these hands

It’s been another busy week for our family.

I both love and hate the busy-ness.  Love that there is so much for Lilly to do, that our lives are enriched with time spent with family, play dates with friends, work.  Hate that I don’t have the energy required to clean the house, that I don’t have time to record each minute as it passes here on the blog.  I can’t help but think that so many of these ordinary moments are precious and fleeting — what seems an ordinary moment now was extraordinary two months ago.  For example, Lil sits up by herself and grasps toys, entertaining herself in this way for almost 20-30 min without much supervision.  No big whoop.  But in November, we marveled at how she could sit up if we propped her against us… she would reach out in an attempt to grab things on occasion — and it was just incredible.

Almost daily, I get these really sweet moments where I feel an overwhelming sense of appreciation and joy for my little one.  Where I can ignore the days tasks and stresses and just marvel at her.

One thing our baby has been doing frequently over the past few months is staring at her hands.  She has a deep concentrated look as she moves them very slowly back and forth, or, more recently, one finger at a time.  It’s my favorite, though I can never seem to adequately capture the moment.

I imagine her inner dialogue to be something along the lines of: whoa. These hands are AMAZING! 

But, I wonder if she really knows how amazing those hands are?  Two years ago, they didn’t even exist!  6 months ago they were almost constantly balled into fists.  3 months ago they really began to open and close.  2 months ago, they began to reach towards and explore things.

And now?  Those little fingers can wiggle, they can pick things up, they can pull mommy’s hair and grab daddy’s glasses.  They are excellent teethers.  They can pet the dogs, causing rounds of giggles when the doggies’ ears move in response to Lil’s touch.  They can rub little eyes when tired, they can mush food and deliver it to her little mouth.

Lilly, you ARE amazing.  Thank you for marveling at yourself, and causing me to reflect on the wonder and amazement in this world.  I suspect this might be the best thing you do for me, though, hugs and cuddles are a very close second.

Possibly the only thing more incredible than how much these hands have done is how much more they’ll do…

Lilly’s First Christmas

I’m going to try to update you on a full month’s worth of material in just one post.  Hold on to your hats.

Mid-Decemberish, Lilly and I headed to Milwaukee for a few days to visit Nana, Grandpa, & the gang.  I have fond memories of baking Christmas cookies with my mom, grandma, & great-grandma, as well as aunts & cousins, and hope to recreate these special occasions for Lil as she grows, too.  (This is when I get a little sad that we don’t live closer to family – I hate for Lil to miss out on special memories with her family.)  Anyways, if I’m being completely honest, I’d intended to make cookies when I made the plans to travel in November… but by the time I actually got to my parent’s house, I was pooped and not too interested in cooking baking.  Fortunately, my sister took the reigns and was the motivating force behind the cookies this year.  Which, btw, I ate on my way home from MKE.  Oh, yikes.

Upon our return from Milwaukee, Lil and I had a week and a half to finish getting everything together for Christmas and to just hang out.  I was off for the entire month of December, and it was wonderful.  I was so happy to get to spend time with my girl, rocking out to Christmas music and watching her grow.

We returned to my parent’s house in MKE 3 days before Christmas, our car stuffed with the two dogs and Lil and all of the stuff that inevitably accompanies these three.  Jason requested a lunch break stop at Flossmore Station – because he’s on a mission to visit every brewpub ever made and because Lil needs a break to feed/get a clean diaper during the 4-5 hour car ride anyways.  But mostly the first reason.

So we arrived mid-afternoon.  I think our dogs were pleased to be reunited with their buddy, Comet (my parent’s dog), and the humans were all very pleased by how well the dogs got along.  They were pretty calm and cool during the entire visit, having only a few chasing/barking/growling matches.  Also, the three of them are really cute when lined in a row waiting for treats.  They match!

My mom’s Christmas decorations were over the top awesome this year, and helped to get in the Christmas spirit, despite my coming down with some sort of coldy-sinusy something.  It’s the second or third time I’ve been sick in the past two months, and I’m always amazed that Lil doesn’t get sick (other than a little runny nose or cough here or there).  Must be the super-immunity that I’m passing to her (amazing).

