Park Scramble

I have been getting really bored and even a bit annoyed at our local park lately. I think it’s partially due to the less than enthusiastic nannies and their 1 to 6 kid ratio. This would likely happen no matter what park we frequented on a nearly daily basis, but all the same I’ve been venturing out of our neighborhood more and more to mix up our routine.

To be fair, Lilia still manages to have oodles of fun at our park…

But check her out at the fancy park I took her to earlier this week.

She literally got out of her stroller and looked around in awe wondering what the heck she should do first. Of course the sand pit won out and we do have sand in our park, but still, it was fun to have choices.

Sand Toyless in SF

Lilia really loves playing in sand, and now that she doesn’t eat it anymore, I’m okay with it.

Side Note: I have huge sand issues. I’ve hated it for as long as I can remember. I used to detest it so much I dreaded beach vacations. Who dreads going to the beach?!? I did. Only in the last several years have I learned to accept that I have to embrace sand so as not to miss out on the rest of the good stuff.

In any case, Lilia does not feel the same way and I’m rolling with it. Still she does not have a single sand toy. Every time we go to the park she borrows whatever sand toys she can get her hands on and has a ball. The other day kids kept grabbing them back from her much to her dismay. She took it in stride when I showed her that she could keep filling up her bucket with her hands. Still, maybe the Easter Bunny can bring her a shovel and sieve or something.

Grape is to needle

Grape is to needle as sand is to haystack.

After kvetching to another park mom about Lilia’s insatiable appetite yesterday she turns to me and says did you give her something to eat just now because it looks like she has something in her mouth?

Um, no. Darn it, is she eating sand again? I thought we were past that stage. I go in for the swoop and among a few kernels of sand is a partially chewed grape. Leave it to my little scavenger to find a needle in a haystack, or at least a grape in the sandbox…and eat it. Oi vey.

Lilia has a lovey

We have some progress to report on the sleep front. The luxury of Lilia sleeping most of the way through the night has yet to return with the exit of her pneumonia but we’re still pretty happy with the baby steps she is taking.

Adam brags that the improvements stem from, and I quote, his “first successful attempt at parental programming.” I do have to hand it to him, in all the literature we were reading the only thing Lilia was missing for a good night’s sleep was putting herself to sleep on her own as opposed to falling asleep on me then being transfered to her crib.  The key to that was the adoption of a lovey. Of course she just didn’t seem interested in any of the loves we introduced. We noticed she started to show some love to her little piggy and Adam said, I’m making that her lovey, and we did it!

Now she snuggles her piggy like crazy and covers him in kisses. Mommy and Daddy kiss the piggy goodnight after kissing Lilia goodnight and for the past several weeks, she has gone to sleep all by herself for both bedtime and nap time. She’s such a big girl. If only her piggy would help put her back to sleep when she wakes up in the night. Ah well, baby steps…

She made it!

For those of you wondering if Lilia made it down the aisle on her own for the big wedding, yup, she did it!

We started the day with The Rose Family who had slept over and had lots of fun watching Lilia and Juliana play. They are such a fun pair and get along so well. Jules did an excellent job of wearing Lilia out and she took a two and a half hour nap in her crib, wowzer! That gave Adam and I plenty of time to get pretty and even left some time for me to practice the song I sang for Erin and Mike’s first dance a bit more. We were beginning to worry about needing to wake up the sleeping flower girl when she did it all on her own and arose in the best of moods. She played through an hour and a half of pre-ceremony photo’s and did get a bit antsy before her big debut, but when showtime came, Daddy set her down and she started making her way down the aisle. It was pretty emotional hearing the collective “ahhh” of a 200 person audience as she started walking our way. About a quarter of the way down she stopped to do a little dance, wave the rings around and chat with the people on the aisle. I called out to her and when she turned and saw me she ran the rest of the way down with a huge grin on her face. Adam handed off the ring pillow that she had dropped when I called her and they made a fairly speedy exit as she was not about to sit still for the ceremony, but she did make it down that aisle.

After that we did another hour or so of pictures and then Adina came and whisked her off so Adam and I could enjoy the rest of the reception sans baby. I’ll post pictures when they start finding their way to me. Sadly we had our hands too full to snap a single shot ourselves. In the meantiome, here’s a cute shot of Lilia snuggling her flower girl thank you gift: a supr soft and cuddly sock monkey.

Congratulations Mr. and Mrs. Cordell, we could not be happier for you.

Lifesaver(s)

Thanks to the wonderful workings of the world wide web my desperate post about our bad luck month has thrown us a couple of much needed lifesavers. One dedicated reader and friend has offered a loaner computer and another has offered to watch Lilia for a few hours so I can get in some hours at the office while I figure out a new child care solution.

Paul and Lisa, I can’t thank you enough for your kindness and generosity in helping out during this rough time. We really are so blessed to have such an amazing network of friends and family to support us.

