's parenting. His kid is running around and he says "Hey, buddy, slow...down...there." Oh yeah, that's real effective. See how he's not paying any attention to you?

I'm sorry, but I am not going to stand for this behavior when it gets close to my child. Am I stepping over the line? Tell me what you think.

Once the speed demon was gone, Lily was able to check out Chic at close range because she walked up to him very slowly and calmly. I think she might have touched him lightly before he sauntered off. It was funny, too, her and a couple other well-behaved calm little girls sort of chicken-hopped after Chic, following him but doing it in a chicken-like manner. Very cute.

Lily also pet one of the cats. The first attempt was not so good, because she went for the ear. The cat was so mellow, though, it just let itself get dragged a little ways by the ear before I peeled Lily's hand away and showed her how to pet gentle like she pets Cocoa. She did a good job after that. This was her first cat-petting! I give her a B+. Or maybe an A, since she didn't pull his ears after I told her not to. So maybe now that she's actually pet a cat, she'll start saying "cat" or at least not lumping them in with the dogs when she's looking in her books. Because usually she just calls them dogs or nothing at all. Now she has a real life experience with a cat. I wish we had gotten to pet the chinchillas, they are sooooooo soft. We'll have to go back there when it's not storytime, and see if we can pet the chinchies.

Baby It's Cold Outside!

I took this picture while driving to our Friday morning Movin' & Groovin' class. Daddy calls it dance class. It's nice that it's really close to us, like only 5 minutes away, but on the other hand, that's not enough time for the car to warm up, so we're cold!! Miss Lily doesn't like to wear her mittens so I try to pile her dollies on top of her hands to keep them warm. I'm probably worrying about it too much. I should make her a little muff to put her hands in. Like I know how to make one. Maybe I should look for one on Etsy, more like.

This morning Lily did the sign for "more" with her hands while she was sitting in her high chair eating and I was sitting at the dining room table eating breakfast. I was so excited!! We've been trying to get her to do that sign for months and she finally gets it!! So I was like "Oh! You want more! That's wonderful! Good job, Lily!" Of course then I had to figure out what she wanted more of. But that wasn't too hard. It was Cheerios. Although she doesn't nod her head "yes" yet, she will shake her head "no," so she's getting more and more tools to communicate with us. As opposed to just yelling. Which she sometimes does at night when we're trying to eat dinner and watch a TV show. But it was so cute to see her little hands do the "more" sign. Yeah, Lily!

We're Going to Pump You Up!

Lily shows off her big muscles. Super strong baby.

June is Strawberry Moon

The color is a little brighter than real life on this, but I had night lighting so it looks redder than it is. Anyway, it's a bit more pinkish and there's sort of a red painting at the top of a strawberry vine with berries on it. I made this today, finally finished it, for a project my local art group did, a 2009 calendar with a theme of the full moons. I picked June because that's when Lily was born, and then one night I was inspired to write a poem about her eating strawberries. So I used that and did a packing tape transfer of the poem and the month title, and then hand-lettered or drew or painted the rest on to thick watercolor paper. I'm really pleased with how it turned out. Now I'll just make color copies of this for the rest of the group and I'm done! It's nice to finish a project I've been pondering on forever. (If you click on the picture it will show the larger size and you'll be able to read the poem.)

Oooh!

Daddy and Lily making an "O" noise while reading the book And the Train Goes, one of her favorites right now. We read it every day, sometimes several times a day. I think this might be at the end, where the train goes "Woo-wooooooooooo!"

Lily's recognition of objects in books is getting really good now. Of course she points to and says "dog" to every dog she can find in any book. Doesn't matter what the book is about. Baby Jesus, the Nativity story? Who cares about that, look! There's a dog next to the manger!

Today we got a new book in the mail (from my favorite book swap service online--Paperback Swap) with woodcut pictures of animals. When I pointed out the gorilla, and said "Just like the gorilla in Goodnight, Gorilla," which is a book and Scholastic DVD we have, she went and got the DVD for me, so she understood exactly what I meant! How cool is that? And when I asked her where other animals were, like "Can you point to the sheep?" and "Where is the milk?" she pointed right to them.

Of course, I have to be more careful now because she really is listening to everything I say. So the other day while she was eating and I said to John, "Hey, she hasn't dumped her food tub!" she promptly dumped her food tub. Oops.

Big Girl

If you can believe it, the baby doll Lily is holding is the first outfit she grew out of in the hospital. She was that tiny! And now look at her! What a big girl! Her hair is getting really long, too, growing out all over the place. It always looks really funny after a nap. We are talking about maybe getting her a haircut, just to get it shaped somewhat, so it's not so crazy. But I so want it to get long and thick enough so I can play with it and braid it and make pigtails and put hairclips in it (which she'll probably pull right out like she does when she sees my hair clips).

monkey happiness!

It's funny, Lily has really gotten into her stuffed animals lately. She hugs them all the time and wants us to hug them, and then with Curious George she laughs and holds him out in front of her and runs around laughing. She's still partial to the brown bear Steve gave her on her 1st birthday, and he's the one who gets crib time and nap duty, but sometimes lately it's been difficult to decide lately. Yesterday it was brown bear, white bear, and baby doll. Eventually white bear won out, but it was a tough choice.

Lily Reading

John caught this shot of Lily studying the Children's Museum newsletter. I should send it to the Museum.

Another Reason We Like Children's Hospital

They have good books in the exam rooms. This one was about a dog and a duckling who become best buddies, and it's based on a true story.