Eleven Months

Time is just flying by and Lucy seems to be more of a toddler than a baby these days. The biggest change this past month has been that Lucy is now walking while holding onto our hands. It is very exciting to watch and she is getting faster every day. Lucy can pull herself up on furniture now too, and can stand for short periods of time without holding on to anything. For the record, Will was watching Lucy as she practiced standing alone - on a window sill.Lucy just finished cutting her two top front teeth this week bringing her teeth total to four. She seems very proud of her efforts because every time she smiles now, she squints her eyes to make room for the giant grin that shows off her new pearly whites.

We were having quite a time getting Lucy to stay still for diaper changes. We finally found a trick that works - she will hold still as long as she gets to read a book while we change her diaper! I too enjoy a good bathroom read - like mother, like daughter!

Her love of reading extends to a love of paper. One of her favorite activities of the day is to help me open the mail. She likes to chew on the paper and especially likes the envelopes with the business window in them because they make a crinkley sound.

We've been trying to take walks every day now that the weather has warmed up a bit. It's still pretty cold though, so Lucy bears with us as we bundle her up because she loves to go for walks.

There is something about Lucy and Will in a turtleneck that makes them look so darn cute. The plant behind Lucy makes it look like she has more hair than her daddy! There is no doubt that Lucy is a daddy's girl, and becomes more of one every day. She misses him so much when he is at work and is so happy when he comes in the door.

Lucy's favorite word right now is "Hi" and she says it for everything from dawn to dusk and even in between dusk and dawn! It's hard not to smile even at 3 in the morning when a little voice is so energetically yelling "Hi!" She also will imitate sounds that we make from a dog barking to simple words like 'boo' and 'hug'. She also will clap her hands when you tell her to and jump up and down when you say the word 'jump'.

Ah, life with an almost one year old is going by too fast. Lucy does not like to be left alone for one minute which makes getting things like breakfast, lunch and dinner difficult, not to mention trying to pack up our house to move. That's right - we are moving again! We bought our dream house and will be moving in the next week. We are so excited and can hardly wait to start the next chapter of our life as a family. Here is our new house!

The next month will be bringing a lot of changes to our family - a new house, and a new one year old! Stay tuned!

Lucy at 10 Months

If it's possible, Lucy gets cuter with each passing month. This month was no exception as she continues to learn and grow. Her favorite pastime is still reading books with Will or I and the highlight for her is picking which book to read off of the bookshelf.

Her sense of humor continues to evolve and she finds it funny to open and close the book we are reading repeatedly while I either say "open, close" or "the end". The real trick is for her to see just how fast I can say these words without getting tongue tied. She finds this hilarious. She also is a fan of peek-a-boo, and this past month she learned how to do peek-a-boo to us. She puts her favorite blankie over her face, pauses for a couple of seconds while we wonder aloud "where's Lucy?", then pulls it down and giggles uncontrollably. The thing we find the funniest is that she is perfectly quiet while she is hiding under her blanket.

Lucy's vocabulary is also growing. In addition to her two favorite words of "Hi" and "Dada" usually used together, she also says "Bye", "Baby" and my favorite, "Mama." When she is really frustrated, she yells "MOM"! Someone advised me a while ago to never teach your child two things - how to say mom, and how to walk. So far I'm not regretting it. Ask me in 16 years though!

Speaking of walk - Lucy will take steps now while we hold her hands but she still does not like to crawl. She will do a backwards creep on her belly, but to move forward on her hands and knees is something she trys to avoid at all costs. Her preferred mode of transportation is mom or dad, while she reaches her arms towards the direction she would like to go. She did however enjoy being pulled in the sled a friend of mine let us borrow on a snow day this past month.

On the most recent snow day, Will built a snowman outside our front window that Lucy loves to look at and wave to while we sing "Frosty the Snowman". She also claps now when she is happy, excited and when I sing which is a great confidence booster for me - no one's ever clapped for my singing before! Will has also taught her how to give High Fives which is adorable. We're not quite sure who taught her this...

