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So this amazing thing happened recently; Lily started helping me!  It started with, ‘Lily, bring me your block’ so that I could put her blocks away.  I would point to the block I wanted her to bring me, she would walk over, pick it up, walk back and hand it to me.  She followed this simple type of instruction for a couple of weeks when it occurred to me that she could help with other tasks.  ‘Lily, do you want to help Momma with the laundry?’ She nods her head yes and walks to the mud room.  She helps put the clothes in the washer, she helps move the clothes from the washer to the dryer, she helps put the clothes from the dryer into the basket.  She also likes to push the buttons, but that task is a little trickier, there are so many buttons and she never wants to push the one I ask her to push.  The other day, I said, ‘Do you want to help Momma put wood on the fire? And by help, I mean stand nearby and watch while Momma puts wood on the fire.’  She once again nodded her head yes.  I brought her out to the living room and put her down on the floor near the wood pile, I grabbed a log and went to the wood stove to add it to the fire.  When I looked over to see what she was doing, she had walked over to the wood pile and was trying to pull a good size log down off the pile.  I quickly stopped her, I didn’t want her to pull it off the shelf and hurt herself, but I did give her a smaller log and asked her to bring it over to the wood stove for me so I could put it on the fire.  She very proudly carried the small log from the wood pile to the wood stove, handed it to me and watched as I put it on the fire.  This was not a task I really thought she could help me with, and yet, she did.  A couple of days ago, she was playing in her room while I folded her clothes and put them away.  This always takes longer than she can handle, but she does her best while I finish up the task.  This day, I decided that I didn’t want to leave her room in the state we tend to leave it in after putting her clothes away.  I got down on the floor and said, ‘Can I help you put your toys away?’  She nodded her head yes.  First we gathered up her blocks, she put them in their bag one by one, when they were all away I zipped up the bag and put it away – she was not sure about me putting it away.  I quickly called her to another task, her shape sorted and all the shapes had to be put away.  We found all the shapes and I helped her find the corresponding holes for each shape.  Once it was full I gave it to her and asked her to put it on the shelf, she knew exactly where it went and took it over.  I asked her to put her books away and she put them on the book shelf, I asked her to put her sleep toys away and she put them in the basket, I asked her to put her blocks away and she put them in the appropriate basket or shelf.  She knew exactly where all her toys were meant to go and as long as I kept pointing out toys that were out of place she was quite happy to tidy them up.  I love that she has turned into a little helper, she loves to help me with any task (even if the only way she can help is by watching).  Things take a lot more time to get them done now, but it’s much more fun with a little helper and we really have no deadlines for any of these things, yet.

So, Lily’s birthday is February 2; right in the thick of winter.  Usually, here in Halifax, not a big deal.  Living on the coast we don’t often get big snow storms, and when we do they are promptly followed by enough rain to wash it all away.  February 2, 2013 was on a Saturday, which is birthday party day fro most families – but not ours.  I teach dance on Saturday afternoons so we couldn’t have her party on the 2nd.  Instead, we planned her party for the 3rd, the Sunday.  This seemed like it would be a great idea anyway because then her older cousins who could have been invited to other birthday parties on the same weekend would likely still be able to go.

So, everything was great, I had purchased treat bags for all the children who might attend, I had a cake on order to be made, I had decorations and a special ‘1’ candle.  My husband and his mother went shopping on the 2nd for fruit, veggies, drinks and other snacks.  We were all set!  Then the snow started.  We were reluctant to cancel or postpone because we had everything prepared and my mother-in-law had come to visit for Lily’s birthday, it would be a shame for her to have to miss Lily’s first birthday party.  However, we live pretty far out of the city and our roads are some of the last to get plowed.  When the snow didn’t stop before noon we decided that it would be safer for everyone if we postponed the party – February 10, 2013 was the new date.  I received an email from the person who was making Lily’s cake and by some miracle, she had broken the cake and offered to make a new one for another date – I asked her if she could try again for the following Sunday, and she agreed.

