trying to be important

I know it’s almost cliche, but they grow up too fast!

Five things I’m loving about Lilly:

1. She’s *almost* walking! She stands up and takes several steps a day, any day now she’ll just keep going and we’ll have another TODDLER.
2. How she’s growing and blossoming all at once. Lilly interacts with us in a whole new way now; grabbing our hands to make us do something, raising cups to my lips to make me drink, holding my phone by my head and using the buttons, etc. If her hairbow falls out of her hair, she picks it up and tries to put it back in her hair. When she wants a kiss, she moves my face to give me one. Lilly makes the most hilarious facial expressions; we always know how she feels.
3. The way she plays with my hair and wraps her arm around my neck when she eats. Lilly is so cuddly! She loves to rub soft blankets next to her face and give be hugs to stuffed animals. She likes to pull the throw pillows off the couch and lays on them on the floor.
4. When she initiates a game of “peek-a-boo” with me. It’s so stinking cute!
5. The way she gets excited to see David after a long separation (like an hour long nap). A few nights ago, Lilly crawled over to David and leaned in and gave him a big wet kiss. Pretty much the sweetest moment to ever happen.

Five things I’m loving about David:

1. His talking! Seriously, he’s off the charts with his vocabulary, problem solving, memory, etc. It’s just nuts. I love that I can just talk to him–so much so that I often have to remind myself that he’s still only two and not much older. A couple weeks ago I found a ceramic decorative bird at TJ Maxx. David quickly adopted it, named it “Hypothesis,” and carried it around with him for the following week.
2. David has been singing like crazy lately. And dancing. And drumming. And making instruments (he lined up some colored pencils and pretended they made a xylophone). His favorite songs are the alphabet, Twinkle Twinkle, I Am a Child of God, and “Dinosaur Train” (really, just the words Dinosaur and train sung over and over again while he bounces his foot like a mini Elvis).
3. His sweetness. David is the sweetest kid there ever was. Since he was born, it’s usually the first or second thing people say about him–that he’s sweet (and then a comment on his blue eyes). Today while Lilly was napping, David and I just cuddled under a blanket and giggled and played.
4. He goes to the bathroom completely on his own! He won’t even tell me he needs to go or make me come with him, he just gets up and goes into the bathroom. It’s SO nice to have him be independent. We still have to remind him sometimes, but for a majority of the day he goes all on his own.
5. David is so helpful! He’ll bring me diapers for Lilly, throw things away, get his shoes, etc. By the end of the summer, I’m hoping he does shoes and the buckles on his car seat all on his own. We’re almost there with shoes already (or we were until I got him new ones).

one Lilly is pulling herself up to stand pretty much everywhere these days. Her favorite perch is the toilet.

two I’ve been hoarding pictures on my phone. I NEED to post some. I have over 1,000 pictures on my phone and 55 videos. Lots of cute things happen, are photographed and that’s all the farther I get. Shame on me.

three Lilly is growing her first TWO teeth. I’m so excited about it! No really, I am. For a while I was starting to wonder if she’d still be toothless at her senior prom.

four David is a talking MACHINE. It’s constant. His funny thing this week: There is a baby Elmo illustration on the diaper box we recently got. David keeps telling me that it’s a “mammal wearing glasses.” I get such a kick out of it. Oh, and a week or so ago I was telling him about something I was working on, and he walks over to me and puts his hands on my cheeks and says, “Mommy, what are you talking about?”

five Up until this week, I’ve been a sewing machine. I need to post about my projects. I estimate that I completed over 20 projects in 2012, and I’m well on my way to surpassing that for 2013 (8 completed, and many more I’m eager to do).

six David is our junior paleontologist. He is obsessed with dinosaurs. He knows their names, what they eat, etc. As a result, I’ve been learning a lot too.

seven Lilly will lean on empty boxes and the legs of her high chair to walk for short periods of time.

eight David sings the alphabet all the way through all by himself. I’m not even going to beat around the bush: I’m super proud.

nine Going on right this second: Lilly really needs a nap.

ten Things developed kind of quickly and unexpectedly, but we find ourselves moving to a townhouse April 5. That’s 33 days away (I asked the internet). We’re really excited and I’ll write much more on it later.