Lucy still enjoys mealtime and has been eating more and more table food. This past month we introduced eggs and citrus fruits which has been fun. Some of her favorite new foods include white chicken chili, cous cous, hummus, beef barley soup, chicken barley soup and 'french toast' which is really just bread and eggs fried together.

The biggest change we have noticed in Lucy this month though is her temper. She has begun throwing fits which we call the Dolphin because she will throw her head back and arch her back repeatedly if she doesn't get what she wants. It's funny but makes us nervous at the same time. Ten months seems so young to be so decided about what you do and do not want. I have a feeling that she is a very strong and determined little lady and Will and I are going to have to be extremely creative and stay on our toes with this one as the years go by! Here she's giving us a look that translates to "I dare you to take this remote control away from me!"

Finally, this past month Lucy got to celebrate her brother Luke's second birthday. Although it was a tough day for Will and I, Lucy did help us to feel like we were able to honor Luke with more family traditions. Thank you to all of our friends and family who supported us through this past month in your own special ways. It means more to us than we know how to say! I will sign off this post with one last picture - Lucy, dressed on Luke's birthday in a shirt given to Luke by Uncle Tim.

Happy Second Birthday Luke!

We hope you enjoyed your second birthday in Heaven Luke. It doesn't seem fair that something as joyous and happy as a birthday has to share the same day that you left us as well. Today we tried to remember the happy memories of our time with you. In your honor we enjoyed all of your favorite foods today - grilled cheese and clausen pickles for lunch and coney dogs, pringles and frozen pears for dinner. Lucy got to watch your two birthday candles sparkle atop a pair of chocolate cupcakes as we sang Happy Birthday to you. We couldn't help but wonder what it would have been like with you here to blow them out yourself. We know Lucy would have watched you in admiration and wonder. Your dad and I went through your memory box, photo album and baby book. We cried and smiled and laughed as we related stories about the day you were born, reminding each other of little details that one or the other of us had forgotten. My breath caught in my throat when my nose caught your scent in the outfit you wore when you were born. Your scent brought us right back to the day we got to hold you for the first time Luke, two years ago. We would do anything to bury our noses into the nape of your neck and breathe in your beautiful, sweet scent again. We miss you so much it hurts.
We love you Luke.
Happy Birthday.
Mama, Daddy and Baby Lucy

Luke's Upcoming Second Birthday

Will and I are still in disbelief that Luke's second birthday in Heaven is coming up on Friday. This second birthday is different from Luke's first. While the pain is not as raw as it was a year ago, it has turned into more of a dull ache that never fully goes away now. And although we can carry on with our day to day life now and experience joy and laughter again the world still isn't the same without our Luke here with us. Obviously the biggest change is that Lucy is here with us to celebrate her brother's second birthday. This makes things easier and harder at the same time. Lucy is definitely a positive distraction, as her needs demand attention and smiles but it is very painful to realize that we miss Luke not only as our son, but as Lucy's brother too. Lucy just lights up anytime she sees a child or baby and we can't help but imagine how happy she would be with Luke by her side, growing up together.

Will and I tend to classify our life together as before Luke and after Luke. Before Luke the world was rosy with possibility. We could talk for hours planning our future together, imagining our family, hopes and dreams. The day we lost Luke it seems we lost that rosy view of the world. Things still are beautiful to us, but after tasting the sorrow of losing our firstborn, we experience beauty differently now. On this earth there will always be an emptiness that no dream can fill. We still have dreams, and we are happy to report that we are currently watching several of them unfold into reality but there will always be that piece missing, knowing that we can never experience these dreams fully with an incomplete family on earth. It's a tough reality to face - the family pictures missing a child in them, the birthday celebrations, the family vacations, the holidays. Quite honestly, Will and I have been in denial about Luke's second birthday coming up. It is easy to find distractions this year and push the pain away for another time. It's hard to put into words how we are dreading the sadness that comes with February 19 but want to honor and celebrate our son's life at the same time.

