Category: Lily

Lily @ 9 mon

Weight: 17lbs, 1 oz. (25%)
Height: 25.5 in (5%)
Head: (50%)

Lily is fast on her way to walking, she stands alone all the time, she runs around in her walker, and she crawls like lightning.

She has added two baby signs in the last few days, she signs Potty and More.

She loves baths and showers and had her first dip in the pool yesterday. She was completely delighted to be in that much water!

She loves cheese and cheerios and not much else. She is just learning to drink a bit from her sippy.

Waiting for a Sign

Lily can say a few words now. She says mama, dada, ball, car, cat and probably a few that we haven’t decoded yet. But at this stage of the game what I am really waiting for is for her to start signing. That is when language just takes off – at least it has for the last two kids.

She seems to be doing some “sign language babble” and moves her hands in specific ways that mean something. But just like verbal baby babble, it seems that one motion can mean several things and basically what she is saying (signing) is “I’m trying to tell you something.”

For now though, we have a little foreign language speaker and we wait each day for her to start speaking our language. Someday soon it will happen, but right now we are in the communication waiting room, waiting for that moment when her face lights up and she knows we can understand what she is saying to us.

Our EC Journey

Now that my graduation post is finally written, I will swing back to the other end of the spectrum and discuss baby stuff.

I have read about EC (Elimination Communication) for some time now, but never thought is sounded realistic. But things changed last week.

Since we are hoping for some kind of potty training miracle to fall from the sky and hit Max, was have potty chairs littered around our home right now in hopes of never missing an opportunity. Last Monday, I think it was, when Lily woke up first thing in the morning, I was changing her diaper on the floor. Right next to me was a little potty chair, so I figured, why not put her on it, she very often poops within the first few moments of waking up in the morning, maybe I can get away with not having to change one poopy diaper.

Well she didn’t poop in it, but she did pee in it right away. Over the next several days, I put her on the potty each time she woke in the morning or after a nap and sure enough she peed every time!

I have also caught at least the first half of her morning poops most morning since then. The second half is trickier since it happens about a half hour later.

Yesterday and today she has started something new, sometimes when I try to put a diaper on her she thrashes around and pulls at it while I am changing her. If I put her on the potty then, she will pee right away and then she is fine having her diaper put on. A couple of times now I have been nursing her to sleep only to have her wake up and start thrashing and crying, fighting me like crazy, so I put her on the potty, she peed and then was perfectly willing to go to sleep.

My mind is so boggled by all this.

In the mean time Max is making a real effort to go in the potty. Since there is obviously no pressure on Lily to actually go in a potty, it has been easier for me to let go of some of the pressure I have been putting on Max as well. He has been spending part of each day in big-boy- pants and has had reasonable success in those. When things get really busy though, he is still in a diaper. There is a coveted yo-yo ball waiting for him atop the fridge for his first poop on the potty.

And just so you don’t think I am certifiable, my goal with Lily is not to get her into panties before a year. I figure it is a few less diapers to wash and will keep her in touch with her body’s signals of when she needs to eliminate. That is what this is all about. Most days we have caught 2-8 pees and 1-2 poops. she still goes in her diaper, and I would not expect her to hold it until I got her to a bathroom. But it is much easier to keep her dry and happy this way. It really hasn’t taken any extra time, either. I have to change her diaper anyway…

After checking out a book from the library on Elimination Communication (The Diaper Free Baby) I realized that I have done this to some extent with most of my kids, I just didn’t start this early. Usually I would introduce a potty chair shortly after a year old and put the child on it upon morning waking, before or after baths, or when Jay or I would go. Within a few months they all seemed to get the basic idea and most of them were fully trained by age 2. (Max was obviously an exception to this, but then there is always an exception to the rule, isn’t there?)

But and 8 month old? This is completely new territory for me, but we are enjoying it all the same.

Lily Goes Vertical!

Lily is growing and developing by leaps and bounds, she has recently begun to crawl and pulling up has followed closely behind it.

Just today she mastered pulling up all on her own:

Step one – find something low to reach up to.

Lily Goes Vertical part 1

Step two – Once your hands are up off the floor, straighten your legs.

Lily Goes Vertical part 2

Step three – Look around for where to go next.

Lily Goes Vertical part 3

Step four – Go for it, you’re almost walking now!

Lily Goes Vertical part 4

So not only is she pulling up, but she is already, as you can see, trying to cruise furniture.