Friday was spent shopping for last minute Christmas gifts, and then my mom organized a men’s paintball outing for my dad, brothers, uncle, possibly-future-brother-in-law, and Jason.  Because nothing says Merry Christmas like shooting people (especially family).

Can you believe Jason has never shot a gun of any kind before?  He looks like a natural.  I think it’s his grumpy old man vibe.

As a side note, we’re now considering purchasing paintball supplies & solving all conflicts in the woods out back.  Might be fun.

Christmas Eve was our first annual family broomball tournament, in which long lost second cousins emerged from outta nowhere wearing camo and college t-shirts.  (The first cousins were in grass skirts and top hats.) We somehow managed to field 7 teams of 4-5 member each, and had some pretty rad team uniforms out there, if I do say so myself.

Aren’t we all a sight to behold?

And my skillz!  Oh!  Let’s just say that my broomball skillz helped plant my team firmly in last place.  We’re blaming it on the fact that 1/2 of our Christmas-sweater-wearing team was sick, but it’s probably more that we’re all totally out of shape.

Jason did bring his A-game, though.  And his sparkly Santa vest.  So there’s that.

In the evening, we headed to my parent’s church for a candle-light Christmas Eve service.  (And also for the animal sightings — this year’s Christmas mouse during the children’s sermon didn’t let us down… especially with all sorts of cheesy puns.)  Then, to my grandparent’s house for food, presents, and the standard show-off-the-baby routine.

Lil’s nana bought her a special plaid dress for the occasion.  (We actually made Lil try on 4 in the store before I ultimately chose the plaid.  She is such a trooper.)  So, of course I had to get a picture of the plaid pants duo with my plaid baby (my grandparent’s awesome plaid pants make an appearance every Christmas).

Lilly opened her first round of presents.  And, to be honest, I was really surprised by how into it she was.  She had her eye on the prize… or at least on the wrapping paper.  She could have (and did) play with the wrapping paper forever.  She was slightly less concerned with what was in the actual packaging.

The next morning, Lil woke up to a ridiculous amount of presents under Nana & Grandpa’s tree.  I find myself still amazed and enchanted by the number of packages under my parents tree each year, even though I personally know Santa now. So much work to make such a special morning… and once again, my mom Santa nailed it.

I wonder if our tree will ever have that many packages beneath it?  (I am charmed by the idea of a simple Christmas in which each child only receives a few gifts, but am fairly certain that I don’t have the self-restraint to participate.  Even this Christmas, I said I wasn’t going to buy Lilly much because she is more interested in her own hands than just about anything else… and she’s still got unopened presents under the tree!)

We see a lot of this little tongue these days.  I think someone is learning to move it, hopefully in preparation for eating real food!

It actually took us a few hours to get around to opening all of the presents.  Lil had to take a nap mid-present opening because the excitement was just too much.

Yes.  I just posted a picture of my pajama-clad, showerless self on the internet.  Sigh.

I made brother Robby the best homemade Christmas gift of all time, the beard-hat.

I’ve been admiring these things entirely too long, but couldn’t handle the $40 price tag on the knit ones on etsy.  So, I bought a $4 hat from Target and sewed a beard-shaped piece of fleece to it.  (There is a separate moustache piece attached to the beard above his lip, so when he talks, the whole operation moves with his mouth.)  I’d really like to know if brother Robby has been walking around my alma mater (where he attends college) wearing this little number.

Overall, it was a really great morning.  We got some super gifts (and hopefully gave some super gifts).  My sister was this year’s DIY-er, topping my DIY beard hat with a sweet little quilt made of different textured materials for Lilly and a photo album compilation of all of my pregnancy posts for me.  I can only imagine how long that book must have taken her!  And it was something that I was meaning to do, but would never have the time to do myself.  I really treasure that book… so thoughtful.

Also, my mom got me a carpet cleaner.  Do you think she’s trying to tell me something?

After we exchanged presents at my parent’s house on Christmas Eve, we headed back to my grandparent’s house for Christmas dinner.  I dressed Lilly in a little green dress and her striped hat, and she was the cutest little elf I’ve ever seen.  I put together the outfit on a dare from my cousin, who promised to don her own elf costume if I made one for Lil.  Promise fulfilled!  Two little elves at Christmas dinner!