A fellow blogger put it into perspective for us - the story of Will's and my life is still unfolding. God is writing each page with love and grace and plans for us to be happy and prosper. We just never expected a chapter called "Luke" that would completely change the course of our lives and the resulting chapters of our story. And although Luke is no longer with us, his presence can be felt on each subsequent page. We don't know what future chapters will hold for us either, but we are holding strong to our faith that God is with us through it all. Will and I are different people in the "After Luke" part of this story. We are glad that we were blessed with the nine months we had with Luke and wouldn't rewrite that chapter for the world. But we do miss him and are forever changed. God is a perfect author and we are looking to our future again with hope on Luke's second birthday.

In honor of Luke's second birthday Will and I made birdseed cupcakes. We will be bringing them to the cemetery on Friday and would like to invite our friends and family to stop by and get a cupcake to bring home and hang in your yard. Like last year, we will also have his journal card in a ziplock bag to keep it from getting wet. We left a pen in there last year, but the ink froze so we'll leave a pencil this time, or you can bring your own pen. You can feel free to leave your own card in the ziplock if you prefer too. If you can't make it to the cemetery, you are welcome to post a note on this blog. It would mean a lot to Will and I.

If you haven't been to the cemetery before, you can find directions at http://www.mtelliott.com/resurrection.html. Or you can follow Will's directions: upon entering the cemetery, take the tree lined entrance road until it ends. Turn right. Take this road until it ends and turn left. Go past one block. The second block on the left is where Luke is at. Go halfway up that block on the lefthand side and about five to six rows back. He is in section 23, plot 731. We have a smaller pine needle grave blanket with a small orange truck and some Christmas ornaments covering Luke's grave. There is also a small snowman that Will made at Luke's headstone. The cemetery is open from 7 a.m. - 4:45 p.m. daily. If you need more specifics on where Luke's plot is, you can ask at the office whose hours are from 9 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, and 9 a.m. - 4 p.m. on Saturday. We will have the card there through the end of the weekend (Sunday, February 21nd). Because the cemetery doesn't like any artificial decorations, the ziplock with the card will be tucked into the grave blanket just below Luke's headstone. Thank you to all of our friends and family who continue to remember Luke in your own special way and bring his name up, even when it feels uncomfortable or awkward. We cannot begin to tell you how much this means to us and we are forever grateful. Please keep us in your prayers as we journey through this week, filled with sad and happy memories of missing Luke.

Above is a snow angel I made for Luke on Sunday at the cemetery.

9 Months In, 9 Months Out

It's hard to believe Lucy has been with us for 18 months now and has enjoyed life outside the womb just as long as she enjoyed life inside. Here is Lucy's past month captured in pictures.

We'll start with my favorite thing Lucy does - kisses and hugs. She still thinks kissing involves teeth so hopefully she doesn't outgrow this as we're thinking this will help to keep the boys away. Here Lucy is hugging me...

And here Lucy is biting - I mean kissing - me...

Lucy really enjoys playing and even knows what "Let's go play!" means. She will crawl all over us but still prefers to get to her destinations via us. This makes for a lot of us crawling around carrying her as she grunts and nods her head to indicate where she would like to go next.Probably the biggest change in Lucy this past month is her increased attention span with books. She will allow us to read to her from a few choice favorites which include books with moving parts, sing-alongs or babies. Usually it goes like this - we sit down in front of the bookcase. Lucy then indicates that she wants to pick a book out by grunting and reaching her hands up. We pull out a book so that it sticks out a bit from the others and she then pulls the book the rest of the way out then sits down in our lap for us to read it to her. The reading could last anywhere from saying the title of the book aloud to reading the entire book, depending on it's level of moving parts, singing or babies. Then, repeat above process multiple times until mom or dad's legs fall asleep and it's time to get up. For the most part, we are sticking with cloth or cardboard books as she can turn more traditional books into shreds and pulp in seconds.

Lucy still only has the two bottom teeth but that hasn't seemed to slow her down when it comes time to eat. Her favorite foods continue to be bananas, cherries and sweet potatoes in that order. She would eat only fruit if she could and we think likes sweet potatoes because it has the word 'sweet' in it. She prefers to eat 'real' food and not baby food and if it comes off of mom or dad's plate she will eat it - fruit or even vegetables.

