It's funny to put toys on your head
Now you try
Rolling over with style and grace....well, style anyway
Ready to crawl
A meeting of the minds 
March 2024
3 weeks ago
Monday, May 29, 2006
Having Fun at Home
It's funny to put toys on your head Now you try Rolling over with style and grace....well, style anyway Ready to crawl A meeting of the minds Saturday, May 27, 2006
Five Fabulous Years
Carl and I celebrated our five year anniversary on May 21st. Unfortunately, we didn't realize that it was our anniversary until the middle of the day last Sunday. So, we had our official celebration today. We had the luxury of having a 3-hour dinner together at a fondue restaurant, thanks to Grannie Jannie who is in town and offered to babysit the baby and the dog. I was able to have a night of great conversation with the one I love, respect and admire and then come home to the sweetest baby in the world - who could ask for anything more?
Sunday, May 21, 2006
Daddy's Girl
I think that Lily looks more and more like Carl every day. It's hard to see in the pictures, but her hair is definitely getting more curly, just like daddy's.
Taking advantage of a sunny day
Lily and Nathan went for a walk together today. Lily managed to have a major meltdown about a half hour after this picture was taken. Nothing like taking a walk by the serene, peaceful water with a screaming baby. Gotta love it!Saturday, May 20, 2006
Lily's First Trip to the Zoo!
Lily sat in her stroller without the infant seat for the first time today so she could see all the animals.
Lily and her friend, Rae, chatting about the exhibits at the zoo.
Tiffany and Rae on the lookout for polar bears.Thursday, May 18, 2006
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Splishin' and Splashin'
She is getting to be such a big girl! She no longer needs the sling in her bathtub, and she loves to play in the water. I think water toys will be next!6 Months and Counting
Yesterday marked six absolutely astounding months with little Lily. She went for her 6 month check-up today, and we found out that she is now 16 pounds, 12 ounces and 25 inches long. All along she has been slightly under the 50th percentile with her weight but now she is slightly over the 50th percentile, so we are thrilled! It really is the difference between a few ounces at this stage of the game, but it is nice to get confirmation that she is indeed thriving.
She is now eating like crazy. Before it didn't really seem necessary to feed her solids; it was just kind of a trial period. Now it is evident that she needs solids every day. She has eaten pretty much everything that we have given her but is not too keen on water. The faces she makes when we give her water are hilarious. Apparently she is used to a much sweeter drink, and water is just not the tonic of choice. Hopefully, this will change. On the menu this month are: pears, prunes, squash, nectarines, barley cereal, and oatmeal cereal. We will keep everyone informed of the approval rating for the new foods.
Lily is still breastfeeding, and we have not supplemented with formula to date. It is hard to believe how far we have come with this endeavor since our rough beginnings six months ago. However, now that she is six months old, I know that her immune system is more developed and breastfeeding at this point, while beneficial, is not as essential. So, I am now open to the option of supplementing breastmilk with occasional formula feedings, but I am not going to do this until I feel it is right for us. And right now I am comfortable with our current situation. I will probably re-evaluate in July when she moves into the Toddfant classroom.
Currently, Lily sleeps in her crib until she wakes up sometime around 3:00 am. This could vary on any given night to between 1:00 and 4:30 am. When she wakes up, I usually change her, bring her into bed with us and feed her while we both drift off into dreamland. If she wakes up anytime after this, I just feed her again, and she usually goes back to sleep almost immediately. It probably isn't the proper thing to do, but it works for us.
Lily is definitely becoming stronger everyday, and she currently is scooting backwards. From watching other babies in her class, I know that this tends to be the precursor to crawling, so we are very excited for the weeks ahead. The doctor asked us if we started baby-proofing the house yet. I know that we need to because it won't be long before she is really mobile, but it just seems so weird. How fast this has all happened!
And that's where we stand after six spectacular months.
She is now eating like crazy. Before it didn't really seem necessary to feed her solids; it was just kind of a trial period. Now it is evident that she needs solids every day. She has eaten pretty much everything that we have given her but is not too keen on water. The faces she makes when we give her water are hilarious. Apparently she is used to a much sweeter drink, and water is just not the tonic of choice. Hopefully, this will change. On the menu this month are: pears, prunes, squash, nectarines, barley cereal, and oatmeal cereal. We will keep everyone informed of the approval rating for the new foods.
We still have no signs of teeth or even teething, so I think we have at least a couple of months for any developments on that front.
Currently, Lily sleeps in her crib until she wakes up sometime around 3:00 am. This could vary on any given night to between 1:00 and 4:30 am. When she wakes up, I usually change her, bring her into bed with us and feed her while we both drift off into dreamland. If she wakes up anytime after this, I just feed her again, and she usually goes back to sleep almost immediately. It probably isn't the proper thing to do, but it works for us.