A lot of the drinks and snacks were still good from the weekend prior.  This meant only a small amount of food would need to be purchased for this party.  We had an appointment to have our photos taken in the morning on the 10th, so we had planned to stop on the way home to purchase any drinks and snacks that were now needed.  Enter Winter Storm ‘Nemo’.  The forecast was grim, upwards of 40 centimetres was forecast to fall beginning on Saturday and ending sometime on Sunday.  I kept my hopes up as long as I could.  After Lily went to bed on Saturday I ran around the house trying to make it clean enough for company and my husband went outside to shovel the driveway.  In the morning, the plan was, try to go to pictures, if we make it the party is on, if we don’t, no party.  We got up in the morning and looked out the window, the driveway was covered again and the road did not look nice at all, it was still snowing and the wind was blowing the snow making it hard to see and hard to clear the snow.  We decided it would be safest to stay home; no party this week either.  I went to my email to see what I could do about getting the cake – there was another email, she hadn’t been able to pick up the cake pan, did we want to have the cake on Monday or did we want to save it for yet another date?  We told her not to worry about the cake and we would try again another time.

So now, when can we have the party?  February 17 was out because my husband was going to be out of town for the weekend and we had a family party to go to; February 24 we had already agreed to go to another party for a friend’s new baby; March 3 is out because I had already agreed to substitute for some dance classes that day.  Now we are looking more than a month after her actual birthday, this just seems silly!  I don’t want to give up on her party though, she is my first baby and her first birthday is a big deal to me!  She doesn’t understand and is not disappointed that she has not had a party, but I am a little disappointed.  So, what to do?  Should we go ahead and try March 10 even though it is so far after her birthday AND the weather could cancel it again, or do we do something crazy?  We do something crazy, of course!  Why have a 13 month birthday party when we can look even further forward, to the summer when the weather is not as likely to be so bad.  So, for our baby girl’s first “birthday party” we will be having an 18 month party in August instead.  In day care, for a child to move from a baby classroom to a toddler classroom, they must be 18 months old, so instead of a “birthday party” we are having a “toddler party.”  This solution will not work in the future, I know, we will likely have a disappointed little girl every now and then, but at least she will still get to have a party this year!

I’d like to reminisce over all Lily’s firsts this year, but there are just far too many!  So, instead, I will find some pictures and reminisce about a few firsts.

Her first non-formula meal was on June 6, 2012.  It was immediately following her 4 month doctor’s appointment.  She had been wanting to eat real food since about 2 months but the doctor said it was best to wait until 4 months.  I asked her again at the 4 month appointment and she said it would be okay to start her with some cereal.  I went to the mall (it was closer than home) and fed her some cereal.  She wasn’t convinced that she liked it but she gave it a try anyway.  And, since then, she has pretty much always preferred non-liquid meals.

The first piece of artwork I made with her was on May 23, 2012.  She was almost 4 months old, and I had a specific intent for the project, we did hand and foot prints.  She didn’t really know what to make of it, but didn’t get upset.  Grammie was there with us, too.  She took some pictures and was there to help in case I ended up covered head to toe in paint somehow.  The artwork is hung in her room.  The first artwork she did without a specific intent was on July 18, 2012.  Grammie was there to help again.  She painted three small canvases that day.  I helped by painting her hands to get her started and holding the canvas so it wouldn’t slide away from her, the rest was all her!

The first time she played with ice cubes was on July 14, 2012.  It was a very hot day outside.  We were all hanging out outside on the deck.  Ice cubes seemed like a good way to cool off.  I got a tupperware container and put some ice cubes in it.  Lily didn’t really know what to make of it.  She tried to pick them up but they slid away, she did get to see how it felt when I held the ice cube.

The first time she fell asleep during tummy time was April 3, 2012.  She was wide awake playing with me.  I decided it was time for some tummy time because we didn’t really have a routine at that point.  I laid her on her very comfy quilt and she just closed her eyes and fell asleep.  It was pretty cute!

The first time she noticed the shadows was on July 23, 2012.  I didn’t realize at first, I thought she was just trying to crawl.  But it was really neat when I realized that she wasn’t actually trying to go anywhere but instead was swatting at the shadow of the leaves on the floor.

There are so many firsts, these were just a few.  Most of the big firsts were mentioned in the other parts of this post, so I haven’t mentioned them here.  I feel like this will be the last from this series of posts.  Then, it will be time to look to the future again!

In the last post, I reminisced about the vacations we took with Lily in her first year.  In this post, I will review her first holidays!  So many things happened in her first year, it’s hard to decide what to write about in these posts.