Despite what it looks like in the below picture, Lucy is still a mama's girl. If I'm in the room and not with her, she becomes obsessed with getting to me. It's nice to have such a loyal follower, but sometimes I do need to get some work done, and Will misses her. She does still light up with excitement when Will comes home from work and makes up for her extreme attachment to her mama by having her very first words be "Hi Dada" this past month. I put a little guilt on Will and told him that the reason she said Dada before Mama is because I taught her it. After I told him that, I heard Will the other day trying to teach her "Hi Mama" and had to laugh. Then I felt guilty and told Will that most babies say Dada first because developmentally the D is easier than an M. The guilt over Will was fun while it lasted though! And it is so cute to hear Lucy's little voice say "Hi Dada" while she waves excitedly at Will.

Lucy has become very good at communicating with us through grunts and head nods indicating yes or no. Here she is in the crib telling us "No, I do not want to be in here, get me out!"Lucy loves babies. She just lights up when she sees a baby and starts babbling away to them. We have several baby pictures up on our fridge of various family and friends' babies as well as a picture of Luke's hands and feet. She has us stop every time we pass the fridge so that she can wave hi, and babble at them. It tears Will and I up when we think about how adoring she would have been of her brother Luke. I think at this point we are starting to grieve anew for our son - this time missing him as a brother for Lucy. It brings the pain back fresh and new as we realize that Lucy will never know what it feels like to have an older brother to adore and look up to on earth. This coming month Luke will be celebrating his second birthday in heaven. As we approach this next milestone for Luke, please keep us in your prayers and check back on the blog for what we will do to celebrate his birthday. Isn't his little sister cute?

Lucy is Eight Months Old Today!

Will is out running some errands with Lucy this evening, so as you can see I am catching up on some blog posts! Lucy is eight months old today, and a lot has changed in this last month.

I had one wish this past Christmas - to see my little Lucy feel better. As many of you know, Lucy has had some serious sleep issues during her short eight months of life and was pretty miserable as well. Will and I took her to a series of doctors and still couldn't find answers to why Lucy seemed to be in pain most of the time, and why she just plain wouldn't sleep. We tried alternative medicine, cranial sacral therapy, chiropractic care and a ton of 'sleep help' books but nothing seemed to help her get comfortable enough to sleep. We began to get seriously concerned when Lucy stopped gaining weight for over two months. Finally, on the recommendation of a new friend of mine, we took her to see a Nurse Practitioner who my friend had taken her sleepless son to with some success. Our new NP was wonderful! She listened to our concerns and didn't write us off to 'poor sleep hygiene' as our last doctor put it. She also agreed with us that a sleepless baby was by no means manipulating us as our second to last doctor put it. She diagnosed Lucy with Silent GERD (basically acid reflux without vomiting), and referred us to a pediatric gastrologist. We finally got in to see the gastrologist the week before Christmas and he put Lucy on Prevacid which has made a world of difference in Lucy's mood and sleep! She is now taking two naps a day and sleeping between 10-12 hours at night. She is still getting up to eat throughout the night, but the screaming and sleeplessness is finally gone. Will and I couldn't be more relieved to see her comfortable and happy. She is like a completely different child! Lucy has even become more vocal overnight it seems too - her cries are heartier and she is babbling baby talk now. Before she would just make sounds like someone trying to warm their hands up on a cold day. The doctor told us that most babies are diagnosed with GERD within the first month of life, but because Lucy's went untreated for almost eight months that it could take another eight months before Lucy doesn't associate pain with sleep. So, we are by no means out of the woods with sleep, but we are definitely on the right path now and it seems she is catching up on her growing by leaps and bounds. It is truly a Christmas miracle for us.

Lucy has developed a fascination with gravity this past month and likes to drop her toys one by one from whatever surface they were on, and then expectantly stare at her Daddy until he gives in and picks them all up so the gravity experiment can begin again.

She continues to enjoy looking out the window from the back of our couch, and can easily pass a half hour watching the world go by through our front window.