I should mention that this Christmas was also really special because Lilly got to meet three of my cousins that she hadn’t met yet.  So it was super-fun introducing her to them, and I think they (especially my cousin Catherine) were quite happy to hold and play with her.

Such pretty girls!  Cousin Catherine moved to Colorado and now we don’t get to see her much… but she’s gonna graduate from college soon, and I really think she should start looking for jobs in Michigan…

We barely remembered to take a family photo.  But here is one:

The day after Christmas, we celebrated with my mom’s family.  They are all so funny – we laugh so much.  This year’s most hilarious moment was when my cousins revealed to my aunt that they had been secretly stashing toys within her little town of Bethlehem display…  there were tiny transformers amongst the village shoppers, green army men hidden in the buildings, and lego guys hanging out with the angels atop the buildings.  So. funny.  (Also funny is the fact that my aunt may actually have more character figurines in her tiny town of Bethlehem than there actually were people in Bethlehem when Jesus was born.)

The following day, we left Lil with Nana and went out for 4 childless hours.  Awesome.  We all know I am crazy about the girl, but there’s something strangely liberating about going to Target without having to pull the infant carrier from it’s perch in the back seat.  I felt so light!  (probably because I was no longer carrying 16 lbs of baby and another 10 of gear.)  It’s also nice to have some time alone with Jason.  We still like each other.

And then, we were home, and Lilly’s cousins & their parents came to visit us.  Poor little Lucy was sick the first day, but Lil was entertained by her cousins Peter & Thomas in the meantime…  Luckily, Lucy recovered quickly and was able to play on the second day of their visit.  It’s really cool to see the bigger kids – whom we’ve adored since they were tiny babies themselves – love on our little one.  They are just so sweet with her.  We didn’t do too much in the two days that they visited, but I think it was a pretty good visit anyways.

We chose to celebrate our own little family Christmas on New Year’s Eve.  We opened presents with Lil in the afternoon.  She was dressed in her Christmas best for the occasion, of course.

We started the present opening by Skyping (that’s a verb, right?) Lilly’s grandparents in Jersey so that they could watch her open the gifts that they sent her.  We are loving that all of Lil’s grandparents are tech-saavy enough to be able to communicate with her in this way.

Once again, paper reigned supreme as most interesting item!  She was such a champ opening her presents, pulling at the paper and crinkling it with her fingers.  And she was so blessed to get such wonderful presents…  I really appreciate everyone’s thoughtfulness this year, and the fact that most of her gifts were not of the super-annoying variety.  I could compile a list of her faves (okay, mine, really) if anyone thinks that would be interesting/informative.

The dogs had a pretty great Christmas, too.  I made them new dog beds (just a piece of 1.5″ foam inside a zippered pillow cover made of fleece).  The dogs love the new beds.

They were also given a present each – Jezzie dug right in and began ripping the paper.

Barley, on the other hand, was a bit more cautious.  Presumably, he was afraid he’d get in trouble for ripping stuff up.

After a bit of prompting, though, he began unwrapping his bone.  You’ll be happy to know that both bones were thoroughly enjoyed by both dogs.  They’re really good at sharing.

Back to Lilly.  Jason and I bought her a few gifts – wood rattles, bath toys, etc.  And we decided we’d each get her something special.  I bought her Itsy Bitsy Yoga.  It’s no secret that I love yoga, and this book came highly recommended.  It’s a series of song/movement combos that are geared for different stages of baby development.  Basically, it gives me something to do with her, and she really enjoys the movements.  I wish we had had it since last July!  Really fun.

Jason’s special gift?  A beer-themed onesie and pint glass for his little brewing assistant.  I like to give him a hard time about it because it’s not really age-appropriate or baby-appropriate gift (maybe the onesie is?), but I do like the way that he includes her in whatever he’s doing in the kitchen, whether it’s making beer or cooking our dinner.

I also would like us to start the tradition of giving homemade gifts – this year, I made Lil a block using different fabrics and she seems to enjoy feeling the different textures.  More on my recent craftiness soon (I hope).