Lily is definitely becoming stronger everyday, and she currently is scooting backwards. From watching other babies in her class, I know that this tends to be the precursor to crawling, so we are very excited for the weeks ahead. The doctor asked us if we started baby-proofing the house yet. I know that we need to because it won't be long before she is really mobile, but it just seems so weird. How fast this has all happened!
And that's where we stand after six spectacular months.
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Traveling to St. Louis - Take 2
This weekend, Lily flew to St. Louis for the second time in her young life in order to see her Aunt Angela graduate from college. This time Carl could not go with us because he had some important things going on at work, so Lily and I took to the friendly skies on our own. Having learned some important lessons from our first flight with Lily, we made some adjustments this time around. We actually woke up at 3 am so as to ensure that we made it to the airport well before our 6:55 am flight. When we got there, Carl dropped us off curbside and then went to park the car. Most importantly, we checked our bag OUTSIDE. I will never again go through the extreme inconvenience of standing in insanely long lines and dealing with rude and incompetent airline personnel in the inside check-in. The porter outside ran down the sidewalk to help me with my bag while I was carrying Lily, and he had me on my way within 60 seconds - no lie. It was the best $5 I think I ever spent. We were through security and waiting at our gate with an hour to spare before boarding time, so I'm feeling very confident at this point.
However, when we boarded the plane, we were only on about 15 minutes before the pilot informed us that there is a mechanical problem with the plane and we would have to deboard. So, off we go. I gather up all of our things, walk down the rickety stairs of the plane, go outside on the tarmac to the building, drudge up the stairs and back into the terminal. As I'm patiently waiting to hear what's next, I hear "Ms. Deetz" and see one of the agents looking right at me. I was very perplexed as to how this woman knew who I was and why she was calling my name. So, I go over to her, and she asks me if I would like to get on the flight to Chicago that was leaving immediately and then connect to St. Louis from Chicago. Fabulous - yes, please. The woman saw that I was traveling with a baby and since I was the only one on the flight with a baby, she knew that I must be Ms. Deetz. She said that she knew how hard it is travel with little ones, so she was trying to help. There are definitely some advantages to traveling with little bits in tow.
So, now we are off to Chicago, and I'm very happy that we are only going to be about 3 hours behind schedule, compared to our last flight to St. Louis in which we arrived about 14 hours behind schedule. When we arrived in Chicago, I suddenly realized that in the time that I got off the original flight and the time that the new flight took off for Chicago (about 15 minutes total), there was no possible way that my luggage was traveling with me. I tried to ask an agent in Chicago if he could check to see where my bag was, but he was entirely unhelpful and said that he had no way of knowing. Thank you very much.
So, of course, I get to St. Louis and the baggage carousel holds no parcel for me. Unfortunately, St. Louis was not my final destination for this trip. Angela's graduation was three hours away in Springfield, MO. So, I give my information to the claims guy, and he assures me that I will receive my bag in Springfield by that night or early the next morning at the latest. Yeah, right.
The graduation was at 2:00 pm on Sunday and needless to say, my bag was still not there. So, my more aggressive counterpart, Carl, called the airline and reamed them out until I got a $100 allowance to buy new clothes and essentials for the event. He has definitely showed me that sometimes it pays to be the squeaky wheel. All said and done, I received my bag late Sunday night and had some spiffy new clothes as compensation for my inconvenience. Not too bad.
The trip itself was wonderful. Lily got to meet her Uncle Tim and cousin Mary for the very first time. She also got to see everyone else - all her aunts, uncles, cousins, Grandma and Grandpa on the Meyer side. I really couldn't have asked for a better way to spend my first Mother's Day.
I want to send out a big "Congrats" to Angela, Zach, and Ashley on their graduation. We are very proud of them all, with their Magnas and Summas and so on. I'm very excited that Angela is going to grad school at Wash U in St. Louis. Hopefully, we will be joining her back in St. Louis in just two short years.
I don't know if I ever publicly acknowledged Carl's recent achievement of having two scientific papers accepted for publication. Since this is turning out to be a very long post, I might as well do that too. Lily and I are so proud of him and all the hard work that he has been doing lately.
I've posted some pictures of our trip, but of course, I left my camera in the hotel for the main event of the weekend. So I don't have any pictures of the graduate or my brother and his family who also went to Springfield for the day. Hopefully, I'll get some pictures from Ang soon that I can post.
