When was the last time you used your Yellow Pages? I mean other than as a booster seat for your three-year-old nephew at the dinner table. If, like me, you answered, “Um…we have a Yellow Pages?” then perhaps this is the year to opt out of receiving it. Save a tree. Or a dozen.
Thanks to Abby, who alerted me to the option of NOT receiving a printed phonebook.
Not much new to blog about. Lily recovered from a bruise on her cheek (of unknown origin) just in time to fall into the entertainment center (while dancing on the couch to The Wiggles) and get a doozy of a shiner on her left eye. I guess I could have snapped a pic of that, but it was just so sad. It was one of those injuries that looks much worse than it was — she only cried for a couple of minutes, and that was mostly in protest to the frozen peas we were hastily attempting to apply.
My dad is doing great. He even went to church today. Poor Lily is so confused as to why Papa can’t pick her up and hold her, but he’s on strict orders not to lift anything greater than 5 lbs.
I have been getting an early start on Christmas shopping. Typically I have the best of intentions but procrastinate until the week of Christmas, cursing and vowing to be on top of things next year. But this year I’m actually getting quite a bit done early. I’m hoping it will help ease us through the holiday season with a bit more peace and serenity.
Wow. Put this down as the most boring blog post yet. Sometimes there’s just not much to report, you know? Anyway, here are a couple more pics of Lily and her cousins, Ethan (9) and Finn (7) from our family photo shoot.
Sara has done it again. This time she has taken on a group of nine, including two rambuctious boys and one moody toddler, on a WINDY October day, and somehow captured dozens of beautiful, sweet, storytelling images. I have lots of favorites from the shoot, and here are just a few:
That last one of the three kids is perfection. Lily and the boys have a mutual adoration of each other, and I just love this photo.
This family shoot was done at the Unity Village Rose Garden, where my parents were married 40 years ago. My sister and I decided a family portrait would be a nice way to commemorate their anniversary.
Thanks, Sara, for your vision, talent, and personal touch.
Angus is fantastic. When we got him as a pup, I worried a bit about the future with him and kids, because sometimes Scotties are said to be only a one-person dog and not the most tolerant breed with little ones. Literally from the day we brought Lily home, Angus has been amazing around her. When he first met her, he sweetly licked her toes and when on about his business. When she was a newborn, he would quietly pad into her room as she napped and curl up in front of her crib. Now that she is a bit more interactive, he tolerates her tugs and shoves, her many hugs and kisses, and even when she sits on him like a horse. The two play chase around the coffee table, and Lily is learning to throw things for him to retrieve. And, of course, the payoff comes at every mealtime, when a virtual smorgasbord awaits him under the highchair.
Scotties are a little like cats in that, when you call them, they may or may not choose to come to you. And they may want to be petted for a bit, but then might move away when they have grown tired of it. So early on in our life with Angus, Bill and I would say we were “chosen” if he decided to jump up on the couch and curl up on one of our laps. Interestingly, when I was pregnant, I was chosen very often. It seemed Angus could sense something was different, and I enjoyed the time we got to spend together, knowing it would be cut short when the baby came.
It’s true that even as much as we love Angus, he does not get as much attention, walks, and one-on-one playtime as he did pre-Lily. Still, when Lily is in bed and all is quiet, he will sometimes hop up onto the couch with me, and I smile to be chosen as the recipient of his warmth.
Dad came through surgery very well. The surgeon came out to update us and told us it was a “boring surgery,” which is great for Dad! He came out of the anesthesia and started breathing on his own around 6:30 yesterday evening, and at 8:30 he was alert and joking. He is in the cardiac ICU, so the visiting times are limited to 15 minutes every hour. Let me tell you, seeing your loved one unconscious, with a breathing tube, two chest tubes, a central line and various other tubes and lines, looking frail and unfamiliar in a hospital bed, is taxing on the emotions. We were thankful to have family and pastoral support yesterday. And, after 16 hours in the waiting room, I was glad to be able to come home for a good night’s sleep.
Today will be a bit of a challenge, since I will have Lily with me at the hospital. And Lily is going to have a hard time understanding why Papa can’t pick her up and carry her around (for the next 6-8 weeks, actaully). But I am excited to get down to the hospital and be with my family.
(Oh, and another update, Lily weighed in at 18 lbs. and measured 30 3/4 inches at her 18-month appointment on Tuesady.)
Today as I drove downtown, there was a random sight: one red, one white, and one blue balloon tied to a guard rail at an intersection. No political signs, just the balloons. It struck me as the most patriotic thing I’ve seen in a while. And today, the sight nearly brought tears to my eyes. Today I am more proud to live in America than I have felt in…well…about eight years, I guess.
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On a more subdued note, please send positive vibes our way as my dad is having heart surgery in the morning for a valve replacement. It’s going to be an anxious next couple of days.
She’s not always as solemn as she appears in these pictures. She was not as into the fall leaves photo session as I wanted her to be. I was lucky to get any pics at all without the permanent whiny expression she had most of the day. The end of daylight savings time really has her off kilter. Tonight she was down for the count before seven.
