brain dump

In which I list things that have been on my mind in bullet points:

• Jason bought Lilly flowers — lilies — for Valentine’s day.  I was so impressed that he remembered his little valentine!  (He remembered his big valentine, too, with pink hyacinths.)  He bought potted flowers, so they can be planted in the yard in a few weeks!

• Shortly after Valentine’s day, we encountered our first-ever baby illness.  Lil had a temperature and she was so tired and needed lots of cuddles.  It never progressed beyond a sort of general illness (yay!) and cleared up in a few days.  My aunt’s package of Valentine’s day love (including, LOTS of cookies!) was perfectly timed in that it arrived just before the sickness and lifted our spirits while we were caring for a sad, sick baby.  We are so lucky that she hasn’t been sick until now (7 months!), especially since our friends with babies in daycare report being sick constantly.  I feel really fortunate that we’ve found such a good in-home daycare to send Lilly to, as she is only exposed to 2-3 other kids.  I also wonder how much of this has to do with receiving my antibodies on a daily basis?  Jason and I have both been call-out-of-work sick (which is like, REALLY sick – I hate calling out of work!), and Lil is totally fine.
• While we’re talking about sickness: why is infant ibuprofen/tylenol/etc flavored with obnoxious grape, cherry, bubble gum flavors?  This makes no sense to me.  Like Lilly knows what bubble gum is!  (How about milk/formula flavors for babies?)  And she gags, then vomits every. single. time we’d treat her.  It got to the point where I’d put the syringe on her tongue just to trigger the gag/vomit, and then I’d actually dose her… that way, I could be reasonably sure that most of the drug made it’s way into her belly.  I think our European friends may have been on to something when they offered us infant suppositories…
• Lilly has been doing so many hilarious things lately.  Occasionally, she’ll look at you and just tilt her head to the side.  I have no idea where she learned this or why she does it.  Also, she occasionally does the Indian head bobble when she’s laying down.  And she sometimes talks in a deep, scratchy voice that is best described as “monster voice”.  We hope she’ll continue to have a good sense of humor as she grows!
• Earlier this week, I mentioned that we were following baby led weaning, which more or less means that we offer Lilly whole foods, and she is supposed to grab them and get them into her mouth all by herself.  In reality, I hold on to a piece of food and she leans over and gulps it down.  She wants whatever I’m eating SO bad, but just doesn’t understand that she can grab it and put it in her mouth all by herself.  During lunch on Monday, she grabbed a piece of cantaloupe and began teething on it, so I’ve been watching her all week to see when it would finally click that hands are for eating.  Wednesday night, we had lasagna and I threw a noodle on her tray as a test…  She managed to feed herself, but not quite in the way that I envisioned.  So silly.
• My tall baby is now wearing 12-month clothes (and even growing out of some of them!).  WHAT?  How did this happen!?!