And We're OFF!

Well, the new year promises to be exciting. Or busy. However you want to look at it. Lyla is most definitely on the move. She went from sitting and smiling sweetly when placed on the floor to moving halfway across the room within seconds over the course of about 3 weeks. Literally, I really only sit down when she is sleeping or strapped down in a high chair. At Christmas she was just starting to get up on hands and knees.

Now, she crawls....

She pulls herself up...

She tortures the dog...



She destroys anything she can get her hands on...

Needless to say, the babyproofing is well under way! Lyla is really starting to show emotion and, I know I say this every time, even more personality than ever. I have been forced to teach her "No" just because she is already into SO much. Even after a few weeks, I KNOW she understands the word because she'll stop in her tracks most of the time when she hears me say it. She thinks about it for a minute and then just keeps on with whatever she's doing! Sometimes, she'll even turn around and give me a big gummy grin. I swear I don't know where she got that inclination. But then when you pick her up and ask for a kiss, she'll plant a big, wet, open-mouthed kiss on your cheek. How do you get mad?? I am busier than I've ever been in my life, but Jay and I are having so much fun with her.

Slacker Mom

I clearly have done a less than stellar job of keeping the blog updated. Yikes. It's been a busy few months. Guess I have some catching up to do!

Last time, I mentioned that we were going to be taking Lyla down to Riley to have her hemangioma checked out. The opthamologist that saw her determined that it was exerting enough pressure on her eyeball to cause some astigmatism, which would lead to a lazy eye as she got older. SO, something had to be done. Within the past year, that doctor has started using a blood pressure medication to treat hemangiomas. It's still an experimental treatment, but the results have been so instantaneous with so few side effects that the treatment is spreading like "wildfire" across the country, according to the resident. The medication previously used was a high dose steroid, which comes with its own set of issues and side effects. This blood pressure medication is really one of the first highly effective treatments discovered to treat hemangiomas, so we feel very blessed that Lyla has been able to be on it. Literally, within two days we were able to see a difference. At her appointment with the opthamologist in November, she had no astigmatism in her eye!

We are also past the little hitch with her bottle now. Thank goodness! She has gotten into the habit of taking her bottle at night, and now she will gladly, if not impatiently, take it from anyone who will give it to her, including myself. Sometimes, I think she prefers the bottle to the breast. We have a lot of flexibility in our daytime routine, but the nighttime one is pretty rigid. In fact, the routine led to her first temper tantrum. Lyla loves her bath time. She is a busy, busy child, and you can tell that it is the time of day when she starts to wind down. She loves to splash, lounge in the tub, and play with her toys. One night, Jay took her into the bathroom for her bath, and she peed in the tub as soon as he put her over it. He yelled, so I ran into the bathroom to empty the tub and refill it. As soon as I emptied the tub, she stamped her feet on the side of the tub and started screaming! It sounded like someone had whacked her in the head, and I thought maybe I had accidentally hit her. But no. The second I started to fill the tub back up, she was all smiles. What a stinker!

I probably don't need to mention that Lyla has developed quite a bit in the last few months. She started on cereal at about four and a half months and is eating new foods every week. We call her Miss Piggy. She will open her mouth for anything on a spoon, except for bananas, and even those she will eat with some encouragement. I have been making the vast majority of her foods. I wanted to feed her organic baby food, but the jarred foods were so expensive that I thought there had to be a more cost effective way to do it. I buy organic fruits and veggies, cook them, puree them, and freeze them in ice cube trays. It's not as time consuming as I thought it might be. It only takes about 20 minutes to make anywhere from 15-20 servings of whatever I'm making, and I feel like she is getting better food to eat.

Right round 4 1/2 months, she started sitting up! She was so PROUD of herself when she figured out what to do. At first, she would topple over anytime she started to concentrate on anything other than sitting, but by 6 months, she was much less wobbly. Rolling continues to be her main mode of transportation. Just recently, she started to get up on her hands and knees, so crawling will probably be in the not so distant future. No worries. I just bought the childproofing house kit last week!

And of course, I can't forget that we have entered into Lyla's first holiday season. This thought leads to an inadequate thanksgiving on my part, which probably should have been done sometime closer to the actual Thanksgiving...but hey! Better late than never. :) Simply put, I cannot describe how fortunate Jay and I are to have such a healthy, happy baby. When I think about how much God has blessed us in the last year, it quite literally brings tears to my eyes. This time two years ago, we were wondering if we would ever be able to conceive, and now we have the world's most precious little girl. A year ago, I was sitting in this same spot on the couch wondering what my house would look like (a wreck), how much sleep I would get (minimal), and how much stuff one kid really needs (a heck of a lot more than I hoped). I could never have imagined that parenthood would be 100% worth every single little annoyance. And to be honest, none of those things are even all that important anymore. She makes our days before we had her seem empty.