Then… if that wasn’t enough, she achieved another balance milestone tonight. She hates crawling on the tile, and will usually just cry when she gets to the edge of the carpet. But tonight she REALLY wanted to get to me, and I was about four feet beyond the edge of the carpet, so very carefully and very slowly she crawled on her hands and FEET. She had to set her knees down a couple of times to get her balance but she only did it when she had no other way to keep moving.

Lily 6 Month Update

Toes are the best toys

Stats:
Height: 24.5 in (20%)
Weight: 14lbs, 14oz (25%)
Head 16.5 in (50%)

I can’t believe six months is already here. Lily is doing well, although we have the beginnings of anyone-but-mom-is-the-devil. She still has kind of a needy temperament, but if I carry her a lot she is happy and super sweet.

She smiles all the time and her smiles are changing over the last few days to be more like a regular smile instead of the wide open mouthed baby smile.

She can sit for a couple of minutes on her own and is starting to get up on all fours a bit. She would probably do it more if she ever let us put her down! She is just starting to get the idea that she can move her body to get something she wants, but doesn’t yet know how to coordinate all those movements. She loves the bath and will kick and splash and laugh all the way through it. She loves to give big open mouthed kisses and playing with her toes.

Don’t hate me, but she is back to sleeping almost through the night. I think it is mostly because naps are so hard to come by. She can’t nap if we are out and about unless she is in the car. She really needs to be at home in her own bed or swing to get a decent nap. She still loves to be swaddled for sleeping, but she can sometimes escape the miracle blanket by morning. She doesn’t love the car, but doesn’t hate it anymore and no longer needs to be swaddled for car rides.

She has sampled solids (rice cereal) but for now is happy with just playing with spoons while we eat.

Random Thoughts on a Monday

After looking at the calendar this weekend I realized there are no free days left at all until after Easter. I need to find it somewhere inside of me to be super-organized.

Posy is one step ahead of me. I was looking at the giant piles of undone laundry last night while prepping the kids for bed. I told Posy to go and round up a uniform skirt (clean or dirty, it didn’t matter) for Tessa, because I knew that Ben had clean uniforms. She informed me that she had made sure there were skirts for Tessa when she put the clothes in the dryer. How many 13 year olds can think ahead like that even for themsleves let alone for someone else.

I made it to the first of four sessions of the parish mission today. Well, I kind of made it. I got there right on time if it was starting at 9:15. But it had started earlier. And it was in the Church instead of St Bridget’s Room like it usually is. SO it probably wasn’t appropriate for Max to be eating his cheez-its and drinking juice. Oh well, I’ll be better prepared tomorrow.

Lily had her first try at playing violin yesterday. She watched all through Tessa and Max’s lesson intently, so Dasha put the violin (Max’s 1/16th size) against her shoulder to see what her response would be. She immediately turned her head and sucked on it. Okay, so maybe she is not a prodigy. Yet.

We introduced Max to Star Wars. C3PO is now known as Seepah-wee-ah-doh. R2D2 is just plain R2D2.

I have dinner planned up to (but not including)Thursday and I even have all the groceries to make the stuff. Go me!

A Friday in March

I am going to grab moments as they hit me today and post what I can think of:

The garage is underway! We have been working on it and slowly but surely it is getting almost un-embarrassing. But you don’t get pictures until it is done.

I found Max a little while after breakfast eating right out of the cereal bag in his sisters’ room.

Thursdays would be a really nice day to have a clone of myself to be in two places at once. Bedtime and picking up Posy from choir (40 minute car trip) happen at the exact same moment. But I really can’t think of a day when it would be BAD to have another one of me around. Like today, one of me could hold the baby while the other one does vast quantities of laundry. Then when the baby goes to sleep, that one of me could mop the (sticky, gross) floor.

Lily likes to suck on her toes. I can’t think of anything cuter than a baby sucking on their own toes.

While I nursed Lily down for her nap, Max found a Sharpie. ‘Nuf said.

I received an email from someone interested in my rosaries!

Just found while cleaning the kitchen: a cup of water with three q-tips soaking in it. It boggles the mind…

Also found: two mostly empty juice boxes put back near-but-not-in where the juice boxes go.

As of 11:30 AM, I have washed two loads of laundry, folded/hung up two loads, tidied the family room, cleaned the kitchen, fed Max lunch, and about a hundred other small jobs not even worth listing. But the list of what I haven’t gotten done is still FAR longer. There, the dryer calls!