Groundhog Day (February 2, 2012) – On this day, Lily was born.  This was interesting for me, because I could never remember the date of Groundhog Day; but now, I will never forget it.  We spent this day in the hospital (obviously).  She spent the day probably in a little bit of shock after being pulled from her nice cozy home into this cold world where she has to wear diapers and clothes and breathe air!  It was really an unusual day, it was hard to keep track of what time it was, especially since we didn’t make it into our hospital room until around 3 or 4 in the morning.  But, overall, a pretty spectacular birthday!

Valentine’s Day (February 14, 2012) – Only 12 days after she was born, I was still recovering.  My father had come to help me out and keep me company through the day.  My parents brought us cards and chocolate (I got to eat it all).  We didn’t really celebrate much other than that because we were still in the whirlwind of new parenthood; time was moving faster than we could keep up and the days (and nights) really didn’t have much meaning, we were just trying to get through it.

St. Patrick’s Day (March 17, 2012) – Another holiday that seemed to simply pass us by.  Lily wore a sleeper with a small amount of green on it.  But, I suppose, aside from wearing green, St. Patrick’s Day is more of a grown up holiday.

Easter (April 8, 2012) – The first BIG holiday of her life.  She was not quite big enough to REALLY enjoy this one, but I was!  The Easter bunny came and brought her WAY too much stuff.  She actually seemed to be interested in the things that were in the basket; she looked at the pictures in the book and looked at the clothes and toys as I showed them to her.  She got to spend some time with her cousins, aunts, uncles, Nana, Gump, Grandad and some great aunts.  Didn’t really mean much for her, but it was a pretty exciting day for Momma.

Mother’s Day (May 13, 2012) – On this day, Lily and I were both sick.  We hung out most of the day cuddling on the couch (really, the best way to spend the day).  Then, for supper we went to the Mongolie Grill for a nice meal that wasn’t too heavy for someone who is feeling sick.

Victoria Day (May 21, 2012) – Another long weekend.  Grammie came for a visit on this weekend.  We got to visit with some of Grammie’s family that Lily doesn’t get to see very often.

Father’s Day (June 17, 2012) – On this day, Lily got to have some quality time with Daddy while Mommy went to the spa with Nana, Auntie Kelly and Auntie Ba.  Lily and Mommy made Daddy a story to read on the iPad with some of Lily’s original artwork.

Canada Day (July 1, 2012) – On Canada Day, we got up nice and early and went into Halifax to watch the Royal Nova Scotia International Tattoo Canada Day Parade, this was Lily’s first parade!  Then, we went home to cool off, Lily spent a lot of the day in just a diaper, then at night we got all dressed up again in our red and white and went to Dartmouth to watch the fireworks with Nana, Gump, Auntie Kelly, Xavier, Owen, Kiara and Leo.  We also ran into some of our other family while we were waiting for the fireworks to start.  On the Monday of the long weekend, we went to the Wildlife Park with Nana, Gump, Auntie Kelly, Xavier, Owen, Kiara and Leo.  A pretty eventful weekend.  The Friday before Canada Day, we took Lily to visit her Great Grammie and Great Grampie who visit family in Canada over the summer and live in Florida the rest of the year.

Natal Day (August 6, 2012) – Another nice long weekend.  This weekend was not as eventful as Canada day weekend, but we did go to Summerville Beach on the Saturday and then on the Monday (the actual holiday) we went to the MacDonald bridge to watch the parade with Nana, Gump, Auntie Kelly, Xavier, Owen, Kiara and Leo.  She seemed to enjoy this parade more than the Canada Day parade.  There was a Hal-Con float and when the people dressed in costume started coming across the bridge Lily got very excited and pointed saying ‘dadadadadada’ (she did not mean “daddy,” this was her word for everything then, and still is, really).

Labour Day (September 3, 2012) – For Labour Day, we were in Ontario.  It was in the middle of our road trip to visit Grammie.  We didn’t do anything extra special on that day specifically, but we did have a wonderful trip which made that day special anyway.

Thanksgiving (October 8, 2012) – As we do every year, we invited my parents, sisters and their families out to our house for a Thanksgiving dinner.  It was on Thanksgiving Day that Lily took her first step!  It happened twice, then it was hard to convince her to try again after that.  Since Lily was now eating some table food, she was able to try some of the Thanksgiving meal.  She was not so keen on the food, however.  She did enjoy spending time with her cousins and having a big meal with the whole family.

