Lucy at 20 Months

We've had a fun-filled month at our house with little Miss Lucy. It is amazing to me how much a human being can grow, learn and change and yet still be that same little bundle of joy we brought home from the hospital 20 months ago. I'd say the biggest change this past month is her budding imagination. She will go off and create her own little worlds all on her own. The more blankets and dollies involved in the imaginary play the better, and things get really interesting when she chooses otherwise ordinary household objects or locations for props and background. In the below picture I can only begin to guess at the game she is playing with her buddies Elmo and Polly.Lucy also discovered the paper goods drawer in our kitchen, and loves setting up the plates, napkins and plastic cups all over the floor to serve play cookies on.My friend Krista gave Lucy a cookie jar for Christmas, which timed perfectly with Lucy's new vocab word "COOK-eeee". Lucy is also learning shapes, and can point out circles, triangles, squares, and new this month - cookies, which you or I call a star. I am guessing this knowledge is based on the 8 dozen star shaped Christmas cut-out cookies Lucy helped me decorate and eat.Other favorite words this month include her shouting "FLAG!" and "LIGHTS" (as in Christmas lights) everytime we see them while driving, as well as "Thank You". She will now cutely sing to herself "Humpty-Dumpty" every time she is doing something dangerous, like trying to climb on the table or balance on a pedal of our elliptical machine. This is a great clue for me to come running if I ever hear her get to "had a great fall" - I know my time is limited. She also loves singing "Tinkle Tinkle" which is not bathroom talk, but rather a favorite bedtime song. But my favorite word of the month is "Wheel", which is actually Will's name in toddler-speak. She really only says Will's name when shouting it across the house, up the stairs, or when being pushed by me in a shopping cart as we are trying to find Will. What makes it even funnier to me is that Will thinks this behavior is not appropriate, causing me to laugh even more when she does it. I asked Will if he would rather I start referring to him as Dada the next time I am trying to find him in a shopping center. I am still awaiting his answer on that.



Lucy finally saw snow for the first time this season, and as soon as she saw the snow falling, she started excitedly yelling, "SANTA!" She no longer refers to snow as Santa, but when she says it, it sounds like she is saying "No" which always sends a shiver down my spine until I realize it is a description of the fluffy white stuff and not the begining of a tantrum. The first time she walked through the snow, she took extremely small steps as you can see in the picture below, all the while saying "crunch, crunch, crunch."
A dust pan is the perfect sized snow shovel for Lucy!

Because of the snow and cold temperatures, we have spent a lot more times indoors. Thankfully, Lucy is enjoying the activities I have been thinking up for her so far.

Lucy sometimes is content to color at the table for over an hour. As I type this, she is currently coloring.

Lucy loves to run laps through the house - here she is getting ready for me to yell "GO!"

She also enjoys trying her hand at brain teasers, like how to buckle her three point harness on her booster seat at the table. She is really good at buckling, and is now working on how to get it unbuckled. I have to confess that I usually try to distract her before she can figure that part out.

And when she is ready to relax, she loves her new pint-sized snuggi from my friend Krista.

Lucy continues to improve with her sleeping. We have slowly reintroduced dairy back into her diet, and it hasn't seemed to cause any problems. We have also added a certain type of probiotic to her daily diet along with fish oil tablets. For some reason, this is supposed to help digestion go more smoothly and it seems to be working like a charm. She now goes to sleep on her own, and if she does wake up in the middle of the night, will either put herself back to sleep or only requires a couple of pats on her back and some blanket rearranging. This is absolutely huge for Will and I. Lucy's sleep has been such a long road, and I can't tell you the number of nights I have slept on the floor next to her crib because she was uncomfortable and in pain. As with all parenting milestones, I am sure there will continue to be setbacks, but the phase we are in now is unmatchable. It makes Will and I feel like we have finally made it to Easy Street. What better time than now to bring home a newborn and shake things up again!

Speaking of newborns, we have had a lot of friends welcome newborns into their families this past fall. Lucy is infatiuated with all of them, and got to hold baby Chloe a couple of weeks ago. This was the first time she has held a baby, and up until now, has really been the baby in most social settings. This is a big step for Lucy, and she LOVED it. She keeps talking about baby Chloe, and how when Emma gets here, she will hold Emma like she held Chloe. Sitting next to Lucy in the below picture are Chloe's sister and brother, Katherine and Killian. With this picture I found out how difficult it is to get a picture of four kids, all under the age of four!