In future years, I hope to prepare a nice meal together & chat about goals/resolutions for the new year.

This year, we were supposed to go to our friends house for their awesome annual New Year’s party, but we were exhausted from the sickness, travel, and visitors of the previous weeks, and Lilly had a case of the crankies from a small cold.  So we ate crap for dinner and didn’t make it out of the house.  Oh well.  I think Jason and I may have had a minute to say Happy New Year! to each other between Lilly wakings… her poor little nose was so stuffy, and if I remember correctly, she was awake from about 2-4:45am that night, and Jason slept in the guest room for his first sleep of 2012 so that one of us could get enough sleep to deal with Lil in the morning.  I know, we’re party animals.

Phew.  Caught up from the holidays, and it’s only the third week of January…

gah.

I’m already breaking my new year’s resolution to blog 3x/week.  Fail.  I have an epic Christmas post in the works, but I think I need to do short posts more frequently or I lose all motivation to continue writing (who wants to read that many words about my Christmas vacay anyways?) and I lose all memory of what actually happened.

Chalk it up to a week of new sleep arrangements, and a baby who reliably wakes 1-2x/night (WHY? LILLY, WHY?).  I shouldn’t complain, but this one slept 12 hours per night for the first 4 months of life, and I wish she’d go back to it.

Oh well, she’s super-cute during the day, so that makes up for the night waking.  Kind of.

Can you believe this little monkey is 6 months already?  I can’t.

Aaaaaaaannnnnnnndddddddddd…….. there she goes again.  Send some good sleep vibes our way.

 

winter family photos

You all saw the awesome family photo I posted on Christmas?  I am in love with it.  Thanks so much to my friend, Denis, for coming over to take the photo, and also thanks to him for not leaving when the shit hit the fan.  Seriously.

You might have noticed that two family members were missing from the photo – Barley and Jezebel.  We haven’t forsaken our furry children for our human one.  They chose not to partake in the photo this year, instead running through the woods the second we took off Jezebel’s electric fence collar.  We managed to snap a shot of the three of us humans as we watched Jezzie wander through the woods.  When she took a turn towards the street, Jason went sprinting through the snow-covered woods.

They were gone a while, and we had no clue where they went, but our photographer friend just kept snapping away.

Which, I’m quite pleased about since he got some seriously amazing shots of me & my girl.

And there are very few other baby-mama shots around these parts.

But still, it’d be cool to have a few shots of the entire family.

Jason returned about 30 minutes after he left.  And you know that when Jason finally caught the naughty wandering dogs, he was angry.  There was practically smoke coming from his head.  (I suggested our photographer friend take a photo of that for our family Christmas card, but he did not.  Instead, he asked whether he should leave?  To which I said: No!  Definitely not.  But I think our photo shoot is over…)

I could barely contain my laughter when Jezzie came back looking like this:

(yes, that’s a chicken feather on her cheek.)

As it turns out, Jezzie walked down the street a bit, where she discovered the neighbor’s cows.  And Barley followed, which would have been fine because he usually brings her home… but then he started sniffing under the neighbor’s deck, and his sniffing caused an entire troupe of chickens to emerge and high tail it toward the coop.  Jezzie chased.

She’s pretty fast, but Jason managed to grab her during all of the ruckus.  Thank goodness, because judging from Jason’s expression upon his return, I’m not sure he was up for much more doggy nonsense.

At the end of the day, we got a great family photo.  One.  And, truth be told, I photoshopped Lilly into that one perfect photo so that it would actually be a perfect family photo.  Shh.  I know that’s like cheating at family portraits, but babies are hard to photograph.  They don’t always like to look at the camera…

As for Jezzie, we still catch her staring longingly down the driveway toward her chicken friends…

oh Christmas tree!

We ventured out to pick up our Christmas tree during the second weekend in December.  We had waited to pick it up until there was snow on the ground.  As I do every year, I insisted that we cut one down, so we bundled up and headed to the local tree farm (local = 3 miles away).

Most years, I insist on walking the entire field to find the *best* tree of the bunch.  This year, with Lil in tow, we looked at only a few trees before we found the one.