And on that note, here are a few pics from her holiday season to date.

All dressed up for Thanksgiving in Mattoon with Jay's family. First Thanksgiving meal? Carrots!! Mmm...yummy!

Lyla, Santa. Santa, Lyla.

On Saturday, we took Lyla to meet Santa at an organic dairy farm in town that does "Santa on the Farm." Live reindeer, sleigh rides, live Christmas music, and for the parents, some sweet eggnog. We took the video camera in hopes of capturing some sort of funny reaction to Santa, i.e. crying, tugging on the big man's beard. Alas, she was pretty indifferent, and the video was, consequently, pretty boring. Oh well. Jay and I enjoyed ourselves. And she enjoyed watching the reindeer.

So I guess that September slipped right by without me noticing, too. This past month has been a lot less eventful than August; we have really been focused on trying to get into some sort of routine now that I have gone back to work. We are getting there. I am not a very routined person, so it has been as much of a chore for me as it has been for Lyla.

Lyla continues to just amaze us. (We are pretty easily amused, though!) This month she started to roll over and is really babbling to us. Everything that comes into her hands goes right into her mouth. When there is nothing in her hands, she goes for her fingers. She is also fascinated by our beagle Riley. It's probably an understatement to say that Riley does not return the affection.

In the picture below, you might be able to tell that Lyla has a bump over her right eye. We have had the pediatrician check it out, and she sent us to a pediatric dermatologist. The dermatologist decided that it looks like a hemangioma underneath the skin. Normally, these grow until babies are about 9 months and then slowly recede. The doctor is concerned that it may be putting pressure on her eyeball, so she is sending us to a pediatric opthamologist at Riley and second pediatric dermatologist to confirm the diagnosis. We have our appointments in the next week or so to find out if it needs to be treated.

This past month, we have really started to see her personality develop. Apparently, she is fairly strong-willed and opinionated. (I have no idea how a child of mine might have those personality traits.) She is a bit of a Momma's girl, which means that she's generally pretty happy with me. My mom and Jay have had a little more trouble with her. Since she still is not taking the bottle well, Jay and I decided to have him give her one every night. Our biggest clashes come at bedtime when it is time for her to take the bottle. I have had to be really careful at night about letting her see me. If I am anywhere near her when he starts the nighttime routine, she loses it, and Jay has to fight to get her to take the bottle again. I'll be glad when we are past this little phase!

You know how every mother wishes an equally frustrating offspring for her own child? Well, Mom told me today "I guess I should be careful what I pray for!" Seriously...

What happened to August?

Summer has come and gone, it seems. I'm still not sure where the last month went. We have been pretty busy with road trips and vacation and starting back to work. Lyla is growing and changing like crazy. We have had lots of "firsts" this month--first time to the pool, first vacation, first swing, first wedding. I love the stage she is in right now. It is quite an enchanting age. I wish I had a slow-mo button to make it all last a little longer. She is "talking" and interacting with us. She loves to try to sit up and stand, but she is still immobile. It doesn't take much to elicit a smile these days. She is quite the little social butterfly!

Our giggly girl

First time to the pool!

Jay's grandpa passed away at the end of July, so we made a few road trips to Illinois around that time. He had been in poor health for nearly a year, but took a turn for the worst this summer. We are so thankful that he was able to meet Lyla before he passed and that we had the opportunity to tell him goodbye and spend time with him before he went. Although she only knew him for a short while, Lyla was very blessed to have such a good man as her great-grandpa. He had such a kind heart, and we know that we will see him again. We were truly able to celebrate his life at the visitation and funeral, but that did not make it any less difficult to see him go. Having a young one at the funeral was good for everyone, especially Jay and his dad. Young ones seem to remind us of the cycle of life at those times.

Lyla and Avvie at Grandpa's funeral

In mid-August the three of us took a summer vacation to Grand Haven, Michigan with Jay's family. I suspect that it was just a ruse on Jay's parents part to spend as much time with Lyla as they could, but regardless, we all had a good time. :) We had a good week of relaxing days, and at night, Jay's parents volunteered to babysit so that Jay, Craig, Rachel, and I could go out for a little while and enjoy some time as adults.

The week after we got back from Michigan, I started back to work. It has been a rough couple of weeks, for sure!! It was nice to get back to an environment that included something other than baby drool and spit up (although, I still see a fair amount of that at work!), but it was even harder to leave her than I thought. Even Lyla seemed to notice the change, and she was pretty unhappy about it. I had started her on the bottle at 3 weeks old, just so there would be no problems with her transitioning to it once I went to work. She did really well taking it, even going so far as to let me give it to her. Then, THE day that I went back to work, she screamed and cried and absolutely refused to take it. I feel like we have tried everything to get her to take it and wish I could say that she has gotten better about it, but she's not there yet. Oh, the best laid plans...

