I Am Woman

I've had a very busy week and truly have not needed a weekend this badly in quite a long time. Carl left for San Diego on Saturday morning which left me, the baby and the other baby to fend for ourselves for 4 days and 4 nights while Carl attended The Gamma Delta T-Cell Conference. (Sounds like a rockin' good time, doesn't it?) The 4 days were fine; it was the 4 nights that were a little rough. I did cheat a little by sending Terra to daycare/boarding on Monday and Tuesday. We decided that it was probably best not find out the hard way that taking care of Terra, feeding and getting Lily ready for school, and getting myself ready for work was more than I could handle. Overall, I would say that we did fairly well for our first time without the pater familia.

Really, the easy stuff while Carl was gone was doing the dishes, the laundry, taking out the trash, cooking, straightening up - basically all the household chores. These things could be done when Lily went to sleep at around 8:00 pm - no problem. The biggest challenge was the middle-of-the-night stuff. It was very hard knowing that no one else was available to tend to the baby at 12:30 and 4:30 am. I was on with no one else on deck. I had to get her, change her, feed her, rock her, lay her down, rock her, lay her down... which usually takes a minimum of an hour each time she wakes up. I managed for 4 nights, but I certainly do not envy the life of a single parent. Saints!!!

While Carl was in San Diego, living it up with the other science-maniacs in his lab, the Director was also out for most of the week at work. This was double the fun for me. I guess that you get through it and know you're better for just having survived.

We are currently preparing to start Lily on solids. I knew when I got pregnant that I wanted to make my own baby food, so I actually bought the book "Super Baby Foods" when I was about 2 months pregnant. We probably won't start her on solids for about another month, but since you can freeze the food for about 2 months, I figure it won't hurt to get a jump-start on it.

It seems to be a growing trend among moms to make your own food; 3 out of the 5 babies in Lily's class so far are fed (or are going to be fed) homemade food. It seems fairly easy - basically cook and puree. And I think that the benefits (cost, nutritional value) outweigh the negative (time). I didn't intend to be such an "Earthy-type" mom. I just figure that I can do it, so why not? It will be a fun, new adventure for us all. I'm just not looking forward the change in her diaper content/odor after beginning solids. I hear that it's not pleasant.

Wild Things

The latest on Lily...

She is laughing up a storm now. I have found that a fail-proof way to make her laugh is to make funny noises on her belly. Gets her every time and cracks me up! I have also found sure ways to make her frustrated and unhappy. She is now grabbing things...from the floor, from me, and things that dangle in front of her - like her mobile and the toys on her Gymini. The preferred route for these toys once they reach her tiny little hands is straight to her mouth. However, some of the toys (like the mobile and Gymini) do not allow this course of action. This is entirely unacceptable to Lily. She puts up with it for a while but soon the moans, groans, and grunts begin, and it's all downhill from there. She almost broke her mobile today trying to get the toys to stop spinning and to go into her mouth. In the end, the mobile won but I guess that I'd better take it down before she conquers it, which won't be long.

She really is starting to figure out how to operate in this world and how to get what she wants. A couple of times last week, she was fussing in her room but when the teacher took her out of her room and started down the hall to the office (to me), she started laughing. Mischievous little girl.

Hooray for Spring!

Happy first day of Spring!! And, Happy Birthday to my Grandpa Deetz!

Wearin' O' The Green

"Enough with the pictures already, mom."

I can't help it; she's just too darn cute!

Just chillin'

Showin' off her moves

4 Months Old!

So we went for the 4-month check-up today, and the results are in.....13 pounds, 14 ounces and 25 inches long. That puts her in about the 50th percentile for weight and 75th percentile for height. She continues to be a "liddie gwirl" (translation: little girl), as my mom would say. She looks so much smaller than the other babies in her class, so it was comforting to find out that she is at least in the 50th percentile. She received 3 shots today. I love her doctor, but I'm not so fond of the nurse in his office. For the last shot she said, "Now this is the one that really hurts". Thanks, I really wanted to know that right before you jam the needle in her leg.

Overall, it was only a very mildly stressful morning. It is so nice that her doctor's office is upstairs from her school and my work. I was reflecting again today on how happy I am with our current situation that I can be at work and be with Lily. And, I really like my work.

