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.

Swishy Pants

I learned an important lesson last night, do not wear any clothing that makes any type of noise when you have an infant you are try to get to sleep. I was wearing a pair of what I call Swishy Pants. I had put them on last night because I wanted to wear something comfortable as we were getting settled for the night and my yoga pants were in the washer. Every time I would get Lily almost asleep, which is when I can usually put her in her crib and she will fall asleep on her own, my pants would make a noise and wake her up. And not just wake her up a little bit, but startle her so awake that it would take a couple minutes to calm her down and then she would just want to smile and coo and just generally be cute for the next 20 minutes. After a couple rounds of this wonderful "game" I won and she was asleep in her crib. I decided to go check on her after a bit, because obsessively checking on our sleeping infants is what new moms do, and my pants made swishing noises at the door and woke her up. I finally gave up with trying to get her to sleep in her room (still kinda wondering why I didn't think to just change my pants) and we settled in on the couch for some snuggle/sleep time. She finally did go to sleep and I was able to put her in the crib, but that was around 1am, about 3 hours after I started this whole ordeal.

The best part about all of this is that around 9pm she fell asleep at Buffalo Wild Wings when we went to visit Sean. It was fairly loud tonight and with all the tvs on I figured she would be wide awake, but no, slept through most of the visit and then wakes up to swishy pants...

3 months

Lily is 3 months old today. I had wonderful hopes of doing another photo shoot with her today to celebrate but she has had other plans including being fussy and sleeping. Now it is too late in the day to get good shots because there s no natural light. Hopefully tomorrow will work out better. I am still going to try to get a few pictures with her in her "3" onsie tonight.

She is smiling so much now and giggling a little bit. Usually when she giggles she stops and looks confused. Unfortunately every time she starts to smile and giggle and I pull out the camera or video camera she just stares at it. While this is cute, I have not been able to get all that many photos of her beautiful smile.

She is also starting to try to roll over from front to back. Every time we put her on her tummy she starts to throw her upper body back and her legs up so that she is balancing on just her tummy. She will also try to push with one of her legs and arms until she is part way rolled over. The only thing that is stopping her is that other arm, the one she is trying to roll over. If she could just figure out where to put it she would have it.

Pictures

Here are a few more pictures

Lily, me, and her musical bunny

The guys taking care of Lily

In her robe and slippers after bath time

Daddy teaching Lily how to play computer games