And actually, truth be told, it was really only the front half of the tree that we purchased (half the tree = half the price! yay cheap tree!).

It’s super-easy to load a front-only tree on the car.  Also? since we only bought the front, it was only 1/2 the weight of a full tree.  Bonus!

Although, when you’re trying to set up the half tree, you’ve got to be careful to weight the back half or the entire thing falls over as  you’re attaching ornaments.  Found that one out the hard way.  This year, we stuck with simple white lights & our collection of ornaments.  My parents always bought us an ornament on family vacations and gave us an ornament in our stockings on Dec. 6th that represented something that we did on that year, so I have a pretty huge collection of ornaments.  It’s a tradition I’ve continued with Jason, and this year’s purchase was the oh-so-cheesy “#1 DAD” ornament.  I love it.

We tried to get a picture of the dogs & Lil in front of the tree.  This is about as good as it gets.  But I’m embracing imperfection this year.  Imperfection in my photography, imperfection with the posing.  This is just where we are.

Not bad for Lil’s first Christmas tree… but I’m pretty psyched for next year, when we can hang the ornaments together.

buhbye 2011, hello 2012

What an awesome year.

In my wrap up post for 2010, I announced that we’d be expecting a little one.  I had no idea what the year would bring, but my two main wishes for 2011 were a healthy baby and to quickly figure out how to make that baby happy.  I’d say that it’s been a successful year on both of those fronts.  Lilly has been incredibly healthy and she is officially the happiest baby we know.  I’m not sure I should attribute that to anything that we are doing as parents, but it’s hard not to feel like a parenting success when your daughter is constantly flashing smiles at you.

My other wishes for 2011 were to pick up some new camera skillz and to drop the baby weight by August.  I have had some wonderful baby photo shoots, thanks to a very willing subject (who, BTW has learned to look at the camera – SCORE!).  I bought a flash for my camera over the summer as a push present, and have (slowly) been trying to improve my indoor photography.  As for the weight, I didn’t drop it that fast, but I did fit into my bridesmaid’s dress for my BFF’s wedding.  I actually have no idea what I weigh; the last time I stood on a scale, I was (almost) 42 weeks pregnant.  I’m hopeful that I weigh less now than I did then, but I don’t care enough to get new batteries for our scale and stand on it again.  (Some of) my pre-pregnancy pants fit again, and that’s good enough for now.

This year has brought so many wonderful things our way.  I am in awe of how blessed we’ve been.  Jason continues to enjoy his work.  I’ve fallen into the ideal employment situation and a job that I absolutely love.  Our sweet little miracle was the highlight of our year, and she continues to thrive – happily.  We can’t get enough of her.  She is just. so. awesome.  We’ve had opportunities to spend time with family and friends, and we have had so many reminders this past year of just how lucky we are to have such wonderful people surrounding us.

With a new year comes new opportunities to improve ourselves, show gratitude, and have more fun.  So here are my goals/wishes/resolutions/whatever for 2012:

• Work on one new home improvement project each month.  Even if that project is as tiny as changing out a light fixture (I’m looking at you, horrible + nonfunctional above-the-stairway light).
• Try one new recipe each month.
• Make one new sewing item each month.
• Host an event/dinner/friends over once each month.
• Have at least one date with Jason each month.
• Finally finish & publish the two blurb books I’ve been working on (one is a wedding album, the other is memories/blog posts from 2003-2005… yeah, I’m a little behind).
• Throw Lilly an awesome first birthday party.
• Take a family vacation.
• Improve my instagram skillz.  My BFF posts the most beautiful instagram photos and I’m inspired to do better.
• Blog 3x/week (at least).  Improve/update the design of my blog.
• Drink more water, eat more leafy greens, and attend church more often.
• And my most important wish/goal/resolution: soak up every possible moment with Lilly as she grows, creating/enjoying many opportunities for learning and fun without rushing her exploration of life.

—

Also, totally unrelated: I’ve finally joined Pinterest and it’s as amazing as everyone has promised.  I’m obsessed.  As in, pinning on my Iphone at 4am while trying to nurse the sick baby to sleep obsessed.  Give me a shout out if you’re on so that I can follow you!  (Also, what’s the difference between “liking” something and “pinning” it?  Is there one?  I’ve just been pinning everything that I like… but maybe I should be liking it?  I have so much to learn!)