Lyla and Nana swinging

Lyla just turned 3 (!!) months. I can honestly say that I don't know what we did without her around! Our friend Amanda came again to take pictures of her. As always, they turned out to be fantastic! I'll leave you with one of our favorites. If you have the time and feel like browsing through all 175 of them, here's the link:
http://mcunningham79.shutterfly.com/
Password is LylaJane.
Enjoy!

We've had a busy past few weeks. Of course, we celebrated the Fourth of July with family and friends. Our good friends the Callahans brought over their clan of triplets the Friday before the 4th for a cookout. With all of the kids there, it slightly resembled a circus more than a cookout, but we all had a good time. :) It was the first time that our kiddos got to meet each other. They'll all grow up to be good buds, I'm sure!

The next day turned out to be dreary, rainy, and cold, of all things. We attempted to watch the fireworks downtown at Jay's brother's condo with the skyline view, but they got rained out and rescheduled for Sunday evening. My brother Tommy bought a little T-shirt for Lyla--he was so proud! More importantly, he brought a pair of chucks that have been around the family since he was a little one. I couldn't resist dressing her up in the duds, since they were so appropriate to the day.

What a little patriot! In retrospect, I probably should have put a bow on her head to make it a little more obvious that she's a girl...Oh well. Hindsight. :)

The next day, Lyla and I went to a bridal shower in Zionsville for my cousin's fiancee. We went to Eagle church with Mom before, and she got to meet much of the rest of the Langebartels side of the family. I think we may have gotten a little preview into her relationship with her cousins Eli and Bram. Both of them ganged up on her to get her pacifier away! If they are anything like their fathers were, she'll have to learn how to hold her own with them, for sure! :)

By the end of the weekend, she was a wreck, thanks to all of the activities. It took a couple of days to get her back to normal.

The highlight of the next week was a day trip to King's Island that Jay and I took with Bryan and Ashley. The guys played hookie from work, and we left the kiddos with our respective mothers. It was the first time I had left Lyla for longer than a few hours, and it took a while for me to get out the door. I didn't think I would have such a hard time leaving her, but it was pretty rough. She did really well with Nana, though, and it was nice to be able to get out of the house!

This past weekend our college friends, Jon and Michaela, drove up to Indy to see us with their crew. The last time we got together, she and I were both expecting, so it was fun to see the kiddos together. I took a picture of the two of us with our big bellies, but I won't post that since it was pretty rough. Instead, here's a pic of the two cuties together.

Jay and I had our sixth wedding anniversary on Sunday. It's hard to believe we've been together for so long! As they say, time flies when you're having fun. We celebrated by going to dinner at Oceanaire. Mom obliged us by babysitting Lyla for a few hours--believe me when I say that we didn't exactly have to twist her arm to get her to do it! :) It was so nice to sit down, have a glass of wine, and eat dinner at the same time. What used to be so simple to do has now become a luxury.

Lyla also hit her one month birthday this week! We took her to the pediatrician on Tuesday and she weighed 10 pounds, 2 ounces and was 21 inches long! What a little piggy! She is growing so, so quickly. I fed her that night, and we pretended the milk was a one month birthday cake. ;)

Motherhood Is Strange

More than one person has told me that a few weeks after you've had a baby, you won't be able to remember what life before her was like. I beg to differ. I remember very well what life was like before we had a kid. Don't get me wrong...I love my little girl, but my life was a piece of cake before she arrived. I came and went at will, slept in on the weekends, and actually (gasp!)finished tasks.

How am I faring now? I am exhausted. I am up to my eyeballs in poop and puke. I am sleeping in increments of 2 consecutive hours at a time. I am leaking milk out of my breasts which, incidentally, are the size of cantelopes. I am trying to fit a mishapen body back into clothes that used to be a little loose on me. I am wearing clothes (the ones that do fit) with drool spots on them. I am about 4 weeks behind on painting my toes (thank goodness I at least had the foresight to get a haircut before the baby came!). I am showering regularly, but makeup and hair are optional. I am struggling to get anything done other than diaper changes and feedings. And, if I am completely honest with myself, I am just a bit overwhelmed by the new responsibilities that will be around for the next 18 years.

The good news is that I am learning to adapt. So what if the thank you notes aren't written and I have something growing in my toilet? All these inconveniences would ordinarily make me want to scream, but somehow I am making it through in relatively good spirits. I love the time I get to spend with Lyla. Each time she does something new, my heart melts. Cuddling has become more important than cleaning. I can't say I wouldn't mind being able to do everything if I could, but it's strange how motherhood can reverse everything you thought was important.