Tasty Treats

Lilia is up to about 8-10 meals a day, no joke. Since it seems she is always eating I was starting to feel like we were in a food rut. Cheesy eggs, oatmeal, fruit and whole wheat pancakes get us through our first couple meals, but her later meals of tofu, pasta, cottage cheese, soups and veggies were boring even to me. She hadn’t started to complain yet but she really seems to like just about everything we give her so I want to keep expanding her palate and not just feed her the same old easy things.

Today she had whole wheat pita pockets with steamed carrots, avocado and cream cheese for lunch and for dinner she had whole wheat pasta with smoked salmon, spinach, broccoli and carrots in a caper, dill, onion and garlic yogurt sauce. It was so darn tasty it’s what we all should have had for dinner. I think it’s time I stop thinking of Lilia’s food and our food as separate. It would insure that we eat healthier and keep me from making about a zillion meals a day. Still, the time it may save in preparation it will suck up in creativity so I hope I can keep it up.

Here Comes the Flower Girl

Lilia’s big debut as a flower girl/ring bearer is tomorrow. Her godparents, Erin and Mike, are finally tying the knot. We’ve been enjoying all the pre-wedding festivities for the last month and can hardly believe that it’s finally here!

Valentine’s weekend was a blur. We left Lilia at G-lin’s house for the whole weekend while we attended the Bachelor and Bachelorette parties respectively. It was the first time we were both away from her overnight. Friday felt divine, staying up late and sleeping in and Saturday was a blast but by Sunday I was ready to have my baby back.

Lilia had so much fun with the shopping cart and groceries G-Lin had saved for her, and Mom said she’s never had so many baby snuggles. She said it seemed like every time Lilia might have been missing us she walked up and gave her a big hug or kiss. She was in Grandma heaven. The weekend definitely tired her out, but I think she summed it up perfectly when she said it took her a day to recover from her aches and pains and only a few hours to miss Lilia. I’d call that a success.

So after the big party weekend Lilia hit the end of two bridal showers and wowed all the ladies. We figure it was a good warm up to the big event. Tonight we attended the rehearsal reception at Gordon Biersch and Lilia ate the entire buffet. She walked all around with pizza in her hands then sat up on the bar high fiving people, belly laughing and nom nom nom’ing.

Tomorrow is the big day and we’re taking bets on if she’ll walk down the aisle on her own or if Daddy will need to carry her down. I’m a bridesmaid and since I get to go down first I’m pretty sure she’ll come to me, but you never can tell just where she’ll go!

Let’s Pretend

We go for walks all the time and, like most toddlers, Lilia loves picking up everything on the sidewalk and handing it to me. She’s a big fan of leaves and sticks but she is also drawn to cigarette butts and any other trash she can find. Lately she’s started pretending to pick up things and hand them to me. It’s really the first time I’ve seen her pretend to do something and it’s so fun, plus a lot more sanitary! Can’t wait to see what she pretends to do next.

Long Lost Lilia Lately

It’s been a rough couple of weeks around here…but that’s not the biggest reason Lilia Lately went radio silent. In a matter of weeks, not one, not two, but all three of our home computers crashed and burned. One Mac and two Dells. Sad thing is, that’s just a small indicator of my bad luck month. So, Lilia Lately needs a new computer and we are accepting donations! In the meantime I’m borrowing Adam’s work computer when I can pry it out of his super slammed grasp.

On top of our mass computer fail, Lilia was diagnosed with a urinary tract infection and pneumonia. The good news is the doctors decided the UTI was just bacterial as the culture never grew and we caught the pneumonia early. The antibiotics seem to be doing the trick and she finally started acting like my kid again a couple days ago. It was so heart breaking holding my feverish, lethargic, grunting and whimpering baby girl. She also kept getting blue lips, hands and feet which is so terrifying, but apparently not entirely unusual. Who knew? The one teensy weensy little silver lining in all this was getting lots of snuggles which she’s usually far too busy to dole out.  

In other bummer news, my share care arrangement crumbled and I’ve yet to find a new solution. The other mom in the deal seemed to be having an even worse luck month than me and kept having to go out of town unexpectedly. One of the trips she went on at the last minute was with our car seat still in her car at the beginning of Lilia getting sick. So while it’s dissapointing that it didn’t work out it’s probably for the best in the long run.

Adam’s job issued a 5% paycut company wide in order to prevent any more layoffs and as much as that stinks, it is better than the alternative and we just continue to be grateful that Adam has a job with great benefits. Lilia’s illness would have been devastating as opposed to an inconvenience without it. Both companies I contract for continue to do layoffs, another one just happened 2 days ago. The only reason I’m hanging on is because I’m part time and thus not that expensive.  Still it’s nerve wrecking.

Hopefully our luck is ready to do an about face because I’m not sure how much more of this we can take. Think good thoughts, and we’ll do the same for you.