It has been a great month for Lucy, and to top it all off, she finally cut her top two canine teeth which she has been working on since the summer. She only has the two bottom canine teeth left and we'll hopefully get a break before her two year molars come in.

Here Lucy is below with her Uncle Johnny, who taught her how to 'pound it!'

Happy New Year!

Christmas Traditions

It has been a whirlwind month of Christmas traditions, with Lucy at the center of course. This Christmas I wanted Lucy to begin to understand the true meaning of the season, and to create her first memories of this special season with her family. We began the festivities by getting a couple of books about Baby Jesus from the library and me researching like crazy trying to find some meaningful Christmas books on Amazon. I came up with very limited choices, and wish that I was an illustrator, because there is clearly a need for Jesus-focused Christmas books for toddlers. St. Nick stopped by on December 6th and left Lucy a Little People Nativity Set by her shoes that really did help to explain Christmas to Lucy. She would have been fine with just Baby Jesus, his mama, and his dada at this stage in her life, but I am hoping the Nativity scene becomes a great family tradition that our kids look forward to setting up and interacting with for years to come. A couple weekends before Christmas, we took Lucy to see Santa at the Rochester Christmas parade a couple of blocks from our house. It was a beautiful and cold day, but we bundled Lucy up in a pile of blankets in the stroller, and took a walk downtown. We were apprehensive as to how she would react to a strange man in a red suit, but threw caution to the blistery wind when we saw there was no line! Lucy said a couple of no's as I placed her on Santa's lap, and then proceeded to give him one of her classic, dirty looks. When asked by Santa what she would like him to bring for Christmas she looked him square in the eyes and said loud and clear "ELMO!". Once Santa handed Lucy back to me, we overheard him tell his helpers that he needed counseling after the dirty looks Lucy gave him!

Any hard feelings Lucy had for Santa were gone by the time we had walked home though, and she has been lovingly referring to him ever since. I think the gingerbread man sucker he gave her went straight to her heart. Here she is below holding her prized gift from Santa.Last year for Lucy's first Christmas, we began the tradition of a yearly Christmas photo of all our children. As Lucy is the only child we had on earth, we found a way to include Luke by pinning an amethyst pendant (his birthstone) onto Lucy's Christmas dress. This year, we pinned the purple gem on her again and she proudly wore it, telling all who would listen that it was for "Luke's mem-ree". It's hard to see it below, as it blends in with her polka dot dress, but it is right over her heart.

Will and I wanted to find a way to make Luke a more tangible part of our family Christmas traditions, so we decided to paint wooden snowflake ornaments for his grave blanket. Lucy went with me to the store and helped pick them out, and then kept reminding us that we needed to paint them! She loved this little craft, and did a great job painting an ornament for Luke.I wish I could say that the rest of this much anticipated family tradition went as smoothly. We packed Lucy up in the car to make the trek out to the cemetery and she screamed the entire half hour trip there. I have no idea what her issue was, but for some reason she was just not having it. When we got to the cemetery, Will's and my blood pressure was soaring. To add to Lucy's joy, we had to bundle her up in a hat, scarf and boots since getting to Luke's grave involved a short walk in the snow. For those of you who visit a loved one at the cemetery for Christmas, you understand when I say that it is an emotional experience. Christmas is one of those holidays where the loss of a loved one is magnified, and the empty hole in your heart that only your missing loved one can fill is felt all the more painfully. Lucy clearly did not care about this though. She screamed "SNOW" over and over the entire time while sobbing uncontrollably. Will and I did what we could to put the ornaments on Luke's grave blanket and tell our son how much we love and miss him as quickly as possible. We left the cemetery feeling frustrated and sad. When I was relating this story to my sister Jane the following day, and telling her how disappointed I was because my meaningful Christmas tradition was ruined by a cranky toddler she wisely pointed out that what I experienced yesterday was a true family tradition. She then went on to remind me of all the family traditions my parents worked so hard to create for me and my siblings, and how one of us would inevitably find a way to ruin it for the rest of the family. That made me feel so much better! While I am still wishing I could have had some peaceful and meaningful time with my son's memory at the cemetery, I am happy to know that I have successfully created a REAL family memory. It doesn't matter that I have a son in heaven - this is still real life folks!

