I feel like so much has happened since last week. Here is a little update...
On Wednesday night, my mom called and said that they were going to see my sister and her family in St. Joe and asked what I thought about Lily coming along. St. Joe is about 5 hours from here so this would be the longest trip Lily would take without us. Although I'm always a little bit of a Nervous Nelly about these things, Carl and I both agreed that Lily would have a far better time with her cousins than with us over the weekend since I was preparing for my online class to begin on Monday. So on Thursday afternoon, Lily set off with Grandma and Papa for her trip. Needless to say, Lily had a fantastic time. She particularly liked the dog show that they went to and came back one happily exhausted little girl. Thanks to Tim and Suzanne for hosting everyone and to my mom and dad for taking on the challenge of traveling with a four-year-old. The funniest part was that Lily asked if they were there yet before they even got on the highway! Since she did not sleep on the way there or back, I think my mom and dad got their fill of conversation with Lily. I can attest to the fact that the girl just does not stop talking!
On Sunday afternoon, my Grandpa stopped by our house for a few minutes. For those that don't know, my Grandpa lives about 5 minutes from our house and
occasionally stops in to see his youngest grandchild....number 33. No joke - William is my grandfather's 33rd grandchild (including grandchildren and great grandchildren of course). And I'll tell you, Grandpa sure gets around and still a lot of pep in his step! Not too bad for turning 88 next month!
We ended up taking Lily and William to Chuck E Cheese's on Sunday night to have some fun family time. On Monday, I took Lily to school as normal but then got a call at around 10 o'clock that Lily had a fever of 101.5 and needed to come home. I felt really bad for having not noticed that she was sick, but she had no other symptoms and has not since had any other symptoms other than a sore throat. We are still not really sure what she has/had, but she did develop a little rash this afternoon on her legs and arms once the fever broke. Possibly our old friend
Roseola has come back to visit?
When I picked Lily up from school, I reminded her of the rules of being sick. You must lay around on the couch and watch movies and eat ice cream all day. Hey, there has to be some benefit to being sick, right? :) As you can see above, she was happy to eat her healthy foods as well. And, Terra was happy to
cuddle up next to a much more subdued Lily.
After starting to feel better, Lily was anxious to play with William. She has had the most difficulty with the "no touching baby" rule while being sick. This picture is a classic depiction of Lily's interaction with William. She is gazing at him adoringly while he is clearly thinking, "Dear Lord, help me".
Lily is totally excited about Valentine's Day. She very happily wrote all the names of her classmates on their Valentines. This is a huge transformation from just three months ago when she had to simply sign her name on her thank-you cards for her birthday presents. You would have thought I was torturing the girl. Today, she really wanted to write her friends' names. And, she did an awesome job. She wrote all of names all by herself. I'm so proud of how far she has come in such a short time. (And, yes, one of her friends' names is Storm.)
William is
noticeably growing. Today he actually pulled down the
Gymini (the two bars snap at the top) while playing with his toys. He also belly-laughed today for the first time. In the past, he has only giggled here and there. Today it was a full-on laugh. It was THE BEST sound. I only wish I knew what brought it on! I was sitting next to him but actually playing with Terra when it happened. I have no idea what was so funny to him, but I'm going to try my hardest to hear that sweet sound again. And that's all the news for now.
William has officially entered the Oral Stage of development
Enjoying his exersaucer
Between Lily and William (and Terra), its like a three-ring circus around here sometimes.
One of my latest inventions. I am constantly looking for new ways to entertain William. You can only rotate between the swing, exersaucer, Gymini, and crib mobile so many times before even I'm bored with them. William and I "go for walks" in the stroller around the house on most days since it is so cold outside. So yesterday, I rigged up a toy bar for the stroller by attaching part of the exersaucer to the stroller with strips of felt. It worked beautifully. I'm going to use the bouncy seat bar in the future because that has detachable toys that I can rotate. I love finding new ways to use toys, and I thought I'd share this idea for all those out there with little babies at home during the winter. Another trick I discovered yesterday: William fell asleep in the stroller during our "walk", so I parked him in the family room and turned on the bathroom fan to use as white noise while he slept...worked like a charm! He slept for two hours, and I didn't have to constantly tell Lily to be quiet - awesome!