Hallowe’en (October 31, 2012) – I was very excited for Lily’s first Hallowe’en.  We had a butterfly costume handed down from Lily’s cousin, Kiara.  I couldn’t wait to see how she would react to the children coming to the house trick-or-treating.  We got two sets of Hallowe’en photos done at Sears, one in her costume and one in her Hallowe’en outfit, I didn’t want to have her in her costume all day, so I got her a black and orange skirt from the dollar store and an orange shirt with a face on it from Frenchy’s.  I also bought her a small pumpkin to paint, she used black paint to paint it, but most of the paint ended up just on the stem because she was so interested in the pokey bit that came out the top.  When the time came to hand out candy she was all dressed in her butterfly costume, we watched what bits of the Charlie Brown Hallowe’en special we could find on youtube and we waited.  Finally, there was a knock on the door, two trick-or-treaters!  I held Lily in my arms so she could see – and to show her off, really.  And then, that was it, she fell asleep, was put into bed and we had no more trick-or-treaters, a little disappointing.  She must have enjoyed it though because the next morning she was playing with her costume.

Remembrance Day (November 11, 2012) – Another long weekend.  Fairly uneventful.  Lily celebrated her minute of silence by napping.

Christmas (December 25, 2012) – Christmas was an exciting time of year.  It started on December 23, we went to my parents’ house for a Christmas party with my Dad’s family.  Lily got to experience presents for the first time that day.  She LOVED it!  She was quite excited about her doll that she received from her Great Grandma and Great Grandad.  There was lots of food and lots of other children there; lots to keep her happy.  On Christmas Eve, we took Lily to Truro to visit her Grandad and some of her Grandad’s family.  She was given a couple more gifts there.  Christmas morning she woke up and was very excited to see a stack of gifts that Santa had brought for her.  It took her all day to get through her gifts, and she didn’t even manage to open all of them.  We went back to my parents’ house on Christmas morning to visit with Nana, Gump, Auntie Kelly, Uncle Denis, Xavier, Owen, Kiara, Leo, Auntie Ba, Uncle Wade, Jack and Isaac.  She got a shirt from Nana and Gump that said “Lily is going to Disney,” she didn’t know what it meant, but the older cousins sure did, it was a pretty exciting morning.  We stayed there for lunch, then we headed back to Truro for supper with Lily’s Grandad and some of her Great Aunts.  Then, bright and early on December 26, we headed to the airport so that Lily (and Scott and I) could go to Disney World!

New Year’s Eve/New Year’s Day (December 31, 2012-January 1, 2013) – For New Year’s Eve, we were at Disney’s Magic Kingdom where we ate breakfast with Winnie the Pooh and his friends and we went on lots of rides.  Lily and I sat on one of the horses on the carousel, she even held on like a big girl.  We saw fireworks a few times that evening including the midnight New Year’s fireworks which we watched from the parking lot.  New Year’s day was a little more low-key.  Lily stayed at the house with Daddy and went for a swim while Mommy did some final Disney shopping with Nana, Nanny Berry and Auntie Kelly.  Then, for supper we all went to the Hard Rock Café.

Which brings us back to Groundhog Day – Lily’s first birthday!

Okay, so after I finished writing my post last night, I realized that I hadn’t really reviewed much of what happened in Lily’s first year of life.  So, I am going to do a brief summary in this post of the vacations we took this year.

First trip: A short road trip to Moncton, New Brunswick to go to Magic Mountain and Crystal Palace.  This was Lily’s first ever vacation; her first time driving in the car for more than an hour and a half, her first time staying away from home, her first time in a hotel.  It was a lot of firsts for her; it was a very exciting time for us!  She did terrific in the car.  She had a bit of a rough time sleeping in the strange bed, but she caught on pretty quick.  This was the trip that helped us move her into her crib at night.  She even managed to have a nap at Magic Mountain in her pea pod (this was one of the only times that she slept in it).  This was the first time she got to go on some rides; she went on a carousel, a train, some trucks and in a submarine at Crystal Palace – the trucks were her favourite because she got to turn the wheel!