We did enjoy a Christmas tradition as a family that everyone was happy for. We made our yearly trip up about an hour and a half up north to a huge Christmas store called Bronner's and got an ornament for our newest family member, Emma. We did this for Luke and Lucy, and it was so wonderful to be able to put a new name on our tree this year. Truly, this was the best part of Christmas for me. I love seeing my children's names together. I suppose it makes up for the fact that I will never be able to see them all physically together this side of heaven. Seeing their names lined up is the next best thing for me. We also sewed Emma's name on her very own stocking, and lined it up with the rest of ours this year too. Lucy was upset on Christmas morning to see that Emma's and Luke's stockings were both empty, but after showing her the letters we had written to both Emma and Luke and stuffed in their stockings for their Christmas presents, she was pacified.

We went on to have a wonderful Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Christmas Eve we spent with my family. Here is Lucy below with her Grandma and Grandpa Hines, and then pouting at a gift that wasn't hers to open.

Once we had Lucy tucked in to bed, with hopefully sugar plums dancing in her head, Will and I sat down and breathed a sigh of relief. All of our Christmas preparations were finished. The house was clean, cookies were made, Lucy seemed to understand the meaning of Christmas and our traditions were in place. We sat together and wrote our annual Christmas letter for Luke which was extremely emotional. This Christmas tradition never seems to get any easier. That evening we balanced missing Luke more than we could ever say, and at the same time felt awed and enternally grateful of the fact that we were celebrating our first Christmas in our dream home. What a journey it had been to get here, and I just couldn't believe that we were actually sitting in our very own living room, with candles lit all around us, Christmas music playing softly in the background and our Christmas tree full of seven years of Christmas memories twinkling at us in the semi-darkness. The only thing that Will and I could think of to make this Christmas dream complete would be the knowledge of Lucy AND Luke sleeping soundly in their beds, dreaming of Christmas.

Christmas morning dawned early and still dark, as Lucy awoke at her usual time. When I went into her room to get her out of her crib, she sleepily stood up, rubbed her eyes and said "Luke". I asked her if she had a dream about Luke, and she said "yes." She said Luke's name a couple of more times as I carried her into our room to snuggle with Will and I and I couldn't help but smile and believe whole-heartedly that Luke had visited his sister for Christmas.

Christmas Day was busy. Will, Lucy and I opened gifts before the sun rose and then played and napped until Will's parents and brother came over in the afternoon. After opening gifts with them, we all headed over to Will's aunt and uncle's house for Christmas dinner. Here Lucy is below with some of her favorite presents...

...a diaper bag for her dollies, complete with a wipes container, changing pad and a sippy cup with orange juice.




...a doll cradle that used to be mine, but touched up with a new mattress, pillow and a blanket that I knit and sewed for her. As you can see below, Lucy clearly hasn't read the latest research on safe sleep for babies....and the most exciting gift of all - Elmo "undies" from Santa, that Lucy insisted on wearing all morning with great pride. And yes, Santa kept good on his promise and her stocking was filled with all things Elmo.Here she is below chilling with her Uncle Tim while waiting for Christmas dinner.I just had to end this lengthy blog with this picture - here Lucy is below in the new kitty-cat bath towel Will and I got her for Christmas. Lucy says, "MEOW!"Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year to you and your family. For those of you who spent Christmas missing a loved one, know that I was thinking about you and sending warm thoughts your way. Thanks to Baby Jesus, we have the hope of seeing our loved ones again someday, and what a joyous holiday that will be!

