At Least We're Dry

So we've been a bunch of sickies. My local readers (which are probably only Anna and Kelly) will know that we've had crazy rainy weather. It was an absolute downpour yesterday evening. We lost power around 1:45. I woke to the sound of the baby monitor beeping because it had lost its signal. Lily woke soon after so I fumbled around in the dark (our house is pitch black at night unless there are either nightlights or a full moon) in her room while Benjamin used his blackberry to try to report the outage on the power company's website, which was (go figure) down for site maintenance. He called and got a recording saying they were aware of the problem and would have it fixed by 3:30 AM. At 3:30 AM Lily woke again, I stumbled to her room, fed her, rocked her, put her back down, came to bed wondering whether we'd ever have power again and what was happening to the milk in the fridge, etc. Lily woke again at 6:30 and I fed her, rocked her, and the power came back on. Hearing the buzz of the AC and seeing her nightlight flick on was glorious. :) Anyway I'm ashamed of myself for being so power-addicted but Benjamin can tell you how nightlight reliant I have become since Lily was born. :) I am not a "morning person", so as you can imagine being a "must-be-fully-functional-at-any-hour-of-the-night-despite-nearly-18-months-of-sleep-deprivation person" is difficult, so I would like to at least be able to see what I'm doing. And it was uncomfortably silent. Usually the locusts and critters outside are so loud we might as well live next to a highway, but I guess the rain chased them all into hiding. Anyhoo, we now have power, Lily's fever seems down but the spots are worse, I've been at about the same level of sickness for 3-4 days now, but it is Saturday so Benjamin is here to help and that is wonderful. :) Also, it could all definitely be worse. A very nice young couple living at the ranch had their house submerged in over 4 feet of water last night. :( The ranch had such bad flooding that a river basically ran through the kitchen and dining hall. I don't know if this link will work for anyone, but here are photos.

Sick Girl

Update

Yesterday morning Lily woke with a fever and the spots had spread to her face. I took her to the doctor and he said he's pretty sure it's viral, nothing serious, but it looked like a variant of hand, foot, and mouth. He said variant because he didn't see any spots in her throat, but everything else was pointing in that direction. Anyway, the poor baby was absolutely miserable all day yesterday. :( I had to go to Target to get some trash bags and other things we had run out of and she was a trooper, but after a while she was slumped over in the cart whining at me like "why are we here?!" Anyway, the fever seems to be down today but she still has the spots. And she does seem to feel better because this morning she was trying to play pattycake with Benjamin but he didn't understand (even though she was saying pattycake). He thought she just wanted to hit his hands or something. :)

Not Better, Worse

Now Lily is sick. Tonight before bathtime I noticed little red spots on her belly and back. Her temp was just over 100, but it wasn't a very good reading because she's so wiggly. Anyway, say a little prayer for the wild child for me. Thanks! :)

Chomper

Tooth #2 isn't far behind tooth #1.

And I'm still sick.

Stay tuned, I guess. :)

Pause

I'm sick. :(

So no new posts until either I feel better or Lily pops out a tooth for me to show you. :)

Cutting Teeth

The legs you see there are Zoe. She had what looked like an incredibly painful dental procedure done this morning where they cut her gums. Every time she smiled it hurt. And the poor girl kept smiling. She spent the day here playing with Lily, which was nice for me because Lily has been extra whiny and clingy the last few days and hasn't been napping well. I thought it was a possibility she could be (finally) teething but her gums didn't look very red or swollen so I wasn't sure. But this afternoon I felt her gum and I felt her first tooth coming through. So exciting and yet so sad. My baby's growing up! Anyway, here is an overload of toothless grin pics before it's too late:





I love that baby. :)

What I've Been Working On

There's a window shade that matches that I wasn't able to include in the picture. Hopefully tomorrow morning I can send it off to Texas and have a nice relaxing weekend with Benjamin and Lily. :)

Oh Dear...

Big Girl

Yesterday Lily and I went to Lancaster to have lunch with the infamous kjk. We had some delicious mini-burgers at the Alley Kat. Peanut ate mostly Cheerios.

And it's a good thing she's been filling up on Cheerios because this morning we (finally) had her 9 month well-baby visit. She weighs 21 lbs 4 oz and is 29 1/2" tall. Which means she is still 97th percentile for height and 75th for weight, which she's held steady at for most of her life now. (The dr said she's basically like a 12 month old that's the height of a 15 month old. ) We talked about starting more table foods, so that's our current project. She had one shot and didn't cry. She also had her finger pricked to have her iron tested and didn't mind that either. Her iron level was good too, so I was happy (and glad she's been filling up on Cheerios). So- healthy baby! I was wishing I had the camera with me because they put a bandaid on her finger and she was holding that thing up like some kind of badge of honor. She wasn't playing with it or trying to pull it off, just holding it up and staring at it. :)

Today Didn't Work Out

Yes that's Lily standing. :)

Today I got Lily up from her morning nap, fed her, changed and dressed her, got myself ready to go, stopped to get gas, and drove 20 minutes across town- all while braving the most miserable heat we've had this summer- to get to Lily's 9 month well-baby visit by 1:45. We got there, sweaty and disheveled, at the last minute, I go to the window and they say she's not scheduled for an appointment today. Usually I would think "oh no I got the wrong day", but Benjamin was the one that remembered this appointment because he had put it on his work calendar (because I made that appointment around the time he had just gotten his blackberry and he was finding reasons to use it constantly). They double-checked in the computer and they said Lily wasn't scheduled for a 9 month visit today or any day in August, actually. So then I know it's their mistake. Anyway they weren't able to squeeze us in so we get to do it all over again on Wednesday morning at 9:15. Woohoo...

Anyway, here she is playing with one of her favorite toys :)

This Is How She Plays

Lily is 9 months old today. Time flies! She is a busy chatterbox that makes big messes, finds the tiniest specks of anything on the floor and puts them in her mouth, still loves to pull my hair, loves her toys, and is trying her hardest to learn to stand. She is now occasionally pulling herself up on furniture, but loves to just play at her new activity table on her knees. She is busy, busy, busy so we are too. :)

This Is How She Sleeps

The sleepy attempt to put paci back in her mouth is my favorite. Look at that fluffy chick head! :)

This Is How She Eats

Pictures Don't Do Her Justice

I've been feeling guilty for not having updated recently. Part of it was not knowing where the camera was (bottom of the diaper bag, it turns out), and part of it was not really knowing what I could even take pictures of. Lily does not sit still, ever. And pictures could could not possibly capture anything about her current self. She's feeling/doing much better. She's now sleeping in her room full time, including nights. And the pooping seems to be back to normal, so she's back in cloth diapers (hence the weird outfits have returned, as seen in the video to follow :P). Also, she is constantly babbling.

My mom said months ago that she thinks Lily will be a chatterbox. I agree with her more every day. She loves (and tries to say) pattycake. She also says some form of mama, dada, and kitty. We're pretty sure kitty is her first word. (Again, it's just babbling so it's hard to tell, but after about 30 times of hearing her say "kee-kee" when a cat comes into view, and asking ourselves and each other if she just said kitty, I guess the answer is yes.)

Anyway, here she is playing this morning. I took this video with the regular camera so it's not great quality, but she had been making this growling noise for a while and I wanted to make sure I got it on here to share with everyone:

She recently brought the Jungle Bird back into her vocabulary, so that's been interesting. But the growling is really the ultimate Lily noise. I was just remembering this morning how my good friend Kelly named Lily "tiny dino" when I first found out I was pregnant. I had no idea at the time that I might actually give birth to a baby dinosaur.