Merry Christmas!

Hope this note finds you all enjoying family, friends, and good food, while celebrating the *best* holiday of the year.

thanksgiving 2011

This year’s turkey day adventures included a 12-hour drive to Philly.

Yes, 12-hours.  With a 4.5-month old.  I was pretty sure we were crazy for even attempting it.

(Our reasons for driving are numerous: 1. flights from our local airport are prohibitively expensive, 2. flights from our local airport require at least 1 stopover, which means at least 6 hours of travel anyways, 3. flights from larger airports might be more reasonably prices, but they require a 2 hour drive, which means at least 6 hours of travel, 4. we can bring the dogs if we drive, 5. I highly value being on my own schedule, 6. I strongly object to being groped or imaged by TSA)

We drove through the night, deciding it was the only way we could make the trip in a reasonable amount of time.  During the day, Lil still likes to eat every 2 hours, and stopping that often would have resulted in my sanity going straight out the window.  But at night?  She’ll go 12 hours without eating.

The trip went well – pretty much as planned.  Lilly woke a few times, but we were able to calm her back to sleep by singing the Itsy Bitsy Spider.  Like 32,587 times.  And while there are few things sweeter than listening to my husband sing his off-key indie version of the song to our baby, it loses it’s charm after the forty-second time.

But!  It worked, so we stuck with it.  (And especially after finding out that the ABC’s, baa baa black sheep, 3 blind mice, and 50 Nifty United States did NOT calm her down.)

Probably the most memorable moment of the drive to Philly was when, somewhere in the middle of nowhere Ohio, I hopped out of the car to use the bathroom at a rest stop.  When I got back to the car, I found Lilly half-naked on the passenger seat, Jason uber-annoyed pointing a water spray bottle at a whining Jezebel, and Barley, our 75-lb dog cowering IN A LAUNDRY BASKET FULL OF OUR CLEAN CLOTHES.  I wish I had taken a picture, because I’m sure my words aren’t doing it justice.  But just imagine a GIANT DOG trembling in fear in your laundry basket.  Ridiculous.

So you know I was giggling, even though Jason wasn’t impressed.  I was all, “bahahaha, isn’t that HILARIOUS! A DOG in a LAUNDRY BASKET!” and Jason was all, “not so much”, and I was all, “okay, but this will be funny at some point, right?  when will it be funny?” and he declared that it wouldn’t be funny until we safely arrived in Philly.  So it’s funny now, people.  Laugh.

Our time in Philly went by quickly — too quickly, as it always goes.  But we got lots of time in with family, and I’m certain that Lilly enjoyed watching her cousins as much as they enjoyed her.  It’s going to be so fun watching the kids grow up together.

Jason and I became godparents to our sweet nephew Thomas.  (BTW, he totally has the “say cheese and look at the camera” thing down.)

Lilly got in tons of Grammy and Poppy snuggles.  (And I managed to work in some sewing time!  Score!)

Thanksgiving was a wonderful meal, spent with Jason’s immediate family.  In previous years, we had gathered with extended family, and that was always lovely, but this was so very nice.  My MIL prepared a delish traditional Thanksgiving meal & once again, I was delighted that I’d be able to participate even without the butter.  Soy butter is surprisingly similar in taste to dairy butter.  (But I still prefer dairy butter.  Big time.)

The kids got matching clothes for the event!  And, after 300 photos, I have two in which all 5 children are looking at the camera.  I think that’s what happens when you’ve got 5 under 4.

When I got my 300 photos loaded on the camera, I found the sweetest little interaction between Thomas and Lilly, the two littlest ones.  Amidst the chaos of the older kids and the moms rushing in to fix hair or wipe snot or whatever, this happened:

Can you even handle the cuteness?  Because I totally can’t.

Lilly met Santa for the first time when he made a special trip to her Grammy & Poppy’s house!