Lucy loves to play with Will or I and prefers not to play alone. She is now scooting around on the floor. We have been using the Christmas tree as incentive to get her to crawl. We place her on the ground a couple of feet from the tree, and Lucy excitedly starts crawling... backwards. It is so funny to see the surprised look on her face as the tree gets farther away from her. Finally, she lets out a cry as if to blame us for the tree getting farther not closer from her efforts. Here she is in the below picture, after she backed herself into a wall.

Lucy knows how to smile for the camera and now hugs her dolls and stuffed animals affectionately too. She has added wet sloppy kisses (that sometimes involve her teeth!) to her affection repertoire and also likes to snuggle now too.Lucy no longer smiles at strangers. However, she will still smile spontaneously at children - babies, toddlers, and even kids up to teenagers. She loves kids! She also tries to reach out and touch them while excitedly kicking her legs, pumping her arms and babbling baby talk.

Lucy has become a pickier eater. She would prefer to only eat bananas if she had the choice. She also would prefer to kick anything remotely close to 'baby food' to the curb and eat whatever is on mine or Will's plate instead.

She is starting to recognize more words and we think she even knows her name as Lulu. She definitely knows "eat", "mama", and "daddy." She also will nod her head up and down when you say "yes" and will wave her hand at you if you say "hi" or "bye."

Below are pictures we had taken of Lucy for her Eight Month milestone.

Also, some of you have told me that you have been unable to leave comments on the blog. I have changed some settings around, so hopefully you can leave me a note now. Let me know if you still can't!

Merry Christmas

Christmas with Lucy was definitely a happy day, but not without our moments of sadness missing Luke. It means so much to us, all of our family and friends that were not afraid to remember Luke by name this Christmas and to help us keep his memory alive. Truly, your kindness towards us as we continue to miss our Luke means more than we could ever say.

We are still having a hard time accepting the fact that there is nothing on earth that will ever fill the void of missing Luke. No matter how happy Lucy has made us, she does not replace her older brother - and we wouldn't want her to either. She is her own person, our second born. Last Christmas Will and I had a hard time getting through the holidays. This year was easier, and we were able to start some holiday traditions that included Luke. I made stockings for both Luke and Lucy with their names on it. On Christmas Eve, we filled Lucy's stocking with presents and filled Luke's stocking with a letter written by Will and I. Each year we will write our son a letter, recapping our year without him, and telling him how much we love him. When Lucy is old enough, she can draw him a picture and put it in his stocking to help remember him by. For Christmas, Will gave me a beautiful necklace with Luke's birthstone on it. Lucy wore the necklace pinned on her dress over her heart to represent her brother in heaven when we had her Christmas pictures taken. It's times like that - Christmas pictures, hanging our stockings, and all of our other family traditions - that we really miss Luke.

The below picture was taken on Christmas Eve with Lucy in her PJ's, gesturing just how many presents she thought Santa was going to bring her.

Here Lucy is trying to figure out how to open her present from Santa.

Lucy found the boxes her toys came in even more interesting than the toys themselves!
By the end of the day, Will and I were the ones opening Lucy's presents. I think she was a little over stimulated by it all!

After opening presents at our house Christmas morning, we headed out to the cemetery to visit Luke and to decorate his grave blanket with Christmas ornaments. The weather was less than ideal. It was pouring rain and freezing cold. After we put the ornaments on his grave blanket, Will and I huddled with Lucy under our umbrella as we talked to Luke. All of a sudden a huge gust of wind surrounded us. It was so strong we had to put the umbrella sideways to keep the rain off of us. We felt like it was Luke wrapping us in a hug with the wind. It definitely choked us up. But then the wind wouldn't let up, and was literally pushing us towards our car. I think Luke wanted us to know that he is still with us, but that he wanted to see us get on with our day and enjoy Christmas with Lucy. We got the message and got out of the rain and headed to Grandma's house.
Lastly, here are some of the Christmas pictures we had taken of Lucy.

I like to think in this picture below, Lucy is looking up at Luke in Heaven.

This last one is a favorite of mine - to me it captures the joy of Christmas through a child's eyes.

Merry Christmas!