I’ll leave you with one of the pictures I’ve been hoarding. Okay, two.

I realized yesterday that I’ve only written one post about Lilly. I’m so sorry.

Lillian is already a month old. Yikes that was fast.

Lilly continues to be a wonderful baby, and we’re all so in love with her.

Two things:

• She eats and sleeps like a champ, by newborn standards. We’ve had a couple long nights, just to remind us how good we have it the rest of the time. Seriously, David typically gets up more than she does at night.
• Lilly is strong. She holds her head up for long periods of time and tries to push up on her arms during tummy time. Oh, and she ROLLS over and scoots herself all over her crib. I almost never find her where I left her.

David still loves her to pieces. We have to watch him closely because he doesn’t always know when he’s being too rough or that he can’t carry her. I can never leave him alone with her, because he tries to carry her off or feed her or push her in her swing (with such enthusiasm it might as well be an amusement park ride).

I let him help me burp her and change her diaper. When she cries when I’m getting clothes, diapers, putting something away, etc, David will stand next to her and say, “Shhh, mommy coming, mommy coming.” It’s the sweetest thing. He tries to share his toys and play ‘catch’ with her (that never ends well).

This is what happens when I do leave them alone, even for a minute: Lilly sleeping and hanging half off the couch because David tried to take her somewhere.

Here is David trying to “play” with Lilly. He doesn’t know she can’t breathe. I was actually trying to just take a picture of her with her headband, and right when I took the picture he decided to pinch her nose.

World, meet Lillian Grace.

Lillian was born at exactly midnight (12:00:05 to be precise) June 25, 2012*. She was 7 pounds, 2 ounces and 20.5 inches long.

During her insanely fast delivery Lilly swallowed some fluid, so when she was born she was ivory colored and immediately rushed to the NICU to have her lungs pumped clear and given oxygen. When Matt and I met her a couple hours later, she was already a healthy pink and doing very well. She stayed on oxygen overnight, so we didn’t get to hold her until about 8 am after they took her off oxygen. They kept her in the NICU for observation for two days, and we stayed one more night just to make sure she remained stable completely on her own.

It didn’t take long before we were all calling her “Lilly,” and I often find myself calling her Miss Lilly; she’s very dainty and lady-like. Not to mention, it’s easier for David to say “Lilly” than Lillian. The name is a combination of family names and personal taste: Lillian  is my great aunt’s name (a very special figure in our family) and Grace is a family name from several generations ago. We liked the sound of Lillian Grace, and Lilly is just the cutest nickname.

David LOVES Lilly. He gets jealous when I’m holding her and he’s not. He loves to hold her and kiss her and play with her hands. We have to watch him closely because he’ll try to pick her up (often bum first) and take her somewhere. The last few nights of Lilly sleeping in the crib, David has slept better than he has in a month. He loves to have “Baby Lilly” with him.

Don’t get me wrong, there has been some adjusting for David. He has his moments when he wants our attention when we’re giving it to her, but those aren’t super common. He looks for opportunities to test his limits and see if we’re paying attention, but for the most part he’s done phenomenally.

Lilly is the the most wonderful baby. She eats and sleeps well, already eating every 3 hours and sleeping for 4 and 5 hour stretches at night. She has dimples on both cheeks and smiles constantly in her sleep, and often when she hears David.

If you want to read about the labor and delivery, a post will follow. Trust me, this delivery deserves a post all its own.

* Our anniversary is August 25, Matt’s birthday is September 25, and my birthday is October 25 — So June 25 is the perfect birthday. 

The room is small and simple, but full of love:

• David’s baby bedding and now ‘big boy’ bedding was/is a hot air balloon and airplane theme (airplanes are a BIG deal to Matt and his dad (Papa), so it was only fitting). The quilt on the wall was made by Matt’s mom (Nana) and matches David’s crib bumper and has a matching hot air balloon pillowcase.

• The prints on the wall above David’s bed are Matt originals that I saved from his printmaking class from way back when (in thrift store $1 sanded and painted frames).