I was on the Tiny Love website today. (For those outside the baby world, this is the website for a particular brand of toys. I really like their line because they have sound reasons for the toys they make and unlike most toys, I really think that they contribute to babies' development.) Anyhow, on the website, they were talking about timing when playing with your baby. They said that you might not want to make playtime directly after work when you come home tired and agitated. I thought about how sad it is that it is just assumed that people come home tired and agitated from work. I understand being tired from a long day, but agitated?... That got me thinking. Yes, at my former job, more often than not (okay, much more often than not) I came home tired and agitated (that's probably downplaying the level of emotion). How quickly I have forgotten that world. My current job is busy but not stressful. I truly don't think there is any other job that I would want for this period in my life. And, I think that this is, unfortunately, a very rare thing.

I guess I've been more contemplative than normal because of my approaching birthday. Birthdays, to me, present the perfect opportunity to stop and take stock of your life. As I turn 29 tomorrow and enter the last year of my 20s, I realize that I am probably happier now than I have ever been in my life. When we came to Baltimore, I knew that I wanted to have 3 things by the time we left: a house, a dog and a baby. Now that we've accomplished these things, I feel very content. I know that there is much more yet to come, and I hear that it only gets better and better, but for right now, I truly couldn't ask for more.

Baby Mohawk

We couldn't find Lily's brush after we gave her a bath last night, and you can see the result above. I tried to get it to lay flat this morning, but I was no match for Lily's lively locks. Her hair is starting to get a little longer, and it curls up when we don't brush it out. The jury's still out on her eye color. All we know for sure is that it will be something dark. Most likely she'll be a brown-eyed girl. But, who knows - maybe her brown eyes will turn green at puberty, just like Carl's did.

Lily was sporting her rain coat today because it was rainy and windy here; this weather has really thrown us for a loop. We are all still on the edge of sickness but putting up a valiant fight. Thursday we are going to her four month check-up, and she is due for a whole slew of shots. We'll provide updated stats on her height and weight and other fun things after the appointment.

March Madness

As you can see from Lily's attire, we had very warm weather here today. The high was near 80 so we got to break out the spring clothes line. The drastic change in temperature, however, has left both me and Carl feeling under the weather, and Lily seems to have a touch of congestion herself. I am hoping that we can all fight off whatever illness we have, but the forecast is not promising. Someone said today that we may be getting snow on Friday! Mother Nature seems to like to keep us guessing in the month of March.

Lily in the "pool" at school. She likes to laze about while watching the fish go by in the aquarium. Oh, the life of an almost 4-month-old!

An Oscar-Worthy Performance

Lily having a "Happy Visit" in the office with mommy.

Is it any wonder that she's captured everyone's heart at school?

Lily has become quite the little actress lately. At school, she does a little whimper as I leave the room just to test and see if I'm going to come back and stay with her. I knew that I was going to have to deal with this later; I just didn't know that it would start so soon. Since I have been feeding her at work, we go through this oh-so-pathetic routine several times a day. Lily has also begun to play with vocalizations and spends the majority of her time awake trying to find new noises that she can make; it's quite impressive. But, the most fabulous new ploy that Lily has to make her mommy's heart melt is to smile and LAUGH. Usually the laugh comes out more like a shriek but it is hands down the best sound that I have ever heard. Our very favorite game currently is to hold Lily close to my face and smile, she smiles and laughs and buries her head in my chest and then lifts her head back up to do it again. We could play this game for hours with no complaints on either side.

In other news, Terra was quite ill over the weekend. Carl took her to the vet on Monday, and we started her on meds that are apparently working since she seems to be back to her normal, playful self. Carl was quite impressed with the medication; it is both an anti-inflammatory and an antibiotic, so it covers a wide array of possible problems which is good since we don't really know for sure what was wrong with her. I have to give a shout out to Carl for getting up with Terra every two hours for three nights in a row.

Sometimes I still ponder whether it is harder to have a baby or a dog. It doesn't really matter though; they are both so worth it. Who would have guessed that we would trade hours of sleep in exchange for one sweet look and feel like we made out better on the deal? One mother of triplets said that people would often give her a sympathetic look and say that she must have her hands full. She would reply happily, "Better to have my hands full than empty". So true.