In previous updates, I have recounted Lily’s new skills, but these days she amazes us daily. I would be hard-pressed to list by bullet point. I will say that, while her expressive language continues to be outdone by her skill at charades, her receptive language is impressive and, at times, formidable. She is ever watchful! She takes it all in and occasionally demonstrates what she has absorbed. For instance, she insists on holding the keys when we are going out to the car, and now when I say, “Lily, unlock the car,” she finds the correct remote key fob (out of two choices), locates the correct button (out of three buttons, including a tempting red alarm button), and pushes it two times, which is necessary to unlock both the driver’s door and passenger doors. I have never shown her how to do this. “Lily, can you go get Angus a stick?” will send her into the dining room, where she will push and drag a barstool out of the way to access the cabinet behind it, then get out the bag of rawhide sticks and take one (because I’ve told her “just one” a few times), and go give it to him. Once she came to me with a sense of urgency about her, dragging me by the finger to Angus’ food bowl, which was empty, then pointing at the plastic container in which his food is stored. She takes excellent care of Angus.
Oh, and she’s tidy! I had to stop myself from reprimanding her recently for getting into the kitchen trashcan (which she used to do routinely without purpose) when I noticed she was throwing away a scrap of paper that had been on the floor. She also loves to dust and clean with a damp cloth. She shrieks if you try to pry it from her hands. The other day she found a pair of her jeans that had been discarded on the couch and took them to her room to put away in her drawer. Honestly, I’m not sure where she gets the cleanliness thing. Bill insists it’s him, but I beg to differ (hello, Mr. leaves a week’s worth of coffee cups littering the house). Maybe it’s from Teresa, who cleans our house once a month (often the only thorough cleaning the house gets in a month).
Lily has recently acquired a new potty chair, which she enjoys sitting on fully clothed. She did pee-pee in the potty once (oh my, new terms are entering my vocabulary these days), then leapt from the chair, eyeing the potty fearfully, presumably at what she had left behind. She sometimes goes into the bathroom and squats next to the potty to poo, and once I even managed to get her diaper off and seat her on the potty in time, which I think sort of counts. I don’t think she’s ready to go diaper-less anytime soon, but these are exciting times for us (so just bear with me!). I get all wistful imagining a stretch of time without diapers after Lily is potty trained and before we introduce a new peeing, pooping member of the family.
And here are the current stats: Lily weighs in at 18 lbs. even and 30 3/4″ tall. She is wearing mostly 12-month and some 12 to 18-month clothing, though she has a few articles like skirts and dresses that are as small as 6 months. She has just moved up to a size 4 in shoes. We just retired her infant carseat a couple of weeks ago, but she still has to face backward in her new seat until she hits 20 lbs. She typically goes to bed around 7:30 or 8 and sleeps until 6 or 6:30, but sometimes Bill can get her to go back to sleep for another hour or so. She takes one nap, which is right around an hour. (Please, can a busy mom catch a break? She has never been a long napper, but I had really hoped that when she dropped down to one nap, I might get at least two whole hours out of her. The one hour is actually not too bad; it’s the 35-minute naps that put me over the edge.)
People always say that time flies by when your kids are babies, and I guess in some ways that’s true. But when I look at how far we have come in these 18 months, it seems like a very long time ago that I held that tiny newborn in my arms (and I pretty much did hold her day and night). Petite as she is, Lily is such a big girl now. I feel like I am really getting a preview of what she is going to look/act/be like as a preschooler, a kindergartner, even a teenager and adult.
She will be confident. She will be cautious to jump into a new situation, but she’ll be assertive on her own turf. She will be empathetic and caring toward others around her, particularly those who are in need. She will love animals. Her affection may not always be effusive, but recipients will be assured it is genuine. She will be perseverant, sometimes to the point of frustration, but she will glow with fulfillment when her goal is accomplished. She will know disappointment and hurt, as everyone does, but she will meet setbacks with resilience and newfound resolve. And she will find herself always enfolded in the unmitigated love of two parents who will probably always secretly believe that the sun actually does rise and set on her golden visage.
So I’m a little behind in my blog updates. It was a busy Halloween week for us, with a party at Gymboree a week ago Friday, Boo at the Zoo the next day, Trunk-or-Treat at church last Sunday, costume parade at my work on Thursday (where Lily put in an appearance), and of course the main event on Friday. The costume got a lot of use. I think Lily was really getting used to the idea of trick-or-treating by the end. She was excited to hold out her pumpkin bucket and then check out her loot.
I was so pleased with the way her costume came together. Before we settled on the cowgirl costume idea, I did a little online shopping for boots and a hat, since those would be key. Once I found them, I was able to pull out a skirt and shirt that Lil already had, and I found the pink bandana and — ahem, I actually sewed the vest myself, from a pattern that I created. Since it was the only piece of the outfit lovingly made for her, it was of course the piece Lily least wanted to wear. She kept trying to remove it. The boots took a little getting used to, and the hat required a bit of “practice” (trying it on in front of the mirror, Mommy and Daddy wearing hats to show Lily how fashionable hats are, trying it on Angus), and finally Lily decided she loved the hat and wanted to wear it most of the time, costume or no.
More to come soon, as our little Peanut turns 18 months tomorrow! Hope everyone had a spooooky good Halloween!
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