Second trip: A longer road trip to Ontario to visit Grammie.  This trip took two days of traveling in both directions.  This meant that Lily had more hotel experiences, a different hotel on the way there and a new hotel on the way home, too.  Since this was a longer trip, it meant more luggage, and, we brought the dog – this meant a lot less room in the car for everyone.  Lily didn’t like being in the car so long, but she certainly was a trooper about the whole experience.  She loved staying at Grammie’s house.  She got to meet Sophie, Grammie’s kitty and she got to meet her Grampa Rob for the first time, too.  She adjusted to sleeping in Grammie’s playpen no problem.  She taught herself to climb stairs while we were there and she cut her first teeth in Ontario (the bottom two).  We took her to see Niagra Falls and went to two Hard Rock Cafés.  This was also where she had her first bath in the big tub, she was so excited to be able to move around in the water; Momma was very nervous the whole time!

Third trip: A plane trip this time, to Orlando, Florida to go to Disney World.  Another trip with lots of firsts; her first time on a plane, her first time out of the country.  This trip was quite an adventure!  It was Lily’s Christmas gift from her Nana and Gump.  We left on December 26, 2012, which meant that Christmas day was a little crazy.  She started opening presents as soon as she woke up and spent the entire day opening presents.  She LOVED opening presents, and it was quite fun to watch, too.  She would have liked to only get one present and then have time to play with it, though.  She did great on the plane to Florida, she was awake for most of the first flight and happy, and then she slept through the entire second flight.  The flights home did not go as well, but I think that may have had something to do with her not feeling 100%.  She really liked having other kids in the house to play with, and more people awake with her in the morning (not just Mommy).  She did pretty good in the crib at the house there, but it definitely made me realize that it was time for a solid bedtime routine.  She was in awe at Disney World the whole time we were there, very happy, and when she got tired she didn’t fuss, she just closed her eyes and dozed off.  I was the envy of all the parents there!  Taking children to Disney over the holidays is hard, it’s so busy and the kids don’t want to have to wait in lines, or hold hands to be safe, etc, they just want to run around and have fun!  While we were in Florida, we took Lily to visit her Great Grammie and Great Grampie at their house.  She had fun there, but she wasn’t so sure about the two of them.  We took her and her cousins Kiara and Leo to dinner one night with all the princesses and we all went to breakfast on December 31, 2012 with Winnie the Pooh and his friends – Lily really liked Piglet!  We also made sure to go to the Hard Rock Café while we were there, our little princess will be a Hard Rocker, too!

So, those were our family vacations that we took.  Tomorrow, I will try to do another post with some more pictures of the wonderful things Lily has done in her first year!

So, Lily had her first birthday at the beginning of this month.  I actually find it hard to say, her first birthday.  I didn’t think it would come so fast.  I remember at the beginning saying, ‘I can’t wait until her first birthday, it will be so exciting!’  Now that it has come and gone I am wishing I could just go back a little and have my itty bitty baby back.

It has been quite a year!  A lot of change in my life.  Going from just me, being who I want to be when I want to be it, to being ‘Mommy’, being who she needs me to be when she needs me to be it.  It’s hard to keep up with her, to be what she needs all the time and still have time for me to be me.  Not to mention trying to grasp the idea of being a stay at home mom.  This is something I have always wanted to be, but it is also something I didn’t have, so I am trying to figure it out without much to go on other than movies and television.  Please, don’t take that the wrong way, my parents were amazing parents and I would not have wanted anything different growing up.  However, growing up, I always thought it would be really cool to have a Mom who stays home and makes a sit down dinner every night and makes brown bag lunches everyday (although, truth be told, I wouldn’t have liked it if I had had it).  But, having had two working parents and a very busy extra-curricular schedule for the whole family, we rarely got to have those sit down meals, and my mother always joked about how KFC, Swiss Chalet, Steak and Stein, etc, were ‘her cooking’.  So, I am now, trying to learn to balance my child, the housework, the cooking and myself.  Unfortunately, I still have not completely figured it out.  I have some good days, and some not so good days, and then, some downright terrible days.