Unfortunately, it was almost nap time and she was a little hungry, so it probably wasn’t the best meeting ever, but we managed to get at least one straight-faced picture before she needed to be fed.  And I’m pretty sure she passed Santa her hippie baby wish list, which includes swimming lessons with her dad, yoga lessons with her mom, books, and simple (i.e., quiet) toys.  Or maybe that is just her mom’s crazy wishful thinking.

And then, we were off on our 12-hour journey home, which proved entirely uneventful with the exception of Jezebel puking in my lap at about 4 am.  Sigh.

The trip was a huge success and has us contemplating a return in a few months.  It also left us even more in love with our daughter than we were before (if that was possible).  We’re just so amazed by how well she traveled, how happy she was to meet and play with her family, and just how easy she is.

four months of Lilly

(okay, she’s almost 5 months.  But I wrote this weeks ago & it got lost in the drafts folder waiting for pictures.  So this is really about what Lil was like at 4 months…  So that counts for something, right?)

Ahh!  She’s so awesome you guys. So awesome.

And Jason and I seem to really be hitting our stride as parents.  But things will probably change again next week.

One of the best lessons we’ve learned in the past week is that parenting seems to be much more about changing our expectations of the current situation than actually changing the current situation.  For example, a few weeks ago, my baby decided that she no longer needed to nap.  I was like, “NO!  Babies NEED naps!” and I decided she was going to nap for at least 2 hours starting at 1 p.m. every day, and I was going to read her a book and then rock her and then put her to bed.  And I did this for about 4 days.  Maybe 5.  And they were very very frustrating days and I was mad and crabby.  The thing is, this baby does sleep, and she sleeps enough – at least 12 hours straight through the night, and probably 10-30 minutes after a few of her feedings during the day.  And she is just so happy all the time – she’s not cranky or itching her eyes or yawning or any of that.  And once I just decided to accept that my baby is going to sleep when she’s going to sleep and that I should plan on doing what I need to do after she falls asleep at night, things got much better.  Once my expectations met reality, we were golden – I was in a much much better mood, and we had a great time together.

I should note that this week, that’s changed.  In the past few days, she’s opted to take an hour nap in the morning and a 1-2 hour nap in the afternoon.  Without my prompting.  Which kind of rocks, because I’m a lazy parent, and if she keeps this up, I won’t even have to worry about sleep training. *fingers crossed*

She’s getting to the age where she can do more things, explore more objects, and more easily talk/laugh/smile at us.  It’s awesome.  Although I sometimes find myself wishing she was just a little bigger so I could do (insert cool idea here) with her, I am really really loving this age.  Small enough to still be a cuddly, sweet baby, but big enough to smile, coo, laugh, and stay out of trouble.

At her 4 month appointment, she was 26 inches long (95th percentile) and 14 lbs (50th percentile).  She gave the doctor skeptical face as he listened to her heartbeat, and she was a champ for her vaccinations, calming herself almost as soon as they were done!  We learned that it’s recommended that we stop swaddling her soon and that we can start feeding her solids anytime now.  Truthfully, I’m hesitant to start solids right now; it just seems too early.  Baby led solids sounds like a really interesting approach to feeding my baby, and I need some more time to look into it and read about it before deciding which foods to start with.  Also, my baby can’t yet sit up on her own, which seems fairly critical for feeding.  And, to top it off, I’m not looking forward to what real food is going to do to my cloth diapering.

Supplies that we’re loving this month:

• The Bumbo has made its appearance and we’re having so much fun with it.  Lilly LOVES sitting up now that she’s got more muscle control, and we sit her on the table (even though the label says not to – BAD parents!) while we’re eating dinner so that she can join us.  It’s really remarkable that the first time I put her in the bumbo – just after she turned 3 months – she lasted about a minute or two and was super-wobbly, and now, just a few weeks later, she can sit while Jason and I eat an entire meal.
• Books!  Lilly will actually sit in my lap and look at books now.  Her attention span is increasing, and I’m loving that she’ll pay attention to the pictures while I read to her.  I think her favorite might be Brown Bear.
• The Boppy.  How have I not mentioned this before?  We’ve been using it since day one… it was great to sit on when I was recovering from childbirth, and now we’ve been using it to support the baby when we’re holding her, or we’ll set it on the couch and lay Lil in it when we play with her.  We’ve used it for tummy time.  It’s a pretty great all around product.
• Small toys/objects.  Now that Lilly can grasp things, we’ve been putting more objects in front of her to grasp/touch.  Things like small rattles and crinkly fabric squares are becoming more easily graspable.

