Feb 24, 2009

What a Blessing

Lily is so alert and such a happy baby. She certainly has Mike's temperament and is a morning person. She loves to wake up early with him and smile and talk to him until Jessi wakes up. She's becoming really aware of her environment and likes to look at herself in the mirror. She's getting better coordination and can suck on her hand and is almost rolling over. She likes to sit up and stand up with help, of course! She's definitely a little girl and babbles at anyone who will talk to her. We sure love her a lot and are blessed to have her.When Lily was 3 months old Mike had to go out of town for Tau Beta Pi (he was Butte chapters president) so I planned a trip for us to Utah! We didn't have anything fun planned, but it was fun to take a 6 hour road trip with Lily (not!). I did enjoy seeing my family and Mike's.

We got Lily's ear's pierced that month as well. Mike and I had a lot of long discussions about when she should get them pierced. I think that the younger the better. I've heard of too many girls (6-10) only getting one ear done because they freak out about the pain. Mike thought Lily should get to choose when she was 8. We came to a sort of compromise; I planned on teaching Lily (and all our kids) simple sign language and we agreed that he would ask Lily if she wanted pierced ears once we noticed she could understand us and sign "yes" or "no". Then, a few weeks before she was 3 months, I got really impatient. Too many people at stores were commenting about my beautiful baby BOY (even as she wore pink, sucked on a pink plug, had a bow in her hair, etc...).

I wanted one more indicator that she was a girl. During yet another conversation, I brought up the point that as soon as Lily could understand, I would already have ingrained her with the want of pretty earrings LIKE MOMMY'S. I was partially joking, partially not. I totally would have pointed out Mama's pretty ears at every opportunity, asking if she wanted pretty ears too. Yea, yea, I'm a bad mommy. I've come to terms with that. Anyway, Mike gave in so Lily could remember less pain. After a lot of research I chose Claire's in the Butte Plaza Mall. They use one-time-use guns so there was no risk of tetanus or anything like that. The big day came and I'd cleared out my whole day so that I could just cuddle and love my little baby and give her extra patience and time. We drove to the mall, picked out the earrings (Topaz, November's birth stone) and sat in the chair. The worker was so fast, Lily didn't realize she was being poked until just after the second earring was in! She cried for about 30 seconds and then was fine! It reminded me of her vaccinations - angry, then over it. This photo was taken right after we got home from the mall.

The next weekend was my 27th birthday and our Spring Break. We decided to go to Utah to give Lily her name and blessing. We did it at my parents house with our immediate families. I got it on video, don't know if that's kosher.

We stayed in Utah for a whole week. I got mastitis, which blew, because Lily's feeding schedule got messed up with all our running around. We got family portraits taken at Target. It was so hard, because it was evening when we went, and Lily's more of a morning person (she's so smiley and happy in the mornings but grumpier the later the day gets.)

We also took Lily to the Living Aquarium. She loved watching the fish swim around and I got to touch a stingray!!! It was lots of fun.

Mike's grandpa Morgan was visiting Utah while we were there for Lily's blessing. We were so glad he could meet his FIRST great-grandchild! Then, on our way back up to Montana, we stopped in Ammon, ID to visit Mike's grandma Nielsen. Lily is her 100th great-grandchild. Isn't that an incredible difference?