A full year later and I can still remember all the details of Lily’s labour and birth as though they were yesterday; with all the same fog that I could a full year ago!  I still remember the heart-wrenching pain I felt when the doctor came into the hospital on February 1, 2012 and told me that I would have to have an epidural because I would likely be having a c-section.  It still brings me to tears when I think about it.  But, I also remember the amazing over-powering love and joy I felt when they finally laid Lily on my chest for the first time; the feeling of all the stress, anger, and hurt that I had been feeling just vanishing into thin air as if I had imagined it all.  Some of those feelings (the latter, obviously), I never want to forget as long as I live, others I would rather be a distant memory.  I remember the anxiety I felt as a new Mom; feeling so ill-prepared to take care of this new little person; feeling frustrated that I was getting different information (and at times no information) from the nurses at the hospital; and feeling like the worst mother in the world for not being able to do the things that should come naturally to me as a woman (giving birth and breastfeeding); worrying about this tiny new person and what effect it might have on her to not be breastfed.  Now, it all seems so silly.  We are her parents, we will do what is right for our baby because she is our baby, and maybe it’s not what it says in the books, or ALL OVER THE WALLS IN THE HOSPITAL, but it is what was right for our family.  Oops.  You might have sensed some lingering frustration there.  I just don’t get it!  Yes, breastfeeding is ideal, there are millions of benefits for it, but can’t you put up just one sign that says, ‘if it doesn’t work for you, it’s okay’, or, ‘formula fed babies and their families are welcome here, too’?  I guess a year wasn’t enough time for me to get over that, either.

Well, in any event, we got through those rough days of feeling inadequate and insecure and Lily has developed wonderfully and is very healthy in spite of being on formula.  She rolled over the first time, from her stomach to her back, before I even felt like I had started recovering from my surgery.  All of her gross motor milestones were hit ahead of ‘the norm’; although I wonder if the textbook ‘norm’ is accurate anymore.  She didn’t gain weight as quickly as I would have liked, and that worried me a little, but I didn’t worry too much because she was always a very happy baby; AND, she was growing taller and taller, she was just a tall skinny thing is all.  I now look back and think it might have been that she didn’t enjoy her formula; she has yet to drink more than a 6oz bottle of formula in one sitting, but she has had as much as 9oz of cow’s milk in one sitting; since starting the cow’s milk, she has started getting that little belly you always expect a baby to have.

So, it has been a very eventful year.  She went from barely holding her head up; to rolling and sitting up supported; to sitting up unassisted and pulling herself around the room on her tummy; to crawling and standing holding on to things; to walking assisted and pulling herself up to standing; to walking unassisted and climbing up and down stairs (yes, she climbs DOWN stairs).  She went from not being able to hold her own bottle; to holding her own bottle; to drinking from a sippy cup and being spoon fed purees; to feeding herself finger foods; to feeding herself table foods; to drinking from a straw; to using a fork and spoon to eat occasionally with help.  She has slowly learned to communicate with us using signs and a little bit of language and she is picking more and more up everyday.  Even watching the way she interacts and plays with her toys has changed immensely over the last year.  It is so amazing watching the amount she has developed over the year.  This is exactly why I wanted to work with infants, they amaze me, to be able to learn so much and to develop so many new skills in such a short amount of time, absolutely amazing!

Now, Lily will continue to develop and learn new skills at an amazingly rapid rate, but there will be fewer and fewer firsts in her life.  She will continue to grow bigger and one day I will no longer be able to pick her up.  She will never be my little baby again, and that makes me very sad.  She WILL, however, be a pretty amazing child, and hopefully continue to be amazing for her whole life.

Sitting here, looking through the pictures of her from a year ago, and thinking of all the things she has learned, it is very hard to believe.  I suppose I will leave it at that.  I am one astonished Mom!

Lily turned 10 months yesterday.  It is very hard to believe that in just 2 short months she will be a year old!  It makes me a little sad to look back on her newborn pictures and realise how much time has passed already.  It is going by WAY too fast.  But, I digress, this post is about how amazing she is, not about how sad I am that she is getting bigger.

On Thanksgiving weekend (the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend, that is), Lily took her very first step with no help.  Amazing, just 8 months old and already took her first step!  But, it was just ONE step, many steps seemed to be very far in the future.  For about a month, she seemed to only manage the courage to attempt any steps later in the day, as though she had been working up to it all day long.  By her 9 month birthday (and yes, I call each month a birthday), she was taking a few steps at a time, maybe four or five.  I was ecstatic!  She was so smart and moving so well for such a little girl.  For the next month she became increasingly brave, taking 14 steps without any falls or help about halfway through the month.  By this time I stopped really counting her steps because she was now choosing to try to walk more frequently, even if she fell down, she would stand back up and carry on.  Now, she can walk from one end of the house to the other without help and without stumbling; she walks fine with her big heavy sneakers on; she even walks over things without stumbling (much).  She is still in the zombie walk mode, but she does try to run and she is quite stable.  It wont be long before walking will just be another skill she knows.

