A New Form of Travel

Lily has found a new way of travel and I think that means we are going to have to baby proof the house a lot sooner than I expected. She rolls! Last week she rolled from her belly to her back and then this afternoon she rolled from her back to her belly. By this evening she was rolling everywhere. At one point I put her at one end of the quilt on the floor and about 15-20 minutes later she was at the other end. (I never said it was the quickest mode of transportation.) She absolutely loves rolling onto her back and gets a huge grin every time she does it.

I will try to get some pictures up here soon. I have been trying the past few posts but for some reason I keep getting errors. I keep trying different photos and nothing it working. I am trying to get in contact with someone from the website to help me. Hopefully I will be able to get some up soon for every to see.

Solids

Lily started "solid" food today. Solid is in quotes because we watered the rice cereal down so much it was practically a liquid. This was so that it was an easier transition from breastmilk/formula to solids. At first she kept moving her tongue about and spitting the cereal out looking at Sean and I like we were crazy. After a little bit she started opening her mouth every time I brought the spoon to her mouth and only a bit was escaping her mouth.

She also rolled over from her stomach to her back on Thursday! She has done it several times since then, always over her left arm. Today she hasn't rolled over because she is trying to go to the right and can't figure it out that way. She seems to be getting very frustrated because she knows she has done it before and can't do it again.

I can't believe how much she is learning every day and how she is so much an infant instead of a newborn now. Her facial features are changing to make her look more childlike and her personality is showing through in everything she does. I love all these milestones that she is reaching but at the same time I am already realizing how fast times goes with a little one and how I need to savor all these moments with her.

Planes, Family, Beaches, Teething and more

We got back last night from our trip to California. Let me first say that Lily was her amazing self and did wonderfully the whole trip and made everyone out there fall in love with her in person instead of just over the computer. I was very worried about the plane ride and her ears. I didn't want to be the person on the plane that everyone wanted to through out the emergency exit because of her crying child. Lily barely cried at all. Only about a total of 45 minutes to an hour on all 4 flights combined. Lots of people from the flights commented on how well-behaved she was. I am definitely proud of her. Now while she wasn't crying she wasn't exactly being quiet either. She learned a new noise and was working to perfect all the other noises she already knew. She started doing this really high pitched squeal while Sean was holding her up on his shoulder and then she would smile and bury her face into his neck and scream there. Then lift her head up and look around to see who was paying attention to her. Then repeat. Luckily the people around us thought it was cute.

We got to see so many family members while we were there. It was definitely a busy few days. Lily got to meet another of her grandfathers, more great-grandparents, lots of cousins, and some great-aunts and uncles. We went to watch 2 of Sean's cousins play soccer and Lily and I both got to experience our first soccer game. Seeing Sean's cousins that we haven't seen in over 3 years made me realize even more how we need to make a strong effort to get out there as much as possible. All the kids had grown up so much.

We also went to the beach and Lily got to see the ocean for the first time. It was hard because we had to keep her out of direct sunlight because she is too young for sunscreen, but there was no way we could have kept her indoors the whole time we were in California.

Lily has definitely started teething and that did make the end of the trip a little more stressful. I had noticed a couple weeks ago that she was really starting to drool a lot more and sucking on her fingers more. This past weekend though she was trying to bite anything she could get her hands on. She would pull our fingers to her mouth and chomp down. She is also getting a bit fussier than normal and keeps crying and putting her hands to her mouth. We did buy some infant oral pain relief gel for the flight home but when we went to put it on her somewhere over the Rockies we realized we needed scissors to cut off the top and we definitely didn't have scissors on the plane.

There are some things that I will do differently on future plane trips but overall this was a very successful trip. She adjusted well to the time difference and even slept in more there than she does here, she met lots of people, and we didn't get thrown out of a plane.

California

We are leaving for California tomorrow to visit almost all of Sean's side of the family. It is going to be great seeing everyone but I'm not looking forward to flying with an infant. I'm sure she will be well behaved (or at least I hope) but I know we are still going to get death stares as we get on the plane with an almost 4 month old. I am also dreading packing and everything else that needs to be done before we leave. That is partly why I am sitting here writing this rather than doing anything productive. Lily is also not helping me be productive by just wanting to be held and screaming anytime I put her down. Maybe I will have to put her in the carrier to try to get stuff done with her with me. I will let everyone know how the trip goes and post lots of pictures when we get back.