However, when we boarded the plane, we were only on about 15 minutes before the pilot informed us that there is a mechanical problem with the plane and we would have to deboard. So, off we go. I gather up all of our things, walk down the rickety stairs of the plane, go outside on the tarmac to the building, drudge up the stairs and back into the terminal. As I'm patiently waiting to hear what's next, I hear "Ms. Deetz" and see one of the agents looking right at me. I was very perplexed as to how this woman knew who I was and why she was calling my name. So, I go over to her, and she asks me if I would like to get on the flight to Chicago that was leaving immediately and then connect to St. Louis from Chicago. Fabulous - yes, please. The woman saw that I was traveling with a baby and since I was the only one on the flight with a baby, she knew that I must be Ms. Deetz. She said that she knew how hard it is travel with little ones, so she was trying to help. There are definitely some advantages to traveling with little bits in tow.
So, now we are off to Chicago, and I'm very happy that we are only going to be about 3 hours behind schedule, compared to our last flight to St. Louis in which we arrived about 14 hours behind schedule. When we arrived in Chicago, I suddenly realized that in the time that I got off the original flight and the time that the new flight took off for Chicago (about 15 minutes total), there was no possible way that my luggage was traveling with me. I tried to ask an agent in Chicago if he could check to see where my bag was, but he was entirely unhelpful and said that he had no way of knowing. Thank you very much.
So, of course, I get to St. Louis and the baggage carousel holds no parcel for me. Unfortunately, St. Louis was not my final destination for this trip. Angela's graduation was three hours away in Springfield, MO. So, I give my information to the claims guy, and he assures me that I will receive my bag in Springfield by that night or early the next morning at the latest. Yeah, right.
The graduation was at 2:00 pm on Sunday and needless to say, my bag was still not there. So, my more aggressive counterpart, Carl, called the airline and reamed them out until I got a $100 allowance to buy new clothes and essentials for the event. He has definitely showed me that sometimes it pays to be the squeaky wheel. All said and done, I received my bag late Sunday night and had some spiffy new clothes as compensation for my inconvenience. Not too bad.
The trip itself was wonderful. Lily got to meet her Uncle Tim and cousin Mary for the very first time. She also got to see everyone else - all her aunts, uncles, cousins, Grandma and Grandpa on the Meyer side. I really couldn't have asked for a better way to spend my first Mother's Day.
I want to send out a big "Congrats" to Angela, Zach, and Ashley on their graduation. We are very proud of them all, with their Magnas and Summas and so on. I'm very excited that Angela is going to grad school at Wash U in St. Louis. Hopefully, we will be joining her back in St. Louis in just two short years.
I don't know if I ever publicly acknowledged Carl's recent achievement of having two scientific papers accepted for publication. Since this is turning out to be a very long post, I might as well do that too. Lily and I are so proud of him and all the hard work that he has been doing lately.
I've posted some pictures of our trip, but of course, I left my camera in the hotel for the main event of the weekend. So I don't have any pictures of the graduate or my brother and his family who also went to Springfield for the day. Hopefully, I'll get some pictures from Ang soon that I can post.
Pics from the Trip
Just hangin' out in the airport, waiting to go to St. Louis.
Lily and her cousin, Mary, met for the very first time this weekend.
"So Mary, tell me what it's like to be almost 2 years old."
" Let me tell you all about it."
Did someone say they needed adorable? We've got it covered.
Mary with her Mommy and Daddy.
Mary's all set to go back home.
Grandma and her two youngest grandchildren (for now). Soon we will have another little girl join the family, and we can't wait!
Back from our walk, Lily loves to get some cuddle time in with Grandma. Lily loves Grandma and Grandpa's new house and new neighborhood.
We had a great trip and had so much fun, but Lily is still excited to go back home to see Daddy and Terra.
Sunday, May 07, 2006
Thursday, May 04, 2006
Tales from the Dinner Table
Okay, I know, I haven't updated in a while. In all honesty, it is largely due to a bit of laziness on my part. But, I received the message loud and clear from certain individuals that I have been slacking on my duties. So, a few tidbits...
Lily has had a limited culinary experience thus far, but all signs seem to indicate that she is not a picky eater (yet). She took to the rice cereal immediately, she wasn't sure about the avacodoes at first but she definitely warmed to them by the second serving, and she downed the bananas without a second thought. She has decided, however, that our help with feedings is neither desired nor warranted. Whenever we feed her, she grabs the spoon and shoves it into her mouth and continues to chomp on it until she's satisfied. If she could just figure out how the "reload" works, she would much prefer to do this eating thing sans mom and dad.