Yesterday, she started to teach herself to climb DOWN the stairs!  She was with Scott, she went down two stairs backward (the way she is SUPPOSED to go) before she turned around to try to go forward.  Pretty amazing!  Today, I wanted to see this for myself.  I took her to the top of the steps, I went down one step and called her to come see me.  She crawled to the edge of the stairs.  She very cautiously put one foot on the first step.  She would not turn all the way around.  With one hand at the top of the steps, she held my hand with the other and started to come down the stairs sideways.  I tried to help her to turn to go backward down the stairs, but instead she found the railing.  She held onto the rungs of the railing and slowly made her way down the stairs after me.  I did assist her, but minimally.  My baby girl will be climbing DOWN stairs soon, too!

She has a few other skills that she has recently learned of which she is VERY proud.  She loves to give kisses.  For the longest time her kisses were big wide open mouth kisses, often with a tongue hanging out there, too – it looked more like she was trying to eat you than to kiss you.  But, now, when she wants to give a kiss she goes ‘oooo’ which makes her lips pucker, and it’s super cute!  She has learned to blow kisses.  For a while, if we would blow her a kiss, both of her hands would fly to her face, but they would not necessarily land on her mouth, more often than not, one would land on her eye and the other would end up of the back of her head.  Very cute, and an excellent try, but still not quite a success.  Shortly after she started her ‘oooo’ kisses, she started doing the same thing to blow kisses, she gives her hand an ‘oooo’ kiss and then moves her hand away from her mouth – these quickly return to the big open mouth kisses with tongue…but at least she is actually blowing kisses.  And, she waves.  She waves ‘hello’ and ‘good-bye’.  She will sometimes even pair her wave with a ‘heh’ or a ‘buh’.  And almost always, she blows kisses immediately after waving.  We were in the grocery store and a woman walked down an aisle across from us, the woman didn’t see us and didn’t pay any attention to Lily, but Lily saw her and started waving and blowing kisses!

So, since Lily was born, I have been wearing maternity pants or sweat pants or yoga pants…basically anything with an elasticised waist band.  For two reasons really, my stomach is still huge and the area around the incision has been tender.  But, yesterday, for the first time, I was able to squeeze my big belly into a pair of normal jeans and it didn’t hurt!  I was so excited!  Not sure why it stayed tender for so long, but very happy that it seems to be going away!

Another very exciting moment, watching my baby girl stand up in the middle of the room with no help just so that she can take some steps instead of crawling!  This isn’t AS new, but it is still very exciting every time she does it.  Crawling will likely be a thing of the past very soon, she really wants to walk.  She has taken up to 6 steps without falling so far, but she keeps pushing, I’m sure it wont be long.  Hopefully, when that day comes, she doesn’t decide that if she can walk with no help that she can also walk down the stairs with no help!

One more exciting piece of information.  When Lily went in for her 9 month check up on Friday, she was weighed, she’s still pretty light, only 18.5 pounds, but, she is now in the 55 percentile instead of under 50%!  She’s still way above average for height in the 96 percentile.  Hopefully this gain on the weight side of things will help her fit better into her clothes, with the colder weather we are going to have a hard time dressing her when her pants either fall down or are the length of capris pants.

For now, that is all.