• On the shelf above David’s bed are two very special items: 1) a toy airplane that both Matt and Papa played with as little boys, 2) a “treasure box” from my grandpa for David. My grandpa gives a treasure box to every grandson (and now great-grandson). The boxes aren’t given at a specific age and no two grandsons get the same box; he gives the box when he finds the “right” one during his travels. David’s box opens with a combination and contains two rare coins and $1. I think it’s such a neat tradition and hope that David finds the box special when he’s a little older.

• The hot air balloon mobile is the same mobile that hung above David’s crib, and what I tried to use as inspiration for making a new crib bumper and skirt for baby Coco. The thought process was that David’s ‘side’ focuses on the hot air balloon itself, so her side should focus on the animals IN the hot air balloon. Easier thought up than done. Lots of shopping later, I settled on elephant fabric for one side of the bumper and a pale pink for the other (she is a girl after all). I sewed it all up with the elephants meant to be facing out, only to discover when I was completely done and tying the bumper to the crib that the elephants lined up exactly with the crib slats and couldn’t be seen. So, elephants on the inside and pink on the outside, which allowed me to use an olive colored queen-size flat sheet to make a simple crib skirt.

• I had something completely different in mind when I set out to sew a crib bumper, and I was honestly a little disappointed when what I had envisioned wasn’t working out and I had to settle on different fabric (no one told me how expensive cute fabric was when I got my sewing machine, I was so naive). That was, until I was given this ADORABLE blanket from a close friend that literally ties the whole crib together; it is elephant themed with matching pinks and greens to the bumper and skirt. I’m crazy about it.

• The blanket that you see in the crib was made by my grandma. My grandma made a blanket with the same pattern 18 years ago for my cousin and fell in love with it. Her house burnt down right after, and she couldn’t replicate or find the pattern again, until recently. My grandma was at a craft fair browsing a box of patterns not expecting to find anything interesting, and she ended up pulling out this long-lost blanket pattern and has just been waiting for a new baby girl to make it for.

Miss me? No, I haven’t forgotten I have a blog. I’ve just been busy preparing for baby Coco and chasing David (literally chasing). I have a dozen or so drafts that need to be finished and published, but first things first.

Pregnancy.

People want to know: how’s it going? how much longer, again? Pregnancy has been great, thus I haven’t had much to say about it. Lately it has been getting a little uncomfortable, but that’s to be expected. I feel lucky that up until 35 weeks, I didn’t even have swelling to complain about (then we took one last road trip to a wedding across the state and I exchanged my dainty ankles for clubs). Today I’m officially 37 weeks, making me fullterm. I’m supposed to “stay close” and be ready because I’m in the ANY TIME NOW zone. It feels like this pregnancy went crazy, scary fast. David went right up to his due date, I don’t know when for sure, but I would be surprised if I made it to my due date with Coco. Things are very different.

Over the last few weeks I’ve been doing the last of the baby prepping; sewing baby blankets and a crib bumper, washing and organizing FOUR full loads of baby clothes, blankets, burp cloths, and bedding, and making tons of baby hair accessories. I’m not going crazy with it, I just want people to know she’s a girl.

Names.

We have it narrowed down to a few names. Unlike David, I’m not super stressed about it. We don’t know the exact name we’ll give her, but I’m confident that when we meet her, we’ll have the right name.

David.

Last weekend my sister Melissa got married, so we went over to Fruitland and stayed with my parents. Two things about this: David’s favorite person in the whole world (even above me) is my younger sister Kendra, and my parents have lever-style door handles that nearly made me bald. Every chance he got, David would sneak out the front door and run full speed straight for the moderately-busy, 35 mph street by the house, and then all 36-weeks-pregnant me would have to sprint after him (something no one should have to witness, it wasn’t glamorous). David had a great trip being Kendra’s shadow and trying to put me into labor.

David is cuter that cute, but now full of that toddler independence. We’ve been adjusting to new kinds of messes and new kinds of tantrums (on the floor rolling and screaming). He’s also affectionate, quirky, and in my completely biased opinion, freaky smart.