Lily has been rolling over and sitting up a lot lately, although she has not yet figured out how to get herself into a sitting position. I told Carl tonight that I think Terra is going to be the motivating factor in Lily's efforts in crawl. In my limited experience, it seems that babies start to crawl when there is a strong enough stimulus to make them want to move. In Lily's class, the oldest baby (8 months old) just started to officially crawl this week. Her motivation? Her parents decided to wean her off of her pacifier. So, the teachers had pacifiers out on the mat, and she wanted them so much that she crawled to them. It sounds a bit cruel, but she didn't seem to mind never getting the carrot at the end of the stick, and she is now very pleased with her newfound freedom.
In Lily's case, I definitely think that Terra is going to be her motivation to crawl. She absolutely adores Terra. She holds her hand out so that Terra can give her kisses, and Terra gladly obligies. But, she can only do this when I hold her so that she can reach Terra. I think that if I forced her to try to get to Terra on her own, there would be some initial frustration, but it wouldn't take long for her to figure out how to do it on her own steam.
Carl said that she actually made crawling motions tonight toward him, but kind of like the stationary bike rider, she found herself in exactly the same place that she started. I didn't witness it, but I'm taking Carl on his word, which isn't worth much tonight. I'll explain...
I came home tonight to find Carl cooking dinner. What a treat! It looked and smelled wonderful. There was chicken simmering in a Thai chile marinade, a four-cheese rice and vermicelli mix, and cooked spinach. As I'm looking over the fare, Carl says "I found this recipe on the internet, and I thought that I would try it out". Highly suspicious, since Carl has not ever in his life looked for a recipe in a cookbook, much less online. So I play into his little white lie: "Really, you found this recipe online, wow". Carl responds "Yeah, it called for this marinade that we had on hand so I thought that I would try it out." (He is a terrible liar by the way - nothing at at all is believable in his story or his tone.) So, I ask him point-blank, "Are you lying to me?". And he confesses immediately, "Yes, I didn't think that you would want to try something that I just made up so I used the internet thing to make it more credible." Little sly dog. The funny thing is that he really does have me pegged. Saying that he found the recipe on the internet did make me more intrigued and added to the appeal of the dinner for me. How well he knows me. Too bad, how well I know him too.
Lily has had a limited culinary experience thus far, but all signs seem to indicate that she is not a picky eater (yet). She took to the rice cereal immediately, she wasn't sure about the avacodoes at first but she definitely warmed to them by the second serving, and she downed the bananas without a second thought. She has decided, however, that our help with feedings is neither desired nor warranted. Whenever we feed her, she grabs the spoon and shoves it into her mouth and continues to chomp on it until she's satisfied. If she could just figure out how the "reload" works, she would much prefer to do this eating thing sans mom and dad.
Lily has been rolling over and sitting up a lot lately, although she has not yet figured out how to get herself into a sitting position. I told Carl tonight that I think Terra is going to be the motivating factor in Lily's efforts in crawl. In my limited experience, it seems that babies start to crawl when there is a strong enough stimulus to make them want to move. In Lily's class, the oldest baby (8 months old) just started to officially crawl this week. Her motivation? Her parents decided to wean her off of her pacifier. So, the teachers had pacifiers out on the mat, and she wanted them so much that she crawled to them. It sounds a bit cruel, but she didn't seem to mind never getting the carrot at the end of the stick, and she is now very pleased with her newfound freedom.
In Lily's case, I definitely think that Terra is going to be her motivation to crawl. She absolutely adores Terra. She holds her hand out so that Terra can give her kisses, and Terra gladly obligies. But, she can only do this when I hold her so that she can reach Terra. I think that if I forced her to try to get to Terra on her own, there would be some initial frustration, but it wouldn't take long for her to figure out how to do it on her own steam.
Carl said that she actually made crawling motions tonight toward him, but kind of like the stationary bike rider, she found herself in exactly the same place that she started. I didn't witness it, but I'm taking Carl on his word, which isn't worth much tonight. I'll explain...
I came home tonight to find Carl cooking dinner. What a treat! It looked and smelled wonderful. There was chicken simmering in a Thai chile marinade, a four-cheese rice and vermicelli mix, and cooked spinach. As I'm looking over the fare, Carl says "I found this recipe on the internet, and I thought that I would try it out". Highly suspicious, since Carl has not ever in his life looked for a recipe in a cookbook, much less online. So I play into his little white lie: "Really, you found this recipe online, wow". Carl responds "Yeah, it called for this marinade that we had on hand so I thought that I would try it out." (He is a terrible liar by the way - nothing at at all is believable in his story or his tone.) So, I ask him point-blank, "Are you lying to me?". And he confesses immediately, "Yes, I didn't think that you would want to try something that I just made up so I used the internet thing to make it more credible." Little sly dog. The funny thing is that he really does have me pegged. Saying that he found the recipe on the internet did make me more intrigued and added to the appeal of the dinner for me. How well he knows me. Too bad, how well I know him too.
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