19 Months - Came in like a lion and went out like a lamb

Let's just say that Lucy's 19th month of life started kind of rough. If I had to pick two words to describe Lucy at the beginning of this past month, they would be 'sleepless' and 'defiant'. The time change did not help things. Up until this year, I had always loved when the clock 'fell' back, and I would gain an extra hour of sleep. This year, for Lucy, the time change meant that 5 a.m was the new 6. We tried putting her to bed earlier to compensate for her early rising, but to get enough sleep, she would have to be in bed at 5 in the evening and this was just not practical. So she woke up early and CRANKY. To add to this sleep trouble, we spoke with Lucy's pediatrician about her restless sleep, and she suggested that maybe Lucy has a food allergy that is making her uncomfortable and keeping her from sleeping. She advised that we try eliminating dairy from her diet and see what happens. I can only assume from the results since, that dairy was the issue because slowly but surely Lucy has been doing better with her sleep. Lucy must have known that I was going to write a post tonight, and so woke up this morning at 7 a.m., making last night the first night she slept almost eleven hours straight! Even if this is a one time thing for now, it gives me hope that she is capable of sleeping more, and we will continue to work towards that goal! From the beginning of the month to be up every 40 minutes with her, to an almost eleven hour night is definitely promising. Her mood today was nothing short of sweet, funny and happy. Amazing what a well rested child is like! Look at her just lounging in her bean bag chair - my happy, well rested little girl!Lucy has a great sense of direction (which she definitely does NOT get from me). She knows when we are going to towards Grandma's house, the library, a billboard with a baby on it, and the cider mill to name a few. This is both good and bad. Good when she is right about our destination, bad when we are going elsewhere, and she has a melt down when she realizes we weren't in fact going to the cider mill to get donuts. In the below two pictures we took advantage of one of the warm days we had this past month and went to the cider mill where she likes to eat donuts, look at the goats, and then throw rocks in the stream by the mill while watching the ducks. Everything needs to be done in this order too, or she will let you know the sequence is off!Besides the regular weekly activities like a trip to the chiropractor, story time at the library, the grocery store and play dates with friends our days are mostly spent playing around the house. We go outside as much as possible but lately, as the days have gotten colder, we have been trying to find creative things to do indoors. She watches Elmo once a day, usually at the end of the afternoon while we are waiting for Will to come home. This makes for great bribery leading up to Elmo Time and why I will almost never let her watch it first thing in the morning. When we are not eating, spending time on the potty, watching Elmo or playing outside, we are usually changing the diapers of Lucy's multiple stuffed animals and dolls. The best is when I hear Lucy telling me on the baby monitor at 4 in the morning that her stuffed Elmo "pooped". Finally I had to tell her that dolls and stuffed animals do not poop at night time - only in the day time! Here she is below kissing her doll Simone. Lucy likes to hold a doll on her lap while I push them both around the house in the doll stroller. One of these days those wheels are going to break, and I'm just shocked it hasn't happened yet.

Lucy's other favorite past time - second to watching Elmo and changing dirty doll diapers is looking at babies on the computer. We go through the pictures we have of her, stored in month by month folders and we also look at our friend's babies on facebook. Holly, James, Ella, Gavin, Tommy, Adam, Chloe and Eleanor are her favorites to 'stalk' and she would do it all day if she could. If your baby was mentioned in the above sentence, could you do me a favor and post more pictures? There can never be enough - Lucy has an endless appetite for viewing babies, and I have to say that she probably got that from me.

Will and I had a great find this past month on garbage day - a house near us was throwing out not one, but two Little Tikes Cozy Coupes! After a bucket of bleach water, they were as good as almost new, and Lucy loves riding in them. I'm just bummed that the riding season for cars without windshields - and windows and floorboards for that matter - is coming to an end here in Michigan. Our solution was to put one in the garage and keep one in the basement so Lucy can now ride her car while I do laundry.

Lucy's speech continues to improve. This month's favorite vocabulary additions include the word "more" which she repeats over and over again as if that would make the "more" happen faster. More Elmo. More oranges. More tickles. More laundry basket rides. More doll diaper changes! She also is quite fond of telling us to "seat". "Seat" next to me while I eat. "Seat" and play with me. "Seat" here and change my dolly's diaper! She has also discovered the moon, and excitedly screams "moon!" each time she sees it either in the evening sky, in books, or even on the bottom pad of my computer mouse which is shaped like a moon. Just recently she began referring to herself as 'me'. It is quite humorous when I try to do something for her like put on her shoes, her coat or buckle her into something and she yells "ME!" meaning, let me do it Mama! Finally, she has learned two simple phrases this month - the most scary being "No Dada!!" with quite an attitude, and the cutest being "Here you go" which she says at appropriate times. I just love hearing her little voice!

I couldn't resist posting this picture below. The expression on her face sums up the look she has been giving most of the month to me, Will and perfect strangers. "No! Me!!!!"