Last Wednesday night, Lily was having a very hard time sleeping.  For the first part of the night she was waking every 30 minutes; as far as I could tell, there was no reason for it, although, she was eating a full 4 ounce bottle each time.  I became very frustrated with this, just as I would start to relax she would wake up.  The third or fourth time that she woke up, she was all of a sudden very congested, she had a hard time drinking her bottle because she couldn’t breathe, and falling asleep was much more difficult this time because when she laid in my arms her nose would get more stuffed up and she wouldn’t be able to breathe with her soother in her mouth.  I sat with her in the chair for a while, she slept sitting in my lap leaning up against my chest, this kept her from getting more congested.  Once I managed to get her back into bed after this, she slept for about an hour and a half.  Unfortunately, I assumed she would wake up quickly again, so I was on edge for the first 30-45 minutes of this sleep, and the next time was the same.  After that, she was awake for the day.  I was exhausted, but I didn’t mind, I was more concerned about how she was feeling.  By supper time, she had developed a slight fever, but she was still in pretty good spirits (as long as we weren’t wiping her nose).  Thursday night she managed to sleep for two hours at a time, which felt like heaven to me.  But on Friday, she was not herself.  She was getting upset over small bumps that she usually wouldn’t notice, she actually spent most of the day cuddling with me – which I was okay with, but it made me sad because I knew she had to be feeling miserable to be cuddling with me that much.  So, Friday night we started giving her Tempra for her fever and for any aches and pains she might be feeling.  It was amazing, by bedtime she was hardly congested at all, and she slept through the night.  Since starting with the Tempra, she is now in better spirits for most of the day and is much less congested.  But, I am still feeling like that overprotective new mom.  I know that she is okay, and that it is only a cold – because my husband and I both have it as well.  It’s no fun, but it is still just a cold.  But, when she’s feeling it, she is so miserable, and I feel like she should be over it by now, but she’s not.  So, I keep contemplating taking her to the doctor just in case it is something more.  I actually called 811 this morning because she has been sick for so long that I was getting worried.  They reassured me that I am, in fact, just being that overprotective new mom (my words, not theirs) and told me to call back again if anything changed.  I am so grateful for that service, I am sure that our family doctor would end up hating me (and by child by association) if that service was not available.  I didn’t realize how hard it would be to deal with her first illness, I have seen so many infants at the day care go through the colds, I know what it brings and that it is okay as long as the fever doesn’t get too high or the symptoms don’t linger too long, and yet, here I am, so worried about her over a simple cold.  I know it’s normal and that all parents are like this, especially when their first child is sick for the first time, but I thought I would be better prepared to handle it from my experiences at the day care.

So, when Lily was first born, I started this blog as a way to let out how I was feeling about the circumstances surrounding her birth and then to use later as a way of communicating what is happening in her life without having to fill up my facebook page with constant status updates.  I do still update my status about her constantly, but the whole story usually doesn’t come out until I have time to put it here.  I did not realize, however, that I would continue having problems dealing with her birth this far along.

I am getting used to being a Mommy, and I am happy that she is here in spite of how it all happened.  Now, I am starting to think about the next one.  I never wanted to have just one child, I want Lily to have at least one sibling to play with, to learn to share with, and to help her understand that, no, the world does not revolve around her – I know, she will never fully understand this, I don’t think any of us do, but I do know it helps.  Now that I am more comfortable caring for Lily, I find that I am not worrying about what comes next for her; now I am beginning to worry about what comes next for me.  At some point, I will be pregnant again.  When that time comes there will be many decisions to make, and I don’t know if I am prepared to make those decisions yet.

After Lily was born, I took comfort in the fact that when the next baby comes I would have the opportunity to try for a vaginal birth again.  Now that I am starting to look to the future instead of being stuck in the right now, I find that I am terrified about what will happen.  I know that I want to try for a vaginal birth, that is not a question.  But, I also want to be prepared for if that can’t happen.  Knowing that Lily was rather stuck when they cut me open makes me believe that the next one will be as well.  So now, I have to think about if I want to plan for a c-section on a specific date after the due date or if I just want to play it all by ear, knowing that if I play it by ear I may end up having a c-section in the middle of the night again.  Then, I have to think about the drugs.  I wasn’t okay with the epidural, and every time that I think about getting another epidural it makes me not want to have another child just to avoid it.  I don’t know anyone else who feels this way about the epidural, either.  Everyone else I know with children, even if they went in not wanting the epidural, said that it was the best thing ever and most told me to ask for it as soon as I went into the hospital.  I don’t want to be unconscious for the first few hours of the next baby’s life, but at the same time, I don’t know if I can put myself through that again.  I know, I have a lot of time to figure this all out, but I feel like I need to know what I want before I get pregnant so that I can talk to my doctor about it when the time comes.  I am also a little worried about the recovery time.  My scar is still very tender, I found that my seat belt was irritating it when we drove to Ontario, and I am still wearing my maternity clothes because it hurts to have normal waist bands across it.

I know, this was a lot of blabbering about something that I don’t even have to worry about yet, but I find myself thinking about it a lot, and the older Lily gets the more I think about it.  I don’t want her to be old enough to remember being the only child when we have a second baby, that means it will need to happen sooner than later.  I know that most people who read this wont be able to relate at all, but I just needed to get it out of my head.