And, for some mamabragging about our girl’s skills:

• Smiles, coos, and giggles all around.  The coos are rocking my world lately because she’s begun varying her tone/pitch and making different facial expressions as she talks.  Sometimes she has very very serious things to say, but more often, it’s a happy high pitched squeal.  So awesome.
• She’s begun cuddling into us, putting her head on our shoulders.  Another awesome baby skill that makes me think that I might be doing something right.
• Her grasp is getting stronger, and she can grab objects that are in front of her.  We’ve seen her begin to reach out and touch things… she’s mostly interested in the dogs, our clothing/hands/hair/faces, and other babies.  She shows a slight interest in grabbing toys or touching books that are placed near her.

This is the first thing Lil really reached for – her buddy, Elijah’s burp cloth.  We are so lucky to have met so many sweet new parents in our birth class… I’ve made two mommy/baby pair friends that I’ve seen several times, and we’ve gotten together as a larger group twice since the kiddos were born.  It is SO NICE to have other parent friends that are at the same stage in this game as us.

A group shot of baby cuteness.  Jason thinks ours is the cutest (of course he does, she looks just like him!  Also, don’t all parents have to think their baby is the cutest?  I asked Jason this and he says, “BUT OURS REALLY IS THE CUTEST!”).

And one more, in which our peace-keeping hippie baby breaks up a chick fight.

• Sitting up.  She’s not quite sitting independently, but with a little support, she’s more happy to sit than lay.
• Sticking her fist/fingers in her mouth.  She loves to chomp her little fingers.  Chomp, chomp, chomp!  Between the chomping and the drooling, I won’t be surprised if our girl pops a tooth sometime soon…

dare to make something super-awesome for someone else

Yes!  The stars have magically aligned and I am finally able to join in the fun over at Kim’s dare to DIY party!

{insert celebratory dance here, to the tune of Jingle Bells or something equally festive}

And, as a special bonus, I made (& gave) some legit homemade gifts already this year.  We visited with Jason’s family for Thanksgiving, and opted to exchange gifts for the kiddos on Thanksgiving, when we were all together, since we will not be together for Christmas.  First up: DIY kiddo backpacks!

I’m always a little hesitant to dole out my homemade crap and call it a present, but my SIL encourages this behavior (thank you!) and I suspect that the kids don’t care whether my stitching is straight or not.  Indeed, probably the best part of the homemade gift was when my niece, upon opening her backpack jumped up and exclaimed, “I was wishing for a backpack!” and then wore it around the house for the rest of the evening.  The kids managed to find a few things to put in their new bags – like babies!  (thankfully they didn’t ask for mine).

I made three of them using this tutorial. (Wish I had taken a photo of all three backpacks – with or without kids attached – to show you… oh well).  I used a denim material for the backpack because it’s heavy duty, and then I used colorful 3/4″ wide ribbon for the straps.  I cut each child’s first initial out of fabric & sewed it to the front of the backpack before actually assembling the backpack for a personal touch.  Yay personalized backpacks!  Also, yay for my niece’s super-fierce runway-ready model pose (boo for my bad photography):

I think if I were to follow the tutorial again, I’d make the backpacks just a few (5?) inches bigger, and make the ribbon casing at the top of the pack a 1/2″ wider.  But not bad for my first try…

I also revisited the monster towel, making an orange spikey one for our other niece.  This time, the “whoa, awesome” moment came when her dad realized that I had made the towel.  He was quite surprised…

My cute SIL was more than happy to model for me.  I think maybe she needs a monster towel, too?  (I think the real question here is who DOESN’T need a monster towel?  Seriously.)

And that’s what I’ve been making this holiday season…  I’m hoping to make a few things for Lilly before the big day, but that would mean she’d have to go to bed at a reasonable hour and actually stay asleep for the night, something that’s not been happening around here for the past week…  